<p> CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 1</p><p>Web-based Lesson Plan for Adult ESL Learners</p><p>Final Project for CEP 816</p><p>Eun-Jin KimHan CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 2</p><p>My instructional dream is to help ESL (English as a Second/Foreign Language) students to regard that learning English as fun and gratifying, not a burden or a hardship. Most of all, I want them to enjoy learning and improving their overall English proficiency. The aims of my teaching are to improve students’ ability to promote their ability to speak English, expand their vocabulary, increase their knowledge of English language culture and customs, and to give them confidence in using English for their needs by utilizing existing web sites in which students can visit to improve their ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words (e.g. video clips) and written sentences. </p><p>The web-based lesson I have designed is for the adult ESL students with high intermediate level writing and reading skills in English. This lesson will focus on making students gain confidence in using the Internet search engines to do research so that they can use online resources easily whenever needs arise. Students will be able to develop their online research skills as well as reading and comprehension skills while searching the Internet to find information on five winter holidays that people around the world celebrate. Students will do research on the history of each holiday and customs related to respective holidays, and find out similarities and differences of the five holidays. Most of all , it will be a practical training to teach adult ESL learners how search engines could help them with their daily work and life as well.</p><p>Adult ESL learners in the intermediate class will research the history, customs, similarities and differences of the five winter holidays, Chanukah, Christmas, Winter</p><p>Solstice (Yule), Boxing Day, and Kwanzaa, which people around the world enjoy.</p><p>Students will be divided into groups of four to five since it is more beneficial for them to do research together in groups because they can help each other and improve their CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 3</p><p> speaking skills at the same time while exchanging their thoughts about the information they gather. It might sound like a simple activity to the native speakers of English, but for adult students in the intermediate ESL classes, it is not an easy task because most of them are not familiar with doing research on the Internet. In addition, reading and comprehending information in English is not easy for them either. Many of the ESL learners who had immigrated into the U.S. as an adult do not have much schooling in their home country, and therefore, lack proper study skills important for academic success. Therefore, the purpose of this lesson is to teach students a step by step process to use Internet search engines in order to find necessary information and summarize the information found for the class assignment. Furthermore, the lesson will be able to teach students how search engines work and to familiarize them with efficient searching strategies for making their life at work easier through the activities of searching for five different winter holidays.</p><p>To complete the class assignment, students will use computers with Internet access. Two sets of teacher-created handouts for lesson activity will be distributed.</p><p>Learners will gain confidence in using the provided Internet search engines to do research on the five winter holidays; learners will gain an appreciation of the history, customs, and similarities/differences of the five winter holidays; learners will practice comparing, contrasting, and reading for details; and learners will practice writing what they learn by doing research on the Internet.</p><p>This Internet search activity can be best used with students who have already completed the curriculum for learning the basics of the Internet. However, if a student is not familiar with the Internet search other group members can help him/her to do research together by utilizing the search engines below: CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 4</p><p> AltaVista: http://www.altavista.com</p><p> Ask.com: http://www.ask.com</p><p> Dogpile: http://dogpile.com</p><p> Excite: http://www.excite.com </p><p> Google: http://www.google.com </p><p> Vivisimo: http://www.vivisimo.com </p><p> Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com </p><p>For those who are not very fluent in reading English and in searching information online using key words, I will suggest several websites they can visit as follows:</p><p> Kaboose: http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/</p><p> Yahooligans: http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/Around_the_World/Holidays/</p><p> World Book : http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Search?st1=holiday&go=go</p><p> Holiday Zone: http://www.theholidayzone.com/links.html</p><p> US Dept.of State: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/factover/holidays.htm</p><p>After informing the basics of surfing the Internet to students at the beginning of the lesson, I will talk about the basics of the Internet search engines and introduce the above 7 popular search engines to students. The lesson will focus on how to choose relevant information to answer to the questions in the handouts. The second part of the lesson is a practice in summarizing the information students found. And then, students will be divided into a group of four to five. I will ask students to talk about what they know about the five winter holidays before they start their search, distribute the handout of questions and goes over them, spending time to explain the differences between </p><p>‘compare’ and ‘contrast’. Students will be provided with a space for writing down notes CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 5</p><p> and important information they may want to include in their findings and writing. Each group will log on to the Internet and starts searching for five winter holidays by utilizing</p><p>2 to 3 search engines out of 7 search engines. As they are surfing and choosing for appropriate information, it will be interesting for me to wander around behind them to see if there is any method they are using to choose sources. After answering the questions in the handouts, students share their answers at the end of the session with other group members. Students put together the information they have gathered into a poster that includes pictures and reports about what they learned about the winter holidays. I will make certain that each learner participates. Last, I will have each group presents their findings in class as well.