Here’s an example of the EAL content I’m putting together these days.
Last year, I was teaching a group of A1-A2 level multilinguals (Year 8, aged 13) in a support group. We were looking to introduce them to authentic literature. I had a flick around on Teachers Pay Teachers and found that someone had adapted Robbie (Asimov) into an even shorter version. I downloaded it and built our content around it. Here were the slides – the videos are embedded if you download it:
And a preview:
The final task was to create a display of personal responses to the text – analysis, visuals, drama, etc. I’ve written about this type of thing here.
Sorry about the images, bit of a rush job. Replace if you want to use it – snipped examples only.
Anyhow, some practicalities:
Where does one lesson end and another begin?
Er… Well, the resources springboard into language practice, all of which is in response to learners needs. If the context re: rise of AI takes the learners interest and we can build good speaking/writing practice from it, great. If a language gap emerges and it needs addressing, great. When there’s PEE paragraphs then that’ll launch into more structured support.
There’s not much explicit teaching of grammar/vocab in the slides as you never really know what’s needed. Sure, I can predict a few things, but I’d rather draw out others as they arise. Plus, I prefer to get learners invested in stories and lit first rather than kill with language nuggets and that.
How long did this run for?
Three lessons a week, five weeks. With all those ‘ooh, a springboard!’ moments.
I don’t understand what XYZ slide was for…
Just comment and I’ll tell you what I intended.
What was engagement like?
Yeah, pretty good overall. I think the context building at the start hooked them. We did a lot of speaking tasks on our padlet from this, e.g spoken response to the diamond 9 and stuff. That built confidence for sure. You need to be on your toes for drawing out the language practice opportunities but little and often worked well.
Was there enough support?
I mean, there could have been more, but we broke the text down and chatted it through a lot with plenty of clarification and discussion. While the questions on the slide are quite basic, we did jump into some deeper discussion beyond just comprehension. Had to pick our moments though.
Categories: Lesson Ideas, other, Uncategorized
ELT Planning 
Peter a few years ago we recorded an unabridged excerpt from the beginning of Robbie for an anthology. We later recycled the recording as a Voicebook (which you probably remember). The words below are the ones which the learners clicked on the most while trying to decipher them, i.e. before connecting the sound they were hearing with the written form.
I imagine that in most cases they failed to understand the word because it was quite advanced lexis, but by listening first (the Voicebooks maxim) they gave themselves an opportunity to learn it, and for the pronunciation to be much better than if they had read the word on a page and inventing the pronunciation. Imagine how many possible guessed pronunciations there might be for “recesses” if learners just read it: rɪˈsɛsɪz ˈriːsɛsɪz ri:ˈsɛsɪz rɪˈʧɛsɪz ˈriːʧɛsɪz rɪˈθɛsɪz ˈriːθɛsɪz etc etc etc, depending on the learner’s origins, only some of which would be intelligible to proficient speakers.
And then just look at the tenth most difficult word – what a difference there is between reading and listening comprehension!
wrinkling 108 “Gloria withdrew her chubby little forearm from before her eyes, and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight.”
chirrup 103 The quiet was profound, except for the incessant buzzing of insects and the occasional chirrup of some hardy bird, braving the midday sun.
cautious 98 Then, trying to watch in all directions at once, she withdrew a few cautious steps from the tree against which she had been leaning.
withdrew 90 “Gloria withdrew her chubby little forearm from before her eyes, and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight.
recesses 88 She craned her neck to investigate the possibilities of a clump of bushes to the right, and then withdrew farther to obtain a better angle for viewing its dark recesses.
pouted 87 Gloria pouted, “I bet he went inside the house, and I’ve told him a million times that that’s not fair!”.
chubby 83 “Gloria withdrew her chubby little forearm from before her eyes, and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight.
hardy 66 The quiet was profound, except for the incessant buzzing of insects and the occasional chirrup of some hardy bird, braving the midday sun.
forearm 60 “Gloria withdrew her chubby little forearm from before her eyes, and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight.
her 59 “Gloria withdrew her chubby little forearm from before her eyes, and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight.
Please do let me know if you’d like to explore further!
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Great to know, and sounds really useful for when I teach this unit again. I don’t remember this as a Voicebook – do you have a link to it?
I do a lot of literature with EAL learners these days and there isn’t always an audio available. Have you done anything on Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick?
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