I found the reading about backwards planning to be helpful. It makes sense that you can't plan an activity unless you know what you want it to accomplish. Actually, I can think of a few middle school activities that probably weren't backwards-planned...and it showed.
Like others in my cohort, I'm concerned about how to incorporate the Japanese tsunami into a word languages lesson plan. I bet our helper librarians will make us feel comfortable though. I wish the NYT blog post had more information that I felt would be directly applicable to my subject area. Part of me wishes that my first-ever lesson plan could be something like adjective endings or modal verbs, but I think tomorrow's activity will be a big confidence boost, since I'll come out of it with an example of a lesson plan that's above a basic level.
But what if I were hypothetically told to make this kind of a lesson plan to a German I class? I could show them pictures and have them describe what they see. To me it seems like German I students would not have enough mastery over the language to be able to talk about a subject as complex as the Japanese tsunami, so I don't know how I could incorporate that and still treat it with the seriousness it deserves. I do want to be able to talk about current events with my students at all levels though, so these kinds of questions would be good to bring up with our librarians tomorrow, and my mentor teacher later (I hope I get mine soon!).
-B
Hi there. FIrst, I'm enjoying seeing your comments sprinkled around others' blogs. Secondly, here's a few angles you could consider in the morning ... one is that world languages teachers teach language AND culture. Would a cultural angle work better for you? Another would be to look at German newspapers online and see how they reported the story. What did they perceive as the story angles that were most relevant to them? (Crass as it might seem, I waited weeks for my iPad because a parts factory was damaged in the disaster, so that was, sadly, my impact.) Alternatively, a compare and contrast could be helpful: what values in Japanese society helped them persevere? What in your students' home lives in the U.S.? What in Germany? Or perhaps compare a time of Japanese difficulty (tsunami) with a time of major German rebulding (post-WWI, post-WWII)?
ReplyDeleteHi Brianne~
ReplyDelete" I'm concerned about how to incorporate the Japanese tsunami into a word languages lesson plan."
This was a concern of mine, as well, especially given the lack of NYT resources in World Languages. What do you think of referencing German news sources online, in our lesson plans (possible ideas: student news article research, language translation, questions and responses in the target language by means of blog or Twitter)?
German news sources (with Facebook and Twitter):
http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/
http://www.az-web.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=az_home
If you are still interested, we can search Twitter today for the response to Antonia's query. Is is possible to search tweets? A question to explore in EDUC 504...
A bientot,
Mindy