</p><p>Completion of the handout questions and participation in the group discussion will be the measures of success. Therefore, the final product, a poster, should contain answers to every question in complete, descriptive sentences with appropriate grammatical usage (e.g. punctuation and capitalization), pictures (either from the internet sites or drawn.) that can represent each holiday well. The presentation will be assessed by the class using the evaluation form. To guide each group’s work on the research project and to inform the teacher’s expectations, students will be given scoring rubrics for evaluation of their participation and the quality of the final product—a poster. I will explain the scoring rubric descriptors to students so that everybody is clear on the requirements of the research project. The scoring rubric (see the handout section) is divided into fore sections: Content and Mechanics of Written Report, Oral </p><p>Presentation, Appearance of Poster, and Participation. Each section has a total of four possible points, so each group can have a maximum of 16 points. CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 6</p><p>As for the presentation using a poster, I will have students visit several websites as follows:</p><p> Successful Presentations:http://www.catalysis.nl/links/presentations/index.php</p><p> Poster Presentations:http://www.abdn.ac.uk/physics/guide/postadv.html</p><p> Poster Styles:http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/research/vt/posterstyle.html</p><p>After reading how to produce poster presentations, students will discuss how to present their findings effectively on their poster. Students will be able to increase their vocabulary on the topic and learn some language patterns to be used in oral and written discourse on the topic while getting their information ready for poster presentation. </p><p>Students will talk about their research results in class. This activity will provide them a valuable chance to observe others’ performance as well as practice their speech in </p><p>English in front of others. It will reinforce their learning process since the students will also have time to prepare for the performance with their group members. Having students take notes during the presentation will a good listening exercise as well.</p><p>Each learner’s mission is to become familiar and comfortable with the World </p><p>Wide Web and to be able to effectively present their search results as a group in class while utilizing their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in English. During the class activities students will learn the basics of using the internet, learn how to use search engines, and learn how to create oral and poster presentations.</p><p>In order to ensure the success of the lesson, I will structure the lessons by orchestrating the sequence of activities, making use of handouts, guiding the activities, and offering some linguistic explanations. I will make sure that all students to be involved in whole class/group discussions, individual note taking, doing individual and group research, collaborative writing to create a poster, and oral and poster presentation. CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 7</p><p>This web-based lesson is connected with several themes that we discussed in class. The first theme “Why Easy May be Good” is incorporated in the lesson. Adult </p><p>ESL learners who are not familiar with the Internet searching might have some kind of misconception that finding information on the Internet would be very difficult for them do conduct. However, after following the step-by-step instruction in doing research in class and surfing the Net by themselves, they will find that it is not very difficult for them to find information on the Internet. Second theme, “Utilizing Hypertext and </p><p>Hypermedia”, is embedded in the lesson too. When students are doing research on the winter holidays, they should follow new and different links. Reading hypertext will be an integrated and dynamic process for students since they need to relate their existing knowledge on the subjects with new information they found on the Internet in order to choose more appropriate and relevant information. The ESL students will be able to hone their skills in English and develop literacy skills through using Internet hypertext documents and their production of written presentation (a poster).The third theme, </p><p>“Making Teaching Real” is also connected with the lesson I designed. I believe that utilizing web sites to find information and creating oral and poster presentation after the search would be an effective way of practicing skills in English for ESL learners. In a word, utilizing authentic materials on the Internet can surely promote language learners’ linguistic skills: As ESL students carry out the Internet search activity, they become actively engaged in the linguistic tasks of reading English, developing vocabulary, and interpreting language structures used in the Internet reading materials. I also think that cultural content is a key to effective teaching and learning a language. Thus, ESL teachers who have students from different cultures should acknowledge the each student’s culture and utilize an understanding of the cultures in a way that helps CEP 816 (Web-based Lesson Plan) 8</p><p> improve students' overall learning. In that respect, I can say that searching for the holidays people around the world celebrate is beneficial for students’ language learning as well. Most of all, I believe that the integration of authentic materials in the World </p><p>Wide Web into instruction, particularly when used as an instructional tool, can empower</p><p>ESL adult learners since it would have students to take more responsibility for their own learning as well, thus creating a powerful learning environment. </p>