Didactic Unit for everybody

Didactic Unit for everybody

You are the English teacher of a ESO4 group in a state school in Xirivella. In your group you have 28 students (2 gifted, 4 ADHAD and 3 who are repeating their grade).

You are given a didactic unit and you have to plan your lesson to fulfil all your students needs. How can you do it?

In case you are not sure, you can design:

• 5 activities (an ice-breaker, a vocabulary, a grammar, a listening and a writing activity) based on your didactic unit but which will include all your students learning styles.
• Include a final task or project.
• Write a post in your blog where you will include:

- The activities you designed.

- The project/final task you created

- Justify your activities (the aims behind each single activity and task)

- Upload those activities, label them and add at least 3 texts hyperlinks.

- Add three links in your blog section link

        Ice-breaker activity

Running towards knowledge

Description: 

First, the teacher will divide the students (28 in total) in seven groups of four people anyone. The teacher will create the groups following the following criterion: the groups will need to be heterogeneous and inclusive. The teacher will have to take into consideration that all the students have not got the same level and the same learning style. Combining these can help the both the students and the teacher to develop a united group.

Then, after having divided the students, the teacher will explain the activity, which consists of the following steps:

• The four students in each group create a row in front of the whiteboard, specifically at the back of the classroom.
• The teacher will write a verb in the whiteboard for each group (random order).
• These four students will have to run towards the whiteboard (the class must be free of any obstacle) and each one will write a sentence using the verb in Past Simple or Past Progressive.
• The first student who finishes writing his/her sentence, will have to go back to the back of the classroom as fast as they can and ring a bell the teacher will have left on a table.
• Then, both the teacher and the students will have to check if the sentences everyone has written are correct. Feedback will be provided.

Objective: 

This activity will help the students to activate previous knowledge and to introduce the grammar point of this unit (how to differentiate Past Simple and Past Progressive). Besides, it will be a very interesting and inclusive activity, since it can be addressed to different types of students: kinaesthetic, visual, auditory… as well as:

• Gifted students: if they are in the same group, the will have the feeling of competition against a student with the same level. This will translate into motivation and a positive attitude towards learning and participating.
• Students with ADHAD: this activity will allow them not only to run through the class, but also to think while they are doing a lot of movements.
• Students repeating the grade: these students will be able to share their knowledge with their classmates and also to develop the feeling of competition.

Materials needed:

• A whiteboard with markers
• A bell (provided by the teacher)

Vocabulary activity

"Culturestyle": Discovering other cultures

Description: 

Students will have to create a short presentation about themselves, their hobbies (related to culture), facts about their cultural backgrounds, etc.
For this activity, the teacher will ramdomly divide the students into pairs. In this way, no one will be left out and we will have heterogeneous groups. 

Objectives: 

The main objective of this activity is to learn how to work with others that may have different hobbies and opinions and try to reach an agreement. Moreover, this activity will help students to get to know each other better and we will create a comfortable environment.

• Gifted students: this activity will help these students to enrich their vocabulary and to give their best when making the presentation.
• Students with ADHAD: as they have the oportunity to record a short-film, this could become a very interesting task and experience for them.
• Students repeating the grade: they will be able to share their previous knowledge and learn new one, which will make them feel motivated.
 

Materials needed: 

• Computer and software: Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezi, etc.
• A projector

Grammar activity

Guess what?

Description: 

Students have to write sentences about themselves using the past simple or the past progressive. They can be true or false. Then, when they finish, they have to read the sentences aloud and the rest of the class has to say if the sentences are true or false. 

We consider that this is a good activity because students will be able to get to know each other better, as well as to practise grammar in a fun way. 

Objectives: 

• Understand the grammar point and its usage
• Understand oral production
• Create written production 
• Increase group cohesion 
• Promote critical thinking 
• Avoid introversion

• Gifted students: they will feel the necessity of doing their best in this acticity and try to guess if what their peers have said is true or false. Therefore, they will have to think. 
• Students repeating the grade: they will know characteristics and facts about their new classmates, which can be interesting for them. 
• ADHAD: the students will be standing in front of the class and they will be able to move around, so this activity will probably be really appealing for them. 

Materials needed:

• Sheets of paper 

Reading activity

Living in 4 Privet Drive

Description: First and before the lesson starts, the teacher will compile and print some passages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J. K. Rowling. He/she will stick the photocopies in the walls of the school corridor. Then, once the students have entered the classroom, the teacher will follow these steps:

• The students will be divided into pairs.
• The teachers will tell the students the activity they are going to do:

• One of the members of each pair (this will be decided by them) will have to leave the classroom and find one of the photocopies sticked by the teacher.
• He/she will read the passage and will try to memorize as much as he/she can.
• Then, this student will come back to the classroom very quickly and will dictate what he/she remembers of the passage to his/her partner.
• The first pair of students who finish the whole passage will have to indicate so.
• These two students will be the winners.

