Instructional Resource Guide: a Lesson on the Thanksgiving Holiday

Lesson on Thanksgiving 1

Instructional Resource Guide: A Lesson on the Thanksgiving Holiday

Kayla Teeney

TESL 220

A Lesson on Thanksgiving

• Cover Page (1 page)
• Table of Content (1 page)
• Introduction
• Guide overview and rationale. Your narrative should clearly frame your understanding of the developmental stages of second language learners, instructional strategies and curriculum modification included in your Instructional Resource Guide (1-2 pages).
• ELL Learning Outcomes
• List of student learning outcomes and content understanding supported in your guide (you may use a chart and/or matrix to show this information). Make sure to include how these learning outcomes and content understanding will support the different phases of English language acquisition (1-2 pages).
• Instructional Strategies
• Detailed description of teaching strategies and activities, at least six (6) that support ELL instruction and increase English language production (2-3 pages).
• Work Samples
• Select three (3) instructional activities (with student work sample) from section 4 and describe how they can be modified to teach ELL in the “silent period” of language acquisition (3-5 pages).
• Annotated Bibliography
• Annotated bibliography of content resources, including thematic literature, technology support and community resources (2-3 pages).
• Summary Reflection
• Your summary must clearly articulate how this assignment contributed to your growth as a future educator and your understanding of culturally and linguistically diverse students (1-2 pages).

Introduction

This instruction resource guide is meant as a tool for teachers with students learning English as a second language. This guide in particular deals with how to teach students who are for the first time learning about the uniquely American Holiday of Thanksgiving. It is a challenging topic to teach ELL’s because it is a concept that American culture has created to honor a specific event in our cultural History. The nature of Thanksgiving, because there are few if any ties to other cultures make it a difficult topic to teach to a child who has no knowledge of the American culture and for this reason also, it makes it a fantastic topic to teach an ELL as an introduction to American culture. It is a perfect topic to teach to any stage of language acquisition; in pre-production period you can teach this lesson without any input needed from the student. You can make the lesson very image heavy showing the foods and historical people and sites associated with this event. Thanksgiving would also play nicely into the early production and speech emergence as the student learns words for many kinds of foods, places and actions. For beginning fluency and intermediate fluency, the teacher could create numerous group activities in which the ELL would feel comfortable such as a mini-feast day to make the child feel comfortable to speak freely or a create day where all the students make hand turkey’s. For the children in the advanced fluency stage of language acquisition the teacher can invite students to look into holidays and events that are similar to Thanksgiving in their culture and provide them with the opportunity to share their special Holiday with the class. Curriculum in this guide can also easily be adjusted to take into consideration the different stages of language acquisition such as giving them a group role that involves less

talking and more drawing. The teacher could also have the ELL students draw their understanding of Thanksgiving rather than making them write or speak sentences.

ELL Learning Outcomes

The Student Will / How to Achieve
Know that Thanksgiving is something that Americans celebrate to show how thankful they are / The teacher will read a picture book to the students on Thanksgiving. The picture book must either be large print or projected on the screen and the teacher will point to words as she reads them and make special emphasis on words the students will be seeing more in the lesson such as the location and the important people
Be able to identify the location of the first Thanksgiving / This portion of the assignment will be very image heave to accommodate pre-production, early production, speech emergent and beginning fluency students. The teacher will say the name of the location, project an image of the map with the location clearly marked and the name printed in bold noticeable lettering. Next the teacher will show the students other pictures of the setting of the first Thanksgiving as rendered by artists. Then the teacher will go back to the picture of the map and give students their own copy of the labeled map and have then write in the name in the blank and have them color it!
Be able to identify the main names associated with the first Thanksgiving / For this objective the teacher will once again make the lesson very image heavy showing artist renditions of the people in question. The teacher will project the images on to the screen with their names clearly labeled for every picture. This is good for pre-production all the way through advanced second language acquisition because it will allow the ELL student to identify the face of the person with the name of the person.
Be able to identify when families celebrate Thanksgiving and what it looks like when a family does celebrate. / The teacher will show a calendar and point out what day Thanksgiving will be that year and that it always comes on a Thursday. The teacher will visually point to the day and show by a graphic that Thanksgiving falls on that day. Then the teacher will show images of American families celebrating Thanksgiving to show the students what a modern day celebration would look like. Then the class will have a mini-Thanksgiving day where the class makes hand turkeys and have a little feast with some traditional Thanksgiving food. During this day the teacher would invite intermediate to advance fluency ELL’s to share a holiday they have in their culture that is similar to Thanksgiving, with much assistance from parents (since they are little ones  ). The teacher could invite other classes to come and see.

