Robin Adamopoulos
ENG 539 Second Language Acquisition
Portfolio Statement: Lesson Plan
Dr. Vila
May 11, 2004
Portfolio Statement: The Class Party --Food Shopping Lesson Plan
The Class Party – Food Shopping Lesson Plan was designed around the use of
authentic materials and everyday tasks to reinforce the integration of literacy skills:
listening, speaking, reading and writing. The lesson also integrates language learning for
social and academic purposes. Students will be exposed to the vocabulary for products
available in the grocery store, and they will learn the vocabulary for expressing quantities
and pricing. The lesson culminates in a class party which involves menu planning,
shopping, and food preparation.
This lesson plan provides for comprehensible input, Krashen’s Natural Approach,
in which the learner acquires the language through input provided by native speakers that
is slightly ahead of his/her proficiency (i +1). The input in this lesson comes from a
conversational warm-up led by the teacher and print sources: posters of food items
labeled with the English vocabulary and a supermarket sales flyer. The lesson also
addresses the need for interaction in second language acquisition – students will work in
groups to prepare a shopping list and a menu for the class party. A culminating project
of a class party giving students an opportunity to share dishes and recipes from their own
cultures is intrinsically motivating. Students will be encouraged to participate in
celebrating and sharing something from their culture with the class.
The assessments for the lesson involve completing a written shopping list with
prices and quantities based on the information from the sales flyer and writing a menu
following a format for a typical American holiday celebration. These assessments are
designed with a cultural focus in mind – to expose students to typical American foods
and holidays. The assessments are suited to the students’ needs in that they will be kept
in a portfolio of work demonstrating the students’ growing language skills.
As a result of this course, I have a basis in the current theories of second language
acquisition and how to apply these theories to building learning environments that are
conducive to the “language and literacy development and content area achievement” of
second language learners. Through a new found understanding of input and interaction in
second language acquisition, I will design learning environments to capitalize on the
natural acquisition strategies that learners possess. Krashen’s Natural Approach is very
useful in understanding how learners acquire language and what tools teachers can
provide learners to increase their acquisition. This is not the only approach, however, to
second language learning that I can integrate in my instruction.
The development of an interlanguage, or the learner’s development of an internal
system of language rules, is important to understand in designing classroom activities.
Students must have opportunities for interaction with the teacher and their peers. This
interaction allows students to use the language and correct each other while building
mechanisms to self-correct when they are outside of the classroom.
It is important to use context-embedded language and to have an understanding of
Jim Cummins’ model of two types of proficiency: BICS – Basic Interpersonal
Communication Skills and CALP—Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency.
Instruction which provides ELLs with context--gestures, facial expressions, hands-on
activities and visual aids – will go further to improve their academic language proficiency
than traditional “reading the book and fill-in-the blank” types of classroom activities.
Also, the knowledge of the role of motivation and attitude in second language
acquisition is extremely important in designing activities to stimulate and involve
students in their learning. Acquiring a second language is a complex, difficult and longterm process. Students need to be given the incentive to “stick with it,” so that they can
accomplish their goals. Authentic materials, intrinsically motivating activities, and a
focus on skills necessary for life inside and outside the classroom provide rich context for
students to begin to acquire vocabulary and concepts.