Lesson Plan: Language Experience Approach

Background and Pre-Assessment:

This is an EFL beginning level class taught as a night class at the University in Thessalonika in Greece. The 20 students in the class are all between the ages of 18 and 30 years old. Their general goals are to learn English well enough to survive in an English speaking country. Most of them have plans to immigrate. Their native languages consist of Greek, Arabic, Tagalog, and Albanian.

Topic and Objectives:

The students will learn to identify the different steps of ironing a shirt in English and practice by doing simple Phonics tasks, writing activities, etc.

Materials Needed:

Vocabulary flash cards with new vocabulary words written on them that have to do with ironing, an ironing board, iron and white dress shirt and exercise sheet for homework.

Warm Up/Review:

Start by asking the class questions about how to iron a shirt. Go through some of the new vocabulary by using the flash cards to introduce them. They are words like iron, starch, sleeve, collar, cuff, etc. We also go through the directions and in what order to iron a shirt.

This is done to draw upon their background knowledge, things they already know how to do in their native language. This is also done so that I can see how much the students know in English. I introduce the new words so that we can start using them throughout the lesson. The directions will be used immediately in the next segment. This starts me evaluating them, too.

Introduction:

I then proceed to iron a shirt as the students tell me what to do. I do it in the exact order they tell me and with their own vocabulary. They are allowed to use the flash cards if necessary.

This puts the new English knowledge with visual actions, so that those who are maybe a little slower can use the visual aids to help them understand the previous information and vocabulary given. They also get to express the new vocabulary in sentences and in context.

After this, one of the students comes to the front of the class and irons a shirt as he/she explains it to the class as they go along.

This is to review the vocabulary and help create an atmosphere in the classroom that is conducive to expressing things in English and not being afraid of making mistakes. The student I would choose to come to the front is one who would do well in such a situation in front of the class, someone who is not so shy.

Presentation:

Activity #1:

We start by having the students dictate, once again, to the teacher, the exact steps and directions of ironing a shirt, only this time the teacher writes them on the board. The teacher uses only the vocabulary and the sentence structure that the students use, word for word.

This is so that the students can see the directions written out and they can use their own learned vocabulary and sentence structure to convey meaning. Only when meaning is not conveyed does the teacher help the students to be understood.

The class then repeats the directions out loud all together many times. (At least 5).

Activity #2:

We will then concentrate on some phonics activities. These include activities like picking out certain vocabulary words and having the students come up to the board and circling them in the actual text.

Also, giving the students a certain consonant, like 'T' or 'R' and having them look for all the nouns starting with these letters. The students can also identify all the verbs in the text ending with the letters -ing, or identifying all the past tense verbs or present tense verbs. This all depends on how the text turns out in their own words.

There is also an activity where the students match the flash cards with the written out word in the text. They do this by taping the flash card to the board on top of the word in the text.

These activities could all be split up into their own category, but I choose to group them in the lesson plan because they all deal with the students identifying details in the text that deal with grammar and spelling. This helps me see how much they have understood out of our grammar lessons and to evaluate their progress in the language.

Activity #3:

This activity only consists of them writing down the text onto a piece of paper. This should not take too long.

This helps them to get more familiar with writing in English and to review the text and activities in their minds as they write it. The teacher circulates to evaluate their writing and give them help if needed.

Activity #4:

At this point the students should know the sequence of the directions and should be familiar with the definitions of the vocabulary. The sentences are mixed up and the students need to put them in order. They can work in groups of two for this activity.

Again I circulate to see how they are doing and how they work together in pairs. We go through the answers together as a class.

Evaluation:

I have circulated to evaluate them several times throughout the lesson.

They are also given a homework assignment at the end of class that they are to turn in at the beginning of the next class period. This is a fill in the blank exercise that deals with their text and similar ones on ironing different objects, but uses the same vocabulary. For example , ironing a skirt or a dress jacket or even a pair of pants.

Self-evaluation:

I enter into the log book after class how I think it went and any improvements that I think could be made.