Patrick Killelea

C&T 825

Professor Cho

6/30/2019

Instructional Unit Narrative

Section 1: Principles and Practices of EIL

TESOL researchers and academics are constantly looking for better methods and practices

to educate second language learners. To figure this out, educators look at students’ learning goals,

which for a long time, were to be able to sound exactly like a ‘native’ English speaker. But, if we

think about the fact that most English conversations around the world are being spoken in a non-

traditional forms and by ‘non-native’ speakers, we have to reconsider what the goals and standards

should be. Thinking of English as an International Language (EIL) means we also have to re-

evaluate our curriculum and methods.

The term EIL was coined by S.L McKay (2002) and describes English as having “multiple

vernaculars and speakers who have their own dialects and purposes” (Diaz-Rico, 2013). As the

lingua franca, English has moved beyond being spoken primarily by native speakers in inner-

circle countries, like the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia (Kachru, 1986). Now, nearly a third

of the world’s population, of whom more than 70 per cent are ‘non-native’ English speakers

(Graddol, 2006). Among them are speakers from outer-circle countries like Singapore, Nigeria

and India who have their own regionally distinct varieties. And, surrounding the outer-circle is the

expanding-circle of ‘non-native’ speakers in countries like China and Russia, where English is the

dominant language in some limited domain.

 In South Korea, English is regarded as a lingua franca and is widely used in conversations

between Koreans and non-Koreans. Many English words have made their way into the vernacular.

Some examples of Konglish are words like kompyuto (computer), cha (car) and intanet (internet).

If you walk down any street in Korean, you’ll see many examples of Konglish on store signs.

English is widely studied throughout Korea and is needed for workplace communication with

customers throughout the world. Despite the wide range of spoken English that Koreans

encounter, the importance of EIL has not taken hold in English instruction. The goal is to speak

with a North American accent and most of the voices you’ll hear in the audio passages of

textbooks are North American accents. When hiring native-speaking EFL teachers, Canadian and

American teachers are generally preferred over those from other inner-circle countries, and inner-

circle teachers are preferred over those from other-circle countries.

Unfortunately for Koreans, the goal of speaking fluent English is a near-impossible goal

for them to attain, and the very few who have reached the ‘promised land’ are those who have

spent some time and large sums of money studying abroad. For the other Koreans who study in

schools and academies, it’s difficult to not have some kind of Korean accent, which they are often

embarrassed of. To make matters worse, the education system emphasizes grammar and reading

over speaking. For parents and students, the primary goal is to excel on language tests, most

importantly the final high school test, called the seu-neung which will determine the quality of

university, and then the jobs they can get after graduation. The seu-neung places a heavy emphasis

on form over function. The tests are complicated, and in my experience, the grammar sections are

tricky with what seems like more than one correct answer. During Kyunghwa’s Sports Day, I had

a long conversation with a fluent English-speaking student who had returned to Korea after years

of studying at an international school abroad. She was nearly in tears describing her
disappointment with her low English test scores, which she felt was an inaccurate reflection of her

skills.

So, what approaches can teachers use to emphasize EIL and prepare Korean students for

communicating with a wide-range of English speakers? A study of research on the topic shows

many different methods for teachers to implement in their classrooms. Canagarajah (2014)

suggests that “language teachers have to focus more on developing procedural knowledge (i.e., a

knowledge of how, or negotiation strategies) rather than propositional knowledge (i.e., a

knowledge of what, or norms and conventions of a language) in their classrooms.” He further

explains that a teacher must be flexible with the way that grammar should be taught and used in

the classroom because he sees “grammar as always emergent, not preconstructed. As speakers

from two different backgrounds interact in English, they will use resources from their first, second,

or diverse other languages from their repertoire. As they collaborate with each other in attaining

their communicative objectives, they construct certain norms that make their interaction possible.”

So, in an EIL-focused classroom, teachers should not over-emphasize form and allow students to

communicate and negotiate meaning with one another. These skills will help them interact with

any kind of speaker in the future.

