Four Seasons

Zeineb Haider, Libya

Zeineb Haider comes from Libya. She is a graduate student from UTSA. She earned an MA in TESOL on Dec/2102. She is interested in the field of teaching English to young learners. E-mail: zhaider410@yahoo.co.uk, sarah_hallow@yahoo.com

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Lesson activity description
Evaluation of the classroom activity
Four seasons – lesson plan
Introduction

Lesson activity description

The activity was basically literacy collaborative process in two languages (Arabic & English) (McKay, 1996, p. 451). The children needed to read and write the four seasons of the year once in English and another time in Arabic. The teacher must be aware of the importance of cultural differences and turn them into boundaries (Erickson, 1996, p.296). The season activity was culturally appropriate for all of the young learners in the classroom. As a teacher you need to create opportunities during class time for students to interact in meaningful ways ( Wiley, 1996,p. 139). The learners who shared the same language had the opportunity to interact with their peers using their native language.

Evaluation of the classroom activity

The choice of the literacy- based activity was drawn from the analysis of a collaborative process (McKay,1996,438). The lesson activity was a combination of two language reading and writing skills. Where the children were learning to read and write simple words in Arabic and English. Children must develop strong English skills to retain and develop their home language skills (McGroarty, 1996, p.19). This means that these young learners need to learn English skills and keep developing their skills in their native language. For most of the learners Arabic was their native language. In addition, as teachers we need to create opportunities for students with the same first language to interact in meaningful ways (Wiley,1996, p.139). In other words these young learners need to be given time to interact with their peers in their own language inside the classroom. This kind of interaction happened during the activity. They were trying to pronounce the words in Arabic and sharing them with their partners. The teacher needs to understand to link between dialects and social identity (Rickford,1996,p.184). As the children carried out the activity, I noticed that each child has his/her own social identity. More than half of the class spoke Arabic but with different dialects for example: Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, Palestinian. Moreover, teachers need to be encouraged to adapt teaching practices in ways that address the differences in classroom communications (Saville-Troike ,1996, p. 373). This means that when I had the children working in pairs to carry on the activity I gave them a chance to communicate with each other. The children were so motivated to speak in Arabic. They satred asking me questions in Arabic and I was delighted to hear them speak in Arabic.Most of the children tended to code-mix between Arabic and English. Code- mixing as described by Sirdhar” Presupposes a certain degree of bilingual competence” ( Sirdhar ,1996, p. 60). The code mixing between Arabic and English is a clear evidence that these young learners are processing and learning skills in two language at the same time. These children were speakers of a non-standard in their first (native) language, learning the standard languages typically involves adding a schooled variety of their communicative repertoire ( Saville-Troike, 1996, p.358). Since most of these young learners spoke Arabic at home but not the standard variety. School is providing them with the standard variety.

Four seasons – lesson plan

GOALS:

• Basic literacy in both Arabic & English
• Oral communication in both languages

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE:

• The young learners were 3-4 year at pre-k level
• Multicultural classroom setting

OBJECTIVES:

• Reading & writing simple words in two languages

MATERIALS:

• My own collection of 4 colorful pictures that represent the four seasons of the year
• Under each picture there was the name of the season in English & in Arabic.

PROCEDURE:

• Divide the class into pairs (I had 9 pairs)
• Each pair gets 4 pictures
• Each child works on two pictures
• Each child writes in the blanks the word on the left of the page in English & the word on the right side in Arabic
• Pronounce the seasons and let the children repeat
• Then let them practise with their partners

Please check the Methodology & Language for Primary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.