Martin Luther King Jr. Museum

Pre-reading Activity Lesson Plan

Pre-reading Activity Lesson Plan

Student’s name:  Lidiane Soares Barbosa

Mentor's name: Leandra Hill

Book’s name: Do you know which ones will grow?

Objective:  Students will be able to identify various nouns and the idea of increasing objects and animals.

Content Objectives: Students will be able to make humorous comparisons.  Here they can use their background knowledge.

Language Objective:  The language objective is to introduce nouns and make comparisons.

Learning Strategy Objective: The book will allow students to use their imagination to do similarities with other nouns and also to interact with their classmates in helping those to find out the name of the objects will become bigger. The book will be the model to this activity.

Activate Background Knowledge: The background knowledge will be active when students will be in groups making comparisons with objects in their classrooms and/or during grouping work after the pre-reading book.

The class starts (50 minutes class)

Introduce new vocabulary:  The teacher shows pictures of some objects or animals to students.  Teacher writes on the board the words making students speak out the pronunciation of them. The   teacher put pictures on the board and read the book in parts to present the new vocabulary in a slow way.  After showing the pictures, teacher gives students a sheet and makes them to complete the pictures with the correct name of the objects or animals. The new vocabulary to be introduced is: duckling/duck; car/truck; cub/bear; stool/chair; kitten/cat; cap/hat; kid/goat/ sweater/coat; owlet/owl; washcloth/towel; calf/caw; shovel/plow; snakelet/snake; cupcake/cake; piglet/pig; pickup truck/rig; kit/fox; watch/clock and joey/kangaroo.

Picture Walk:  After introducing the new vocabulary, teacher starts the picture walk in reading a book in a loud and expressive voice calling students attention when nouns change size.  It is important here that the teacher demonstrates enthusiasm motivating students to find out which object or thing will become if increased.

If time allows (or doing in next class)

Closure/Reporting back: After having read the book to students, the teacher may use students’ background knowledge to make a similar activity from the book using objects or animals they already know. Students discuss in groups or in pairs and present afterwards to their classmates.

Observing Class in Lenoir Schools - Tennessee

Observing classes in Lenoir City Schools

During our visit in Lenoir City Schools we had a chance to watch classes of elementary and high school levels.  In elementary school, me and my partner watched an ESL class for kids about five to seven years old. The teacher started the class with a video about numbers from 1 to 20. In the first moment they just listened and watched. Second, the kids sang loud the song following the video. They were really excited because they were able to understand the numbers. Afterward, the teacher introduced a previewing book for the kids. She told the story using an English book, and then in Spanish, due the fact that the kids mother tongue is Spanish. To finish the class, the teacher asked the kids to make a draw about any element from the story they had listened to. It was a good way to help students show their learning.

After that, we went to high schools and we observed two different classes; one of drama and the other of English. In the drama class, the teacher asked some students to represent a scene using   techniques like mime, taken pictures. It might seem that they were playing “Simon says”. One student   had to introduce a scene from whatever he wanted and then he had to say “Click”. From this point, the others students were able to follow the instructions, add some new information through their movements and freezing their bodies while the story is told. The students loved this class and we have to agree that dynamic classes are always welcome.  In the English class, the teacher asked students to make their self-assessment concerning the essays they had done days ago. After that, they explained the structure of an essay that consists in introduction, development and conclusion.

Observing those classes we could note some significant differences from our reality in Brazil such as the students’ behavior, motivation and participation. Moreover, the number of students in classes, mainly in elementary schools, is very low than we have in Brazil. The school’s structure represents also a big difference considering Brazilian’s schools. Regarding the similarities, the methods and techniques are close of what we are able to use in our classes. The things we found interesting was that in high school they put in the entrance the pictures of the top ten students what we understand being a good motivation for them. Also, they put pictures of the graduated ones and the best at sports. Besides, we were surprised about the students` behave. They raise their hands when they want to ask something being respectful with the teachers.