Teachers must also be aware that their inner-circle form of spoken language is not

inherently superior to outer and expanding-circle forms. There are forces in history which have

led to English becoming the lingua Franca, and the inner-circle countries are held up as the ideal

accent and form of grammar. Speakers from outer-circle countries are considered to speak a non-

standard form of English, and the inner-circle should never forget the advantage they have

throughout the world because of their language and accent. Because Korea is an expanding-circle

country, these attitudes have affected Korean English language learners, many of whom view
themselves as inferior. These attitudes are obstacles to their language learning and teachers must

help their students de-construct these myths and be flexible in their language teaching.

Section 2: The Lesson Plans

These lesson plans were created for 1st and 2nd grade high school students at Kyunghwa

High School, a private Christian school in South Korea. The average class size is about 25 and

each class is 50 minutes long. My teaching partner and I chose two different topics for this unit:

the first was describing people and the second was writing haikus with onomatopoeia. One of the

reasons why we chose these topics is because there was a creative element at the end of each

lesson which we thought the students would enjoy. Also, describing people and appearance is an

important speaking skill. Another reason was because we felt that learning about words that use

onomatopoeia would be a useful tool that would help them understand some unknown vocabulary

words. Also, writing haikus allows students to find new forms of expression in writing English.

For Kyunghwa students, English is their second language, and I would consider

Kyunghwa’s students to be above average in terms of English aptitude. Some of the students have

spent time abroad or gone to international schools and therefore have high levels of English

proficiency. Most of Kyunghwa’s students have studied English since they were young and

currently attend nearby English academies. Students must take a test to be accepted and

admissions are selective. We saw them give group presentations in English on a wide range of

complex topics and they did fantastic work. Despite all of the advantages that the students have, I

still believe that their communicative skills are not as strong as their grammar and reading skills.

The objective of the first lesson was for students to be able to describe someone’s

appearance using several different sentence forms, like he is wearing a hat, she has blue eyes, or

he is bald. To do this, we presented many new vocabulary words that describe eyes (color), hair
(style, length, color), clothes (tops, pants) and accessories (earrings, necklace). Some techniques

that we used to teach this vocabulary was having students repeat vocabulary words and sentences

after us, which an example the audio-lingual method. For practice, the students used pictures of

K-pop stars that we showed them and then they described them using the target sentences. Later,

they described some of the KU students in class the same way. This was done to relate to the

students interests and using people that they were familiar with. For the production segment of the

lesson plan, the students worked in pairs and took turns describing a picture of a celebrity while

the other student drew a picture and wrote a short passage from the description. The goal was for

students to use their communicative skills and work together to understand one another. In a way,

this will help them prepare for interactions with other English speakers where they will need these

strategies to negotiate meaning. As a way of checking to see if they understood the lesson, we

walked around the room and checked their drawings and writing passages.

In the second lesson plan, students wrote haikus using words with onomatopoeia, which are

words that sound like their meanings, like buzz and splash. We started the lesson by asking

students if they knew what haikus or onomatopoeia were as a way of activating their prior

knowledge. We also asked them if they knew any Korean words that sound like their meanings,

like animal sounds, as a way of connecting to their L1. When presenting the new vocabulary

words, we put a picture next to each word and sometimes an animated gif to provide scaffolding.

To help them write their haikus, we practiced counting syllables in words by clapping out the

sounds together. Thinking about the syllables in a word will help them with pronunciation of

words and listening. In our explanation of syllables, we drew comparisons and differences

between Korean and English. To teach students how to write haikus, we showed the structure and

provided a few examples. We then elicited ideas from the class and all of us wrote an example
haiku together. When the students wrote their haikus, my teaching partner and I went around the

room helping students with counting syllables in words and helping with ideas. In this way, we

were also able to formatively assess the students. The final element of our lesson plan was for the

students to present their haikus, which they usually did while clapping.

In our two lesson plans, there weren’t too many applications of the principles of EIL. But,

these two lessons could be augmented or extended to be more communicative and less structured.

