The purpose of the lesson was to teach the students about “setting” in a story. I wanted to familiarize students with the words setting and get them to understand that the meaning of setting had to with where and when the story takes place.
The students were introduced to the concept during the morning message. We talked about families and the different places that families go. Students were able to participate by talking about the places they go with their families. Then, we moved on to the oral language piece of the lesson. We made a chart to graph the beginning, middle and end of the story. Under each section, we talked about where the family was to focus in on the setting. We also identified the different things the families did in each location. Then, we reread the story and reviewed the concept by using a worksheet that helped us focus on the pictures in the story to find clues about where the families were. To help adapt for second language learners, we acted out the vocabulary words and stopped frequently for recall and identified patterns.
The second language learners were able to identify that family was, for example, in a kitchen. It wasn’t as easy for them to name the objects that showed the family was in a kitchen, but by listening to their classmates, they were able to learn the English words for many of the items.
The second language learners in the classroom are very involved in the classroom community. First and foremost, this is a Kindergarten classroom. Many of the students in the class come from diverse backgrounds and are at many different levels of language ability. This lends itself to a good sense of community as there is not a large group of students on grade level with a minority that is much lower. The students are not separated by language ability and students interact with each other by regularly talking to their shoulder partners. Second language learners are also able to get involved in even the most difficult aspects of the classroom, the content, by acting out vocabulary words with the rest of the class. To be a member of the classroom community, a student only needs to be present in order to get wrapped up in the fun.
During this lesson, I was able to interact with the students by leading discussions as well as directly teaching content. Informally, however, I moved throughout the room encouraging students who were working hard as well as motivating students that were not as involved. If an observer had entered the room at any given time during this lesson, they would have seen a teacher engaging the students in a fun and exciting lesson about setting. The observer would have seen motivated students paying attention to the teacher and staying involved in the learning process. A second language learner, upon entering the room, would feel welcomed by the safe and comforting environment and would feel accepted by the friendly students and would more than likely see some students who look, or speak, like them.
