Rita Soledad Fernandez

Dr. Ingman

Language and Language Development

12 November 2017

Assignment #10 Mini-Lesson Strength and Weaknesses Listening and Speaking Skills

Student Background

Since I am currently on a one-year sabbatical, I had to observe a colleague’s classroom to

complete this assignment. I observed an 8th grade science class with 30 students, ten of which are

currently classified as intermediate or advanced ELD students. Though I am not a science

teacher, I created a lesson plan for a science classroom since I observed the listening and

speaking skills of students within the context of a science lesson.

Listening Strengths

Microskill: Retain chunks of language in short-term memory.

While watching a Bill Nye the Science Guy video, students were expected to answer four

comprehension questions. One of the questions students were expected to answer was “How

does Bill Nye define heat?” When Bill Nye started to discuss heat, most of the class started to

record verbatim on their papers what he said. This demonstrates students’ ability to hear

information and retain it long enough to record it on their paper. I noticed two students struggled

to continue to listen and record their answers and relied on their peers short-term memory to

answer the comprehension questions completely. However, the fact that the majority of the class
was able to take notes without the teacher pausing the video shows that they could retain

information in their short-term memory.

Microskill: Process speech at different rates of delivery.

The science video that students watched during this lesson delivered information in

different formats. Content was sung in a song, presented in a lecture format, embedded in the

dialogue of a play and discussed during a debate. These various formats required speech being

delivered at different rates and students were successfully able to answer the comprehension

questions. I noticed students asked their peers for support when content was presented in play

format, but I suspect it had little to do with the rate of delivery but rather the accents of the

actors.

Mircoskill: Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse. (Sequencing)

As the teacher explained what students needed to accomplish prior to the end of the

period, she used cohesive devices for sequencing. Students were able to follow the directions in

order because they understand what they had to do “first, second, third and finally.”

Listening Weaknesses

Mircoskill: Develop means of retaining information. AND

Mircorskill: From events deduce cause and effects.

Though students could listen and answer comprehension questions that were provided by the

teacher, they struggled to “list three interesting facts” from the video. I suspect that they

struggled to do this because prior to watching the video the teacher reviewed the comprehension

questions that students were expected to answer, and this primed students to look out for specific

information while watching the video. Since the directions to list three interesting facts were in
the back of the paper, students did not think about how they might follow these directions until

the end of the video. This shows that while watching the video students were unable to retain

information that they were not asked directly to think about. As students started to discuss, how

they were going to complete this part of the handout one student said, “A sugar cube melts off a

metal knife faster than a plastic knife.” Students agreed that this was an interesting event that

happened in the movie but failed to identify that this is a fact because metal is a better heat

conductor than plastic. Thus, besides struggling with retaining information all students were

unable to deduce what caused the sugar cube to melt faster off the metal knife.

Microskill: Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations,

participants and goals.

At one point in the lesson, the teacher gave students six minutes to work as a group “to

create two possible questions for tomorrow’s quiz and answer them correctly.” When the six

minutes were up not all students had completed the task. The teacher said, “I am waiting for

everyone to stop talking to give instructions.” She expected students to stop talking immediately

and give her their full attention. However, some groups continued to talk because they thought

she was literally going to wait for the group to finish the task before giving additional

instructions. Though this may be considered a weakness in regard to distinguishing between

literal and implied meaning, the confusion actually had to do with the specific situation and the

goals of the teacher. In the beginning of the period, the teacher had stated “I will wait until all

students have their notebooks out to give instructions” and students quickly took out their

notebooks. However, the former utterance was spoken at the end of the period when she was

trying to wrap up the lesson before dismissing students and she refused to speak without having

the entire class’ attention. Though students understood in the beginning of class, that they were
expected to take out their notebooks quickly as to keep their teacher from waiting they did not

understand that at the end of the class the teacher did not want to wait for students to be quiet and

thought that in this situation they were being provided with additional time to complete the task.

Speaking Strengths

Mircoskill: Use facial features and body language along with verbal language to convey

meaning.

Prior to showing the science video, the teacher asked the class if they were ready.

Students answered in unison “Yes” while simultaneously sitting up straight and turning their

chairs to face the screen. Students signaled through their body language that they were engaged

and ready to move forward with watching the video. When students were expected to work with

their groups to generate quiz questions, students made sure to make eye contact with their peers

and huddled around the one piece of paper that they were going to submit to their teacher.

Student body language communicated to the teacher that they were truly on task.