In the first lesson plan, a role play could be added at the end in which students could use their skill

of describing people to ad-lib or make a short dialogue about having a conversation about seeing a

famous people at the mall. This will give students a chance to have use their skills in a more

natural way. The second lesson plan can also be altered to make it less focused on form and more

on function. Instead of writing a haiku, the students can use the poetry in a free-verse of their

choosing and also incorporating elements of their own language or version of English. This sort of

slam poetry gives them the freedom to express themselves however they want and the students can

perform their poetry for the other students.

 SIOP Lesson Plan Outline -- Practicum Lesson Plan #1
Date: 6/17/2019
Grade/Class/Subject: 1st- 2nd grade High School English Students
Unit Theme: Describing People
ELP Standards:
9-12.10 (Level 2) -- “Make accurate use of standard English to communicate in grade-
appropriate speech and writing. Use frequently occurring verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, and conjunctions.”

Lesson Objectives:

Content Knowledge: By the end of the lesson, ESOLs will:

1. Learn new vocabulary related to hair types (blonde, curly, wavy), hair lengths (shoulder-
length, long, short), and clothing types (blouse, pants, sweater).

2. To describe a person using only an adjective (handsome, beautiful, tall).

3. To use three different sentence patterns to achieve these tasks (he is tall, he has long hair, and
she is wearing high heels).

Language Objectives: By the end of the lesson, ESOLs will demonstrate increasing
proficiency in the performance of the following functions and their forms:

Function Form
(in –ing form, eg. “Retelling a story” ) (grammatical term and/or example, eg.
“Past Tense: ‘The boy went to see his
grandfather;’”)

1)Describing a person’s clothing and He is wearing a green shirt.

accessories
She is wearing earrings.
2) Describing a person’s appearance with He is tall, He is big….
adjectives

3) Describing different hair types, colors, She has curly hair. She has long hair
and lengths.

Vocabulary Objectives: By the end of the lesson, ESOLs will demonstrate an understanding
of the following vocabulary words:

Content Vocabulary Academic Vocabulary Cohesion Words

(new vocabulary to be (vocabulary that may need (vocabulary that may need
explicitly taught that is to be taught or emphasized to be taught or emphasized
critical to an understanding that is critical to that link concepts in
of the content) participation in academic meaningful ways, such as
tasks, such as “categorize”, conjunctions and time
“list”, describe”) markers)

Hair color/style~ Describe

Short hair, long hair, bald,
middle part, side part,
brown hair, black hair,
blonde, curly, wavy
Shirt color/style~
Button up, tshirt, blouse,
hoodie, jacket
Accessories~
Glasses, necklace, earrings,
hat
Eye color~
Blue, brown, dark brown,
hazel, green
Special Cross-Cultural Considerations for ESOLs:
Important to keep in mind the use of words like ‘fat’ and ‘sick’ in the context of Korean and
English

Also nicknames like ‘piggy,’ etc.

Materials:

Powerpoint about the vocabulary and grammar forms

12 packages of crayons/markers

Students will need a pen or pencil

worksheet with an avatar which the teacher will provide

Laminated pictures of celebrities

Lesson Sequence (This may be adjusted as necessary to accommodate unique lesson plan
features)

MOTIVATION: (Describe how you will build background and the specific strategies that you
will use to ensure the participation of ESOLs.)
Before class, the teachers write the lesson objective on the white board, which is Describing
People, and three sentences on the board: ‘She is wearing a green jacket’, ‘he has brown eyes,’
and ‘She is beautiful. The students will not need anything besides a pencil, so all other
belongings should be put away.

At the start of class, the teachers will point to the objective on the board and ask if any student
knows what the word describe means. If they don’t, we will briefly explain the definition, which
is to explain what a person looks like and what they are wearing.
PRESENTATION: (Describe the specific techniques you will use to make your presentation of
new material comprehensible to ESOLs, to provide opportunities for interaction through
appropriate questioning, and to assess whether or not ESOLs are “getting it”.)

