Language unit plan

Abstract

This paper examines how literature can be used to teach vocabulary. It is based on experiences that were obtained on a practicum. 3 hours were spent in three different classrooms and analysis made on how the instructors facilitate the understanding of the students in the reading and the writing sessions. These observations were observed for both the mainstream and the minority language students.

Later, a specific grade was chosen from the Language Arts standards and 6 hours were then spent to develop and design a 5 day lesson plan on how to use literature to teach vocabulary. A single piece of text was then used during the entire 5 days teaching period. This paper therefore covers observations and analysis from 15-30 minutes mini-lessons that covers the various aspects of literacy teaching. These include Oral language and Vocabulary, Phonics, Word patterns, and Word analysis, Fluency, Reading Comprehension and Writing. This paper is therefore based on analysis, observations and corrections from my mentor teacher regarding teaching, management and engagement strategies in accordance to student learning.

Synopsis:Using literature to teach vocabulary

There are many responsibilities that come about in teaching language in school. In language a teacher must teach comprehension (understanding), reading, literature, grammar, writing and vocabulary. However, because of the tight schedule of events we often find that adequate teaching of vocabulary is denied its due time. This comes as a result of the many responsibilities that the teacher will often have to handle. Unlike in the Elizabethan times where mastery grasp of language was necessary, nowadays we find that most of the students are not interested in learning a new vocabulary simply because sophisticated language is not a priority in the society that they have been brought up. It is therefore necessary that language teachers device a method in which they can teach vocabulary. This paper is going to consider various ways in which vocabulary can be taught through literature.

One of the methods that can be used to teach literature is through the use of phonemic awareness. It can be described as the ability to percept, reason about, and work and operate the individual sounds in words. This method is great as it allows us to predict the ease or the difficulty that a student is experiencing when it comes to predicting of later reading success or difficulty. To enforce this skill I usually started with a definition to a vocabulary that is student friendly. I would at first engage the students in reading a single source of text which we used as our source of new words.

For some few minutes I would allow the students to lead discussions based on the reading. I observed that doing this created motivation to read and discuss within the students in the class. This scenario actually related to the input hypothesis by Horwitz(Horwitz, 2008). It makes the students to become really interested and thus encouraging reading and listening materials. During the reading process, I would allow the students to note the new unfamiliar words that have been used by the author. When such a word was reached, we as a class would pause and I would stress the significance of such vocabulary in context to what the author wanted to drive home. The students appreciated that it is not a must that when reading one should have a dictionary near them while they are reading. They appreciated the fact that one can get the meaning of a new word through comprehension of what the author wanted to stress or mean. Thus the students would establish their outstanding words definitions’ before they leave.

I however, observed that despite the discussions playing a key role in the understanding and comprehension, teacher supervision was necessary. This was especially when there were mistakes, lack of effort and even confusion amongst the students themselves. Despite the method working for higher level students, it just did not work for the lower level students. This rendered the teacher input a necessary evil.

I used the Read Aloud approach during the reading. Allowing the students to read improves their reading quality and even boosts their confidence. In the case of distractions or difficulty in pronunciation in the apart of the student I would often re-read the text to make sure that wall the students are on the same page and that we are tackling the same issue. I would have all the students repeat the vocabulary aloud until they got the pronunciation correct. During this makes the students excited and eager to learn. It also alienates boredom in class. A student would then later try to define the said vocabulary in context to how it has been used by the author. I would help only if needed. I observed that using this approach actually improved the comprehension/understanding skills of the students. The ‘Think-Pair-Share’ approach was the one that was used during replying.

The human brain is quite unpredictable. This is because the sooner you get some information the sooner you forget it. Since students are busy children (they love play) they have a high tendency of forgetting what they have learnt in class. Brain exercise is thus very vital for anyone to ensure that your brain retains as much information as it can hold. Again, when the activities remain to be too formal for the students they stop being interesting and therefore the students do not learn much. To ensure the students retain much of what they learn in class, I did engage them in fun activities that allowed them to learn. Some of the activities that we engaged in included thins such as playing scrabble especially with the new words that we had learnt, Pictionary, bingo and memory much and so forth. While engaging in these activities the students got to learn a lot and a major boost was that it was fun. I observed that the students were completely motivated by these activities and consequently this improved their masterly of the language. They also incorporated the new words that they had learnt in class in their day to day speeches.

Having the understanding that practice makes perfect, it thus goes without saying that knowledge is not worth anything if you cannot be able to use it. Throughout the rigorous learning activity one cannot completely ascertain that every student has learnt something in the process. Thus testing and evaluation points are necessary to allow the instructor to judge whether what was understood in class was actually what he or she intended the students to get. Although this was not a major testing point, I made the students do some writing. Here, they were supposed to make up their own stories but had to use some of the words that we had learnt earlier on. This acted as a mile stone in which I could examine how each student understood the definitions of the words that we had learned in class. Writing was not only assessment point but I also allowed that they do some of the activities that we had not done in class such as debating, creating scripts et cetera.

Finally, for the final evaluation I had to examine the students understanding of these new vocabularies. I did this by administering an oral spelling test to the class and also a written quiz in class. I also had a circle where I would identify each student one at a time at random and they were supposed to spell out the word and construct a sentence on the same. I did this regularly to make sure that they were all examined.

At the end of the practicum, I had learned a lot from that experience. The Language Arts Unit experience turned out to be great and very successful during the entire practicum period. I did not face many challenges and many of them I was able to handle them. One of the strength of the Language Arts Units is that it is very effective and comes in handy practically when teaching is done in the classroom by an instructor. However, despite its success it also has shortcomings especially to students whose English is a foreign language. Vocabulary development scientific research has showed that children learn majority of their vocabulary indirectly from 3 most influential sources. The sources include reading extensively on their own (CIERA, 2001), listening to adults read to them and finally through conversations mostly with adults. Despite the success of the Language Arts Unit, it definitely could have serious implications if their parents are not fluent in English. Since the shortcoming is something that is an external factor I would not change anything in the implementation of the Language Arts Unit.

During the practicum, my mentor teacher taught me so many things regarding teaching, management and engagement strategies in accordance to student learning. He used to guide me throughout the entire practicum period and I am grateful to him. He helped me through with the preparation of the lesson plan. He guided me through school ethics and supervised me throughout the entire practicum period.