A lesson for English Language Learners

---Yanhua Wang

The students  have developed a vocabulary of about 3,000 words and can communicate with simple phrases and sentences. I am going to teach them Unit 7 : Western Holiday.

Student A: His English level is between Stage I: Pre-production and Stage II: Early production. He has developed an active vocabulary of about 1000 words,  but he is obviously a passive English learner. According to the assessment test the students took at the beginning of the semester, he is partitioned to group D which is the lowest level in English.

Student B: His English level is between Stage II: Early production and Stage III: Speech emergence with the vocabulary of about 2000 words.He can communicate with simple phrases and sentences. He will ask simple questions, that may or may not be grammatically correct, such as “ Where are you come from? ” He understands easy stories read in class with the support of pictures. He told me that he feels exacting to follow up the schedule.

Student C: Most of the students in the class are like C, whose English are in Stage III: Speech emergence with the vocabulary of about 3000 words. They don’t have much trouble in passing the " PRACTICAL ENGLISH TEST FOR COLLEGES "(PETC), which is obliged to pass before graduation.What they need is intensive training and broadening horizons in English learning, so some of them may be able to take and pass a higher level test. Student C is the representative of them.

Student D, one of the best students in the class, his English level is between Stage III: Speech emergence and Stage IV: Intermediate fluency with the vocabulary of about 5000 words.She now can express her ideas and thoughts with some complex phrases and sentences. She enjoys learning English.

For student A, I prepare a set of English materials for beginners and ask A to finish them in a certain time. He can ask classmates or me to explain the answers for him. He has to finish doing the study plan I schedule for him. He comes to see me every two weeks and we discuss the next step together. When students are learning Unit 7, I hand out a Chinese version of the text to him so he can understand what he is going to learn in the class, and for me, I don’t have to spend so much time in explaining the meaning of the text sentence by sentence to all the students.

For student B, I will hand out some materials of the background knowledge of each unit to him. I also direct him to read more books and newspaper in English. Because he did research on the topic “western holiday” before class, I ask him to make a presentation to introduce major holidays in the US and how do people celebrate the holidays. It really helps build up his confidence in learning English and the effect is obvious.

For student C, I make a general lesson plan for her. In order to attract her interest and concentration in the class, I use various teaching methods in every class. Take Unit 7 for example, students watch a short video introducing a family celebrated Christmas. They are asked to listen to the dialogue very carefully and answered questions. C is asked to cooperate with her classmate to finish a project.

For student D, I give her extra materials for extent learning. She is also given more challenging projects and homework. She is asked to write an essay to compare major holidays between China and the US.