The warmer will be presented on PPT. Each warm-up slide will first reveal a K-pop star’s name
and beneath it, the three questions which will be revealed one-by-one: what is he wearing, and
what color are his eyes and hair. The students will try to guess the answers to these questions
and the teachers will have them give their answers in the form of the target sentence. Once an
answer is revealed, the students will repeat the sentence after the teachers. Once all of the
information has been revealed, a picture of the star will be shown.

The next set of slides are vocabulary slides which explain hair types and lengths, and then eye
colors. In each slide, we will show a picture and elicit the word and ask that the student give the
answer in a full sentence, like he has long hair, referencing the target sentences on the
whiteboards as needed. The next vocabulary slides will show pictures of different clothing and
accessory styles. As each are revealed, we will ask the students to read the vocabulary word in a
full sentence, like she is wearing a bow. While explaining the vocabulary, we will explain that
when describing singular nouns (nose, ear, hoodie, or jacket), they will need to say a hoodie and
not hoodie.

Next, there will be several slides, each with a picture of a person. Two prompts will pop up:
Describe her hair, and Describe her accessories. Beneath will be the target sentences: she has
_______ hair and she is wearing ________________. The teachers will elicit and then reveal
the answers. Beneath, a third question will be shown: can you describe anything else?

Afterwards, the teachers will ask for a volunteer to come up and the other students will describe
that person’s clothing and appearance.
PRACTICE/APPLICATION: (Describe the activities you will use to allow for meaningful
interaction and practice using ALL language skills, the strategies you will use to ensure full
participation by ESOLs, and the techniques you will use to assess their success in the activities.)

The next part will be a drawing activity and each student will work with the person sitting either
in front of or behind them. Each pair will be given a set of markers for this activity. All students
will be given a picture of a celebrity and a worksheet with an outline of a person and a several
lines for writing beneath. The students should be told to keep their celebrity picture hidden from
their partners. To do the activity, one student will start by describing their picture to their
partner, who will use the markers or their pencil to draw what they hear on the avatar on the
worksheet. Once finished drawing, that same person will write several sentences beneath which
describes their avatar/celebrity. There is also a few extra lines for them to add a few extra details
to their description. Then, the partners will switch roles and the person who described the first
part will draw in the next part. The teachers will walk around and help anyone needing help
writing or describing.

EXTENSION: (Describe additional follow-up activities you will use with ESOLs to address any
areas that you deem need further explanation or practice to ensure their mastery of the content
and language objectives.)
Once everyone has finished their drawing, the teachers will ask for two partners to come to the

front of the class and read their written clues for the others to guess. If they can’t guess the

answer, the reader will show their drawing of the celebrity, and if they still don’t know, they will

show the picture of the celebrity. Once both celebrities have been revealed, another pair can

come up and give their clues for the class to guess.

Reflections from Lesson Plan #1

What is your overall impression of the lesson? What part of the lesson do you think went well?
What part of the lesson do you wish had gone better?
My overall impression of my lesson is that it is a good communicative lesson, but not great. I

thought that when students used the KU teachers as examples for the target sentences was a great

part of the lesson. I thought the activity and the presentations were also engaging, but I were to

teach this lesson again, I would rework the opener and presentation somehow. Although those

parts accomplished the task of introducing the grammar and vocab, I thought it was too

repetitive. I really liked the way that Jaylen and Sophia introduced their slang vocabulary by

playing video clips and asking students to fill in the blanks on a worksheet. It was authentic,

engaging and humorous.

Were the lesson objectives met by all students by the end of the lesson? How do you know? Did

some students achieve the objectives more fully than others?

I felt that the objectives were all met because the students were able to draw pictures of their

partner’s descriptions and were able to write about it underneath. It’s possible some students

may have struggled and gotten help from their partners or may had already learned this skill.

There were some students who were able to complete their exercise faster than others, but that

might have been because they spent more time on their drawing. We tried to help anyone who

was working slowly or who had a question.

What kinds of errors were they making? How did you treat those errors? Was your treatment

effective in improving their use of that particular language form?

