Step 4
6
UNIT OUTLINES
Now we start creating a unit! A strong unit plan will make your lesson planning life much easier. I enjoy working with other teachers to create these, so we will do one together here.
After my ELL research, I learned about the Newcomers Academy. This is set up to acclimate non-native students to the American classroom. Several of my colleagues have created a “Survival” mini-unit at the beginning of the year. Let’s use that as our common unit to create together. Here we go!!!
Can Do Statements
What can they do at the end of the unit?
First we need to write student-friendly “Can do” goals for all the modes and skills. Keep in mind that there should be an input goal that matches each output goal. Also remember the proficiency level. Novice mid students are using words and phrases. They can list items and recognize more than they can produce.
Culture
What cultural topics will you use to teach?
This is where you excite them! Culture can be anything authentic like videos, songs, tweets, magazines, ads, pictures, etc.
Vocabulary
What words are crucial to the unit?
This list could be huge, but we don’t want to overwhelm them. Keep focused on the “function.” For example, if a goal is “I can say what I need for class,” the the most important words are “I need.” Then students can pick the vocabulary that is important to them. Now, I will include the important words they need to recognize for my class (paper, binder, pencil, marker).
Grammar
Yes. This is important too. Some think that proficiency-based teaching throws this out completely, false. There is nothing wrong with sprinkling in appropriate grammar, just don’t grade them on it. Some units only have the first person singular conjugations (I) as a grammar point. I wait until students ask about a grammar detail before I teach it. So when someone asks “Why does that have a “o” on it?”, I will explain it in 5 minutes or less and then move on. Some get it, some don’t. At a higher proficiency level it will make a difference, but not at the novice level.
Your turn!!
Please contribute to the unit at this wikispaces page. I can’t move on to the next step until this is complete. 
Megan
rachel573
Kara
Megan,
Would you be willing to share your lesson plans for Level1A on Teachers Pay Teachers? I need somewhere to begin* and at this point in time, modifying plans would be easier for me versus starting from scratch. Especially in light of your comment that the JCPS site is not vertically aligned.
* I am a homeschool teacher (background in Spanish and MS in Business). My class begins on 9/11. I have 11 students and we only meet 2xper week for a total of 2.5 hours. Most of the class are HS students who need to obtain a FL credit.
Also, any advice on how to help my students obtain profiency with such limited class time? I already have them watching a ton of YouTube Videos on the basics: saludos, Numeros, alfabeto AT HOME before our first class.
If anyone else has lessons plans they are willing to share, it would be most appreciated!
Tammy
Not to make excuses, but that’s a lot of extra work for us that would take weeks to put together. My plans are handwritten and vague. Would you want to see that? When it comes to the activities, we cannot put them on TPT because we cannot use photos that are copyrighted. Most of our interpretive activities are real photos/articles/tweets. At this point, the best I can do is recommend to take the stamp sheets from each unit, pick one goal, and look at our tabs “activities for modes” for ideas. In the future we may work on something like this.
Thanks for the recommendation….it would be a good future TPT item. Especially for new teachers and/or new to your fabulous method.
And the Jcps “non-alignment” will not affect your situation.
I am currently student-teaching (last semester of grad school!!), and I love your website…I’m just having a hard time piecing everything together. You say that you really only stop to explain grammar when a student asks about it, and some students may get it while others don’t-no big deal. My question is, how are they able to read authentic material or produce some of the stamps that you use without the grammar?
The school that I’m currently working in focuses on grammar everyday…it’s like a broken record, and the students are bored to death. The problem is, they have statewide benchmark assessments, mostly consisting of grammar. So they drill grammar so that students don’t bomb the tests. Do you have any ideas about how to deal with this?
If they had a test that was specific to grammar, I would include it as a quick daily activity or maybe spend one day a week on it.
The best way to explain how a proficiency approach works is to think about how you learned your first language. What stages did you go through? What came first: listening, speaking, reading, writing? When did you start learning grammar? Were you allowed to ever write without worrying if it was perfectly written? Could you tell what a book was about without identifying the tense of the verb?
Basically when I think about my first language learning, it helps me to be a better second language teacher. Does this help? It’s tough to type this instead of talking it out!