• Afterwards, each couple will read what they have been able to remember and write.
• The teacher will provide feedback and will make comments on the positive and negative aspects of the activity.

Objectives: this activity will help the students to:

• Improve not only their reading skills, but also their writing abilities.
• Improve their listening and speaking skills.
• Develop their short-term memory.
• Strengthen the feeling of comradeship.
• Work in pairs and divide the possible tasks in a sustainable way.
• Develop a feeling of competitiveness and, therefore, increase their motivation.

• Gifted students: this activity will make them exert themselves in order to memorize as much as they can. Furthermore, they will have to work cooperatively with a student who has different skills.
• Students with ADHAD: this activity will allow them not only to run through the class and the corridor, but also to develop their short-term memory.
• Students repeating the grade: they will be able to share their skills with their classmates and also to develop the feeling of competition. Moreover, this activity will help them to improve the feeling of inclusion in the group.

Materials needed:

• Printed passages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
• Sheets of paper
• Pens
• Read the whole passage for the activity here

Writing activity

Show your inner artist!

Description: This will be an individual activity which will consist of the following steps:

• First, the teacher will ask the students about if they like reading or even creating stories. They can talk about books they have really enjoyed or books which remain memorable for them and why.
• The teacher will hand a paper with questions he/she will have created before the lesson. 
• Each student will have to answer the questions and therefore create a brief story through these answers.
• Later, each students will have the opportunity to read what he/she has written and share it with his/her peers.

Objectives:

• Improve their writing skills.
• Activate their creativity and their ability to invent stories.
• Use ICTs: online dictionaries.
• Develop the capacity of working individually. 
• Know how to follow instructions with a determined purpose. 

• Gifted students: this activity will make them follow and give answers to a series of questions in order to create a story. In fact, their highly-developed skills will make them create, or at least to try to do so, an interesting and creative story.
• Students with ADHAD: with this activity, the teacher will be able not only to gain their attention, but also to hold it up through the questions of the exercise and avoid any possible distraction.
• Students repeating the grade: they will be able to take their previous knowledge in order to create a good and worthwhile story.

   Materials needed:

• Pens
• A sheet of paper with a series of questions:

• What was his/her name?
• Where did he/she live?
• What did he/she do?
• Who did he/she talk with?
• What happened next?
• Where did they want to go? 
• What did he/she tell the other person?  
• What was the weather like at that moment?
• Who did they see?
• What happened at the end?

 

  Final task / Project 

My I, my me, my myself... my culture

Description:

As a final task or project, the students will create a video in which they have to show their own identity, the one that makes them what they are. Human beings have a very intrinsic and defining feature: culture. The video can be presented through different formats, since there is more than one single option. For example: Draw My Life, short film, filmed narrative... Besides, the students will have to write a report about what they have done.

For this project, the teacher will divide the students into pairs taking into consideration not only their level, but also their skills and attitude as learners. Again, the teacher will try to keep a good level of heterogeneity whithin the pairs created. 

Objectives:

• Develop the following linguistic skills: speaking (in case they record their voices), listening (they will have to watch videos in order to get information about the topic), reading (they may read some articles provided by the teacher) and writing (when writing the report).
• Work collaboratively and learn how to agreed and solve possible problems.
• Research about their own culture.
• Use ICTs properly. 
• Strengthen the feeling of comradeship.

• Gifted students: this activity will help to develop their high skills, as well as to share them with a classmate with a different profile.
• Students with ADHAD: as they have the oportunity to record a short-film, this could become a very interesting task and experience for them..
• Students repeating the grade: they will also the experience of knowing themselves more and better. Besides, they can be really helpful when working in pairs, above all when his/her partner has a lower level in English.

Materials:

• A Computer and software: Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezi or similar programmes, software for editing images...
• A videocamera: specific one, movile phone, etc.
• Speakers.
• A camera.
 

Assessment:

The assessment for this project will be both formative (through the activities we have proposed for this unit) and summative (for this project). Regarding the assessment for this task, we will follow these criteria:

• Aesthetical dimension: Is the product beatiful? Is it inspiring? Has the student made an effort to create a nice presentation?  25 %
• Topic dimension: Has the student done what he/she was supposed to do? Does the student fulfill the objectives?  25 %
• Linguistic dimension: Does the student use an accurate level of language? Is it well written? Is the pronunciation correct?  25 %
• Philosophical dimension: Does the student go deep whithin concepts such as culture, identity, human capital...? Does the student show reflection and, above all, critical thinking skills and procedures? 25 %