A common error that we noticed was that students left out the indefinite article ‘a’ when making

sentences. We were able to correct this in future lessons by incorporating an explanation into my

grammar spiel at the beginning the lesson. In the first class, there were several of these mistakes,

and in retrospect, we should have interrupted class and taught a micro-lesson. Another error was

writing the same kind of sentence repeatedly instead of condensing into one. For example, one

student wrote: He is wearing shoes. He is wearing socks. He is wearing a green t-shirt., etc.

Another future consideration is to ask students to check their writing for missing periods,

repetitive sentences, and missing articles before they come up to present. They could also had

their partner proofread their writing.

What did you hope would take place during the information exchange activity? How did you

decide on this particular activity? Was it interesting for them? Did they use authentic language?

For the information exchange activity, which I think is the communicative activity in our lesson

plan, we wanted to find an activity which would allow them to be creative. We had a decent

idea, but Greg helped us give our idea more focus. We also felt that our lesson lacked authentic

language in the descriptions with their partners. Most of the sentences followed the target

language sentences, which accomplished the objective, but the final product sounded robotic.

Some authentic language came out during the presentation when the presenter’s gave some extra

clues to help the students guess the answer.

Was this lesson that you selected easy or difficult for your students? What part of the lesson was

new for them? What part did they already know? How did you attempt to provide them with i+1?
In general, I thought the lesson wasn’t very challenging, especially for the second grade students.

The only challenge for them was learning new vocabulary words. The part of the lesson that was

easy for them was the eye and hair colors. I didn’t think the sentence forms were especially

challenging, but the only sticky point was that students forget to add ‘a’ before the new

vocabulary words, as in he is wearing a hat or he is wearing earrings. Throughout the lesson, I

tried to provide the students with i+1 by adding extra vocabulary like the words, anklet and

bracelet. In the future, I think that more challenging target sentences and vocabulary would

encourage students to move further beyond their knowledge base.

In general, what have been your greatest successes in teaching this group? What do you think

you need to know how to do better?

In general, my greatest success is being able to manage this many students. I have mainly taught

elementary school students in smaller settings, so the number of students and their levels are a bit

intimidating. Also, a lot of the humor that I tried to interject into the first draft of our

PowerPoint wasn’t appropriate for their age group. So, the more that I’ve been talking to our

students, the more that I’ve learned what exactly is engaging for their age and language level.

One area of challenge for me in designing a lesson plan is working and teaching with a partner. I

have always worked and taught alone, and so there have been times over the past few weeks

when I have forgotten about my partner. For example, in today’s lesson my partner stumbled a

bit when starting her instructions for the activity, and instead of stepping in and helping her get
back on tract, I walked to the center of class and finished the instructions while my partner was

standing behind me near the computer. I think this was rude and wasn’t particularly helpful for

her teaching development. Also, when working on the lesson plan, I tended to work on the

whole lesson independently instead of separating the task into pieces and working on parts. I

have started to notice this and have been more cognizant of my partner. So, this area has been a

learning process for me.

 SIOP Lesson Plan #2 Outline

Date: 6.23.2019
Grade/Class/Subject: 1st and 2nd high school students
Unit Theme: Writing Haikus with Onomatopoeia
ELP Standards: 9-12.7 Level 3 “Students will adapt language choices and style according to
purpose, task, and audience with developing ease.”

Lesson Objectives:

Content Knowledge: By the end of the lesson, ESOLs will:

1. Learn words that use onomatopoeia, which is a word that sounds like its meaning (buzz,
poof, zip, etc.)
2. Learn about haikus and how to write them. The students will use the vocabulary they’ve
learned to make their haikus more vivid.
3. Learn what a syllable is and how to count the number of syllables in words.