Instructional Strategies

1. Reading Out Loud

For the ELL student, hearing the text read out loud is key. They need to learn how the words sound and how to pronounce them. They only way to learn this though, is through direct modeling whether it be teacher lead or led by a group member or partner. The teacher, when modeling this reading aloud, will make sure the ELL student can see the text and the accompanying pictures. As the teacher reads she will use a pointer to point to the words as she says them. This way the ELL will work on identifying the written and spoken word. By presenting the text and saying it out loud, this allows for the silent period ELL’s to be involved in the listening and seeing part, they will be listening to the text while the teacher makes it clear what words she is reading. In this lesson, the teacher will be reading a book to introduce the topic, Thanksgiving, which is Kindergarten SOL K.1.b. the teacher will read a picture book on the topic and either project the book onto a big overhead screen or use a large print book to ensure every student can see and follow along when she points to the text and reads out loud.

2. Giving the ELL New Vocabulary

For an ELL, expanding their vocabulary is crucial for language acquisition. Vocabulary is something that can be taught and reviewed in every lesson a teacher would do, but in this resource guide Thanksgiving vocabulary is especially important for the retaining of the information. To retain names, locations, name of foods, are all critical for the students of this kindergarten class. The teacher will teach directly the words that are key to the concept of Thanksgiving: Fall, November, Colonists, Puritans, Indians, Mayflower, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Pilgrims, Harvest, Turkey, Corn, etc. For an ELL in the silent period, the teacher will make the vocabulary very heavy on images, attaching to every word a picture of the object and invite the ELL to keep these as a tool to use in the future. The teacher will also place the new word and the picture up on the vocabulary wall the class has been keeping all year. This way the ELL or any student can view the word whenever they need.

3. Create Comfortable Classroom Environment

For the students, especially since this is a kindergarten class, all of the students will be learning phonemic awareness and phonics. In a sense this will make the ELL child feel more at ease, because they are not the only children in the room learning these words for the first time. So the teacher will use this fact to create an environment of comfort and safety for the students. The children will be allowed to work as they please on the images, books and crafts the teacher gives them like the hand-turkey’s and coloring the maps and all the other fun activities planned. So the students will have the freedom to sit how and where they are comfortable. If the teacher sees the ELL is in the silent period and needs a little help getting comfortable, they teacher will assign a nice class buddy to show the ELL how to get comfy and where the other kids are sitting. Such is the case for the hand-turkey drawings. The students will work with a buddy and trace their buddies hand then turn that tracing into a turkey and cut it out. This task is a perfect way to non-verbally

4. Foster Connections between Students

The teacher will look for opportunities, like the mini-thanksgiving party, to foster the relationship between students. The teacher will seek out lessons and use activities that allow for the ELL to feel like they are a part of the group. This interaction with classmates, especially in kindergarten, will allow the students to feel more comfortable and confident in themselves. For ELL’s in the silent period the teacher will assign the student a buddy that will help them through the day. The ELL will be their buddy’s shadow until they understand the rhythm of the classroom through non-verbal cues until they begin to understand the language.

