The lesson plan that I chose to use for my
technology integration plan is aimed to increase student fluency in
Spanish. I chose to do a lesson plan
from my pen pal unit, which I had previously elaborated on in my padlet wall. For this unit students would be matched up
with Spanish speaking pen pals from a country of our choice, and would be
having conversations with them several times a week. The whole point of this unit is to focus on
fluency over perfection, and to get students motivated to learn Spanish in a
more authentic context. The idea being
that if students are talking to their peers in Spanish and are really
interested in finding out about their lives and their cultures, then they will
push themselves harder to express their ideas in Spanish and understand what
their pen pal is saying. Students will
be using the internet and their computers to contact their pen pals and have
conversations with them. Students will
keep a running blog to document how their conversations with their pen pal are
going, in addition to new words that they learned, or grammatical or cultural
questions that may have arisen.
Technology will also be used in the classroom in various other ways to
most effectively teach this unit.
At the beginning of this unit, the first line in
the matrix, I will spend class time demonstrating to students how to read their
pen pals conversations, and how to try to use context to guess the meaning of
new vocabulary. Surely there will be
tons of new words the students will not know, my goal is to help them see each
new word as a challenge. Hopefully
through context they can guess the meaning, if not they can ask follow up
questions to try and clarify what the word means. If all else fails, they can use the resources
I describe such as wordreference.com or language forums. I will show them a sample blog after a pen
pal conversation, showing new vocabulary and interesting cultural questions or
grammatical questions that came up. Then
students will share their blogs and what they learned with partners or small
groups. All students will submit their
newly learned vocabulary words to me and we’ll play a game where we guess the
meaning of the word when it’s given it’s correct context. Then to check understanding, and as a way of
an informal assessment, students will work individually on a worksheet which
has on it new vocabulary and terms. By
the end of this lesson students will have been provided with strategies to
guide their inquiry, and better understand how to process their data and report
their results. They will be able to
recognize familiar vocabulary contained in culturally authentic materials using
electronic information and other sources, and will also be able to better use
context to make educated guesses to the meaning of new vocabulary.
Moving on,
in the second line of the matrix, we will compile a vocabulary chart using
google docs as a class, where we list all of the students’ newly acquired
vocabulary. Students will work
individually or in groups to find definitions for new vocabulary, using
wordreference.com and together we will fill in the chart. Students will then work together to create
sentences using the new vocabulary in the correct context. In small groups, children will then read aloud
passages from their blogs and share what they learned with their
classmates. In doing these activities
students will demonstrate their comprehension of brief oral and written
messages using age and level appropriate culturally authentic materials on familiar
topics. Through their relationship with
their pen pal, and by learning about other students’ discussions with their
friends from across the globes, students will develop cultural understanding
and global awareness.
For the last row of the matrix students
will demonstrate their retention of the new vocabulary and material. First as a class we will review the phrases
and vocab, and then engage in a vocabulary game all together. Next, students will work in small groups to
perform skits and role play a scenario where they use the newly learned
vocabulary words. In these skits they
will also show any new cultural tidbits they’ve learned from their pen
pals. In putting together their skits,
the students will ask and respond to simple questions, make requests, and
express preferences using memorized words and phrases. Classmates will communicate and collaborate
together, developing cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging in
conversation with their pen pals, and comparing notes with their classmates.
This unit uses pen pals as a way to
motivate students to increase fluency in the target language and focus on
communication over perfection. With the
aid of technology and these various strategies listed, this unit is taught in a
fun and effective way.