Language Objectives: By the end of the lesson, ESOLs will demonstrate increasing
proficiency in the performance of the following functions and their forms:

Function Form
(in –ing form, eg. “Retelling a story” ) (grammatical term and/or example, eg.
“Past Tense: ‘The boy went to see his
grandfather;’”)

Writing a haiku poem Haikus are three-line poems that often

follow the 5/7/5 syllable structure.
 Vocabulary Objectives: By the end of the lesson, ESOLs will demonstrate an understanding
of the following vocabulary words:

Content Vocabulary Academic Vocabulary Cohesion Words

(new vocabulary to be (vocabulary that may need (vocabulary that may need
explicitly taught that is to be taught or emphasized to be taught or emphasized
critical to an understanding that is critical to that link concepts in
of the content) participation in academic meaningful ways, such as
tasks, such as “categorize”, conjunctions and time
“list”, describe”) markers)

Snap, pop, rustle, splash, Syllables

growl, crunch, drip, click,
thud, buzz, sizzle, tick- tock,
haiku, onomatopoeia

Special Cross-Cultural Considerations for ESOLs:

Haikus are often written about nature topic, but because our students live in a city, they might
not want to write their haikus about nature.

Materials:
One worksheet

Lesson Sequence (This may be adjusted as necessary to accommodate unique lesson plan
features)

MOTIVATION: (Describe how you will build background and the specific strategies that you
will use to ensure the participation of ESOLs.)
Any seating setup will work for this lesson.

Before class, write the objective of the lesson, Writing Haikus Using Onomatopoeia on the
whiteboard. The teacher will ask the students if they know what haiku is, how they are made,
and if they have ever written one in Korean. Finally, the teacher will inform the students that
they will write one today.

PRESENTATION: (Describe the specific techniques you will use to make your presentation of
new material comprehensible to ESOLs, to provide opportunities for interaction through
appropriate questioning, and to assess whether or not ESOLs are “getting it”.)

As a fun way to start the presentation, the teacher will point to the word onomatopoeia on the
whiteboard and ask if anyone can pronounce the word. The teacher will ask what the words
means and give the definition. There will be a short YouTube video played of Koreans
discussing the sneeze sound “ah-choo” and “ah-chwi,” the Korean sound. The teacher will then
show a few examples of onomatopoeia in Korean, like mung-mung which is bark in Korean, and
then ask if they know any other examples of Korean onomatopoeia. The teacher will then show
12 vocabulary words, like buzz, thud, sizzle, click, etc. that will be shown on 4 slides. First the
word will pop up and then a picture or animated gif of the definition. The students will repeat the
words after the teachers. The teachers can also bring in some realia to further demonstrate the
sounds (leaves rustling) or a twig (stick snapping) and can also mimic some of the sounds, like
pop and click.

The students will then be given a worksheet, and asked to complete Part A, in which the students
will write the vocabulary word next to its definition. There will be a word bank to help. The
students will work in pairs or in larger groups with each member taking turns writing answers.
The teacher will walk around and help the students complete the worksheet. Once everyone is
finished, the teacher will elicit the answers from the students.
For the next part, the students will learn how to count the number of syllables in words and then
write haikus. The teacher will start by asking the meaning of the word syllable. The teacher will
explain that a syllable is an individual unit of sound in a word, and use some Korean and English
words as examples. To demonstrate, the teacher will say a word and clap out the syllables and
the students will repeat while clapping. On a slide, there will also be some words with the
answers revealed once the students guess the answers. Then, on Part B of the worksheet, there
will be five words with blanks beside them. The students will work with their partners or in
groups to count the number of syllables by clapping and write the number beside the word. The
students and teacher will discuss the answers together.

Next, the teacher and students will write a haiku together to demonstrate how they are made. The
teacher will elicit and topic or a sound, and then everyone will work together and clap out the
syllables to form the haiku. The teacher will write the haiku on the white board and write 5, 7,
and 5 on the lines.

PRACTICE/APPLICATION: (Describe the activities you will use to allow for meaningful
interaction and practice using ALL language skills, the strategies you will use to ensure full
participation by ESOLs, and the techniques you will use to assess their success in the activities.)

Now the students will work in pairs to write their own haikus. On the backside of the worksheet
(Part C), there will be lines for them to write 5 haikus. The teachers will support the students
creatively and with spelling and syllable counting. The students will choose their favorite haiku
and the teacher will check it. The pairs will then take turns coming to the front of class and
presenting their haikus. If there is a lot of time remaining, before presenting the teacher can
give each pair a half sheet of good paper for the students to write their haiku on and decorate.

