Context: Year 10 EAL support slot, approx 1 hour.
Materials: board pens (at least two colours) and a table to write on. Scrap paper.
Lead-in:
General chat with the learners. See what they want to study (now this is bold – where are we off to today…?):
How’s your morning been? What have you been studying?
Are there any topics you’re finding challenging right now?
How’s science going (because you always say that’s challenging)?
Find a hook. Today’s was ‘the heart’ because the learners had recently done a dissection. They weren’t freaked out by it in the slightest. Weird. I contemplated a few things quickly, like some creative writing on the dissection process or something. I realized that was me thinking about what *I* could manage better, not what *they* needed. So, here it goes…
Prior knowledge:
‘Okay, I’ll type some questions or challenges out, just so I can see what you already know. Discuss them with a partner’
(To be fair you could just ChatGPT for a list of questions nowadays but I wanted them on-level)
Cue loose questions off the cuff although I do remember a bit about it from GCSE PE:
Name three parts of the heart.
What’s the septum?
How does deoxygenated blood enter the heart? What parts of the heart does it travel through, and how does it exit?
What’s a better word for ‘parts’ of the heart?
Which walls of the heart are the thickest? Why?
What are pacemakers?
Etc
Learners show general but bitty understanding. Answers are a bit one-wordy. So…
Pre-task:
⁃ Work with a partner.
⁃ Draw a diagram of the heart on your desk.
⁃ Label it. Write labels on scraps of paper rather than writing on the desk.
⁃ Draw arrows to show the flow of blood.
⁃ Practise explaining the flow of blood through the heart. Take turns to explain parts of the process.
Monitor. Support as needed. Feed in relevant vocab for labels, upgrade as needed. Provide process language.
Task:
⁃ Change partners just to mix it up
⁃ Partner 1: you can’t look at the diagram. Explain the process of blood flowing through the heart in as much detail as possible
⁃ Partner 2: you can see the diagram on the table, and the labels on scrap paper. Listen to your partner’s explanation. As they mention a key term, turn the relevant label over. Which phrases did they mention, which did they miss?
Peer feedback, repeat.
Task 2:
You’re a YouTuber making science explainer vids. You’re making a video on ‘the heart’.
⁃ Intro your channel and video topic
⁃ Describe some key features of the heart
⁃ Explain the process of blood flowing through the heart
⁃ Summarise the role of the heart
⁃ Thank listeners and encourage them to subscribe
Remind learners to carefully consider audience, purpose, and format (whatever parameters you set!). Set a timer of max 3 minutes. Learners deliver to another pair. Monitor, feedback (peer/teacher).
Post-task:
⁃ Revisit prior knowledge questions. See if learners can answer these more competently.
⁃ What questions would you add? Write your own. Ask them to other students.
Bridge to the next topic:
Why does blood need to be pumped around the body anyway?!
What is blood made up of?
How did it go down?
Good for identifying gaps in knowledge. Built fluency around recently taught vocab and concepts. It was clear that some vocab was familiar to learners but not enough to articulate it – EAL support class was a safe place to try. Led to further inquiry among whole group including me (‘so, the aorta must split into different arteries, right?’ ‘So, the right atrium has specialized cells for pacemaking… right so I guess that’s where artificial pacemakers are fitted? The word ‘artificial’…? Good question. Think computer science…’ etc
Is it Dogme ELT?
⁃ learner-driven topic, based on needs and interests (within immediate constraints I.e. formal schooling!)
⁃ Convo-driven. Dialogic, genuine, co-constructed.
⁃ Attempts at reactive scaffolding
⁃ Attempts at building the learning away from a pedagogical task and towards real-world relevance, although that was a bit weak in practice
⁃ Plenty of emergent language. Plenty.
To develop personally
⁃ my subject knowledge of veins vs arteries. I thought veins only carried deoxygenated blood until reviewing this topic. Learners prompted me without realising it to quickly review that, and I told them of my misconception after. We’re all learning.
Image from Robin Weermeijer
Categories: General, Lesson Ideas, teacher development
ELT Planning 
I’m impressed you got all that into 1 hour!
Very interesting to read your notes either way.
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Ha maybe the YouTuber bit sounds more substantial than it actually was. But yeah, hour and 20 lesson, minus 10 mins settler (reading), minus a bit of off-topic fluff and chat. I guess they’d already studied the topic, so it was more consolidating and getting the words ‘in play’ for interactions. Pacy (pacey?) though for sure, but time is limited in our support slots so gotta be.
How are things with you? Hope all well!
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It wasn’t a criticism!
(I personally tend to overplan. It’s not so much that I’m not aware of time and other limitations, but once I see the ‘logic’ of something I’m doing I tend to follow that line).
Nothing wrong with lively (or ‘pacy’) and besides these are 14-15 year olds, is that right?
Could be better, could be worse here I guess, but thanks for asking.
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