5. Drawing and Labeling

The teacher will allow for the opportunity for the students to draw and label maps of Massachusetts where the first Thanksgiving took place. The students will be shown the map on the overhead first and the teacher will show the location labeled and explain this is where the first Thanksgiving took place using images. Then the teacher will hand out maps that look identical to the overhead projection, but this time the students have to label Plymouth and color it all on their own. For ELL’s in the silent period the teacher will allow for the use of symbols such as a star or “x” that marks the correct place on the map. The ELL’s in this silent stage will not be required to write the word “Plymouth” but just to indicate it is important using any symbol they would like.

6. Metacognitive Task

The students will be asked not to write anything down, but just to think about what it would have been like for them to live during the first Thanksgiving, would they have liked it? Why or why not? Students are encouraged to think about, share with a buddy, draw it or share with a teacher or anything other way in which they would like to express it. ELL students in the silent period are encouraged to draw how they would feel or point to pictures in the picture book to signal if they would like it or not.

Thanksgiving Vocabulary

Fall / Turkey
Harvest / Mayflower
Pilgrims / Indian

Massachusetts / Corn

Hand-Turkey Drawing!

1) Find a buddy!

2) Trace their hand!

3) Color it in and cut it out!

Image the Teacher Will Show on Overhead:

Teacher will give Students This Map:

Students will indicate by circling, coloring, drawing a symbol on Plymouth. The arrow is given as a hint to help those who are struggling.

Annotated Bibliography

Bolos, N. (2012). Successful strategies for teaching reading to middle grades English language learners. Middle School Journal, 44(2), 14-20.

In this article the author expresses the need for reading out loud to English language learners. This is an important tool in leaning to help ELL students with comprehension. The author also stresses the importance of widening am ELL’s vocabulary and providing them an environment in which they are exposed to as much vocabulary as possible.

Haynes, J., & Zacarian, D. (2010). Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas. ASCD. EBook.

This book is actually an eBook; so it is available with ease. It is perfect for teaching across all content areas, as it is not specific to one content area, but general enough to apply to any classroom situation.

Reyes, S., & Vallone, T. (2008). Constructivist strategies for teaching English language learners/ Sharon Adelman Reyes, Trina Lynn Vallone. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, c2008.

This book focuses on the ideas of the constructivism in teaching an ELL student. It also teaches the teacher how to create classroom connections between all students. This book focuses on a variety of grade levels so it would be appropriate for many lesson plans.

Barrette, Doris & Markes, Julie. (2004). Thanks for Thanksgiving. HarperCollins, 2004.

This is a silly book with lots of vocabulary words in it and it gives students the chance to reflect on the meaning of Thanksgiving. It is also a very visual book and the children will have many pictures to look at while the teacher read the text. The text on each page is short and brief so a child as young as kindergarten can follow along!

Reflection:

As a future educator I can only see the benefits of teaching in a culturally sensitive way. The benefits far outweigh any other factor. For students who are learning English for perhaps the first time it is great thing to give them the opportunity to do so in a comfortable environment. One that I will strive to do my humanly best to create in my classroom. An ELL child requires patience and persistence. Just because they do no answer doesn’t mean they are dumb, far from it; conversely just because an ELL is good at speaking English, doesn’t mean they understand everything. It is never safe to assume anything about your students, especially not an ELL. As a future teacher I want nothing more than to build a personally connection with all the students I teach. If I can do nothing but make an ELL feel like they have hope to continue on learning, then I will feel good. I want all ELL students, and all students I have in general to feel they have what it takes to be a successful person. Every student has that potential as a teacher I must help them tap into that potential. Culturally and linguistically students can bring so many great things to the classroom if the teacher knows how to activate their background knowledge, harness it and use it to further their education. These students go through stages and begin in a silent period. Just because the student isn’t speaking doesn’t mean they are not listening and do not want to learn. As a teacher it will be my job to be sensitive to these students, care for them and tap into their potential so they can achieve what they are really capable of doing. Whether this take place in a kindergarten classroom teaching Thanksgiving or middle school teaching math, the core goal is to help the ELL achieve.