EXTENSION: (Describe additional follow-up activities you will use with ESOLs to address any
areas that you deem need further explanation or practice to ensure their mastery of the content
and language objectives.)

With more time, the students could do some kind of peer review.

LESSON PLAN REFLECTION #2

What is your overall impression of the lesson? What part of the lesson do you think went well?

What part of the lesson do you wish had gone better?

My overall impression of this lesson was that it was better than our first lesson plan because

there was more student participation and enthusiasm. I felt that the presentation section of our

first lesson was a little flat and the second one was more dynamic. They enjoyed worked together

in groups and pairs to clap out the syllables. I cannot think of a part of the lesson that I’d

change because I taught this six times and it worked well each time.

Were the lesson objectives met by all students by the end of the lesson? How do you know? Did

some students achieve the objectives more fully than others?

There were a few classes when a few of the partners couldn’t finish their haikus, which I don’t

really think is a problem with the lesson. We gave them 10 minutes to write a three-line poem

and we walked around the help with ideas to support them, so I think the framework was in place

for them to succeed.

What kinds of errors were they making? How did you treat those errors? Was your treatment

effective in improving their use of that particular language form?

Much of the errors were attributed to syllable counting errors from blended vowels br, nk, tr, etc.

and from some diagraph vowel sounds like ai. There were other words like game, rain, and

Korea, that also gave the students problems. To solve these errors, I said the word and asked
them to clap out the syllables. These problems were partly because they were saying the words

differently than I. Another strategy was explicitly telling them about common syllable counting

errors by Korean speakers. For example, my name is 2 syllables in English, but 3 in Korean due

to the tr sound which isn’t made in Korean and gets separated into 2 syllables.

What did you hope would take place during the information exchange activity? How did you

decide on this particular activity? Was it interesting for them? Did they use authentic language?

We did not use an information exchange activity for this lesson. It’s possible that the

presentation part of the lesson could be an information exchange because the students are

communicating with one another. A possible area for improvement which would increase the

amount of spoken English used by the students is by having them discuss syllables and their

haikus in English. I think they have the skills to do it.

Was this lesson that you selected easy or difficult for your students? What part of the lesson was

new for them? What part did they already know? How did you attempt to provide them with i+1?

I think this lesson was appropriately challenging because although the students did well with

counting syllables, it seemed like a new concept to them. Also, few of the students had written

haikus before, so they had to learn and apply what they learned to complete their tasks. To apply

i+1, we tried to choose vocabulary words that they’d never heard of before, like sizzle, thud, and

rustle. Also, learning about onomatopoeia will teach them a strategy for guessing the meaning

of some unknown words.

In general, what have been your greatest successes in teaching this group? What do you think

you need to know how to do better?

My greatest success in teaching in this group is knowing that I can successfully plan and teach at

a high school. I had never taught at this level, and I was worried that my experience may not be

transferrable. Another success was that I was able to observe and share feedback to my peers. I

enjoyed this process a lot because I felt I could help them improve their lessons in small ways. I

noticed that a few of my suggestions improved some rough patches in their lessons.

One are of improvement was that I could improve the presentation parts of my lessons. I now

realize how dry they were in the past, and I need to keep looking for new ways to break up the

drilling. Another area that I should improve in is using groups more often. This is something I

rarely did in my elementary school lessons because it often led to problems in classroom

behavior. But, I realize there are a lot of benefits so long as I keep the lesson engaging.
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Diaz-Rico, L. (2013). Strategies for Teaching English Learners (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Pearson.

Graddol, David. 2006. English next: Why global English may mean the end of English as a

foreign language. London: British Council.

Kachru, B. (1986). The alchemy of English: The spread, functions and models of non-native

Englishes. Oxford, England: Pergamon.

McKay, S.L. (2002). Teaching English as an International Language. Oxford, UK: Oxford

University Press.