Microskill: Use cohesive devices. (Addition)

While groups worked together to generate quiz questions, I overheard several students

justifying why they should use specific questions. As they tried to convince their teams, they

would use cohesive devices for addition. Throughout the room you could hear students using the

words “and,” “also,” “too,” “again,” and “furthermore” to convince their peers that their

questions should be used for the group assignment.

Speaking Weaknesses

Microskill: Monitor oral production and use strategic devices (e.g. pauses, fillers, self-

corrections, and backtracking) to enhance the clarity of the message.

As students tried to recall interesting facts from the video, students seemed to frustrate

each other with their oral production. It seemed like every group had one student who would use

fillers that their group did not consider appropriate. The groups with students who used the fillers

“so” or “like” would frustrate their team members. I believe they used these fillers because their

Spanish equivalents are “entonces” or “este” which would be appropriate fillers in Spanish.

However, in English students are expected to use “um” or “mm” when they are collecting their

thoughts.

Rationale for Instructional Decisions

Since the English learners in this class are at the advanced-beginning and intermediate

levels, I decided using the CALLA approach would be best (Diaz-Rico, 2014). I choose to create

a mini-lesson on developing means of retaining information while listening because throughout

this class we have read about the importance of teaching our students learning strategies for both

content and language acquisition.

As I analyzed what could be the reason students struggled to identify interesting facts, I

realized that students were unable to distinguish what information in the video qualified as a fact.

This was a reasonable assessment considering that many of the students have not had the usual

five to seven years to develop their cognitive academic language proficiency. In addition, the

term “fact” has multiple meanings in various contexts. Among their peers, students use the term

“fact” synonymously with “true.” A historical fact is usually an event that has occurred. A

mathematical fact represents a relationship between numbers that is widely accepted. A science
fact is usually a verifiable observation. As described in the PowerPoint Challenges for ELLs in

Content Area Learning, “even simple words that the student may know, could have another

meaning in science” and students were unfamiliar with how to identify science facts.

Mini-lesson

Microskill: Develop means of retaining information

Lesson Objective: Students will be able to demonstrate mastery of recalling science facts by

listing at least two science facts discussed during class.

Content Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.8 Distinguish among facts, reasoned

judgment based on research findings, and speculation in a text.

Learning Strategy: Elaboration of Prior Knowledge – relating new to known information and

making personal connections

Materials: pencils, numbered cards with 12 science facts, 6 math facts, 6 historical facts and 6

statements that are not facts, four classroom corners labeled “Math Facts,” “Science Facts,”

“Historical Facts” and “Not Facts, Making Connections Graphic Organizer for each student

Activities:

1. 2 mins: Teacher will cold call on three different students to read the 1) learning

objective, 2) content standard and 3) learning strategy to the class

2. 2 mins: Students will record on their paper what comes to find when they hear the

word “fact”

3. 3 mins: Students will share what they recorded with their group members using the

Kagan Cooperative Learning Structure Round Robin while teacher circulates assessing

students’ prior knowledge

4. 2 mins: Teacher will validate students’ prior knowledge by sharing how students

currently define the word fact, discuss the various definitions according to different

content areas and introduce the formal definition of fact as it pertains to science

5. 6 mins: Teacher will provide each group with a card for each student. Students will

work with their group members to determine which card represents a science fact, math

fact, historical fact or not a fact. Then students will distribute the cards and stand in the

corner for their type of card.

6. 2 mins: Teacher will display the answer key on the board and students will check that

they are in the right corner and direct students to sit down.

7. 2 mins: Teacher will pass out “Making Connections Handout” and explain to students

that they are going to work on remembering science facts by creating connections to

different science facts. Teacher will remind students that their exit slip will require that

they list three science facts without using any notes.

8. 12 mins: Teacher will call on students with science facts to read them out loud to the

class while displaying the fact for the class to see. Students will fill in their graphic

organizers with science facts that they could make connections for and check off

whether the connection is a text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-work.

9. 3 mins: Students will share with their group in a Round Robin one science fact that

they made a personal connection to.

10. 6 mins: Students will record two science facts that they remember hearing in class on

an index card and submit their card to their teacher. They will also write a sentence

explaining why they could or could not complete the exit slip successfully.
 11. 3 mins: Students engage in a pair-share to discuss whether using the Elaboration of

Prior Knowledge learning strategy helped them retain the science facts they heard in

class. Teacher will cold call on students to share what they discussed with their peers.

Scaffold Activity:

• Activating prior knowledge - instructional activity #2

• Discussing prior knowledge with a peer during Round Robin – instructional activity #3

• Use of graphic organizer – instructional activity #7 and #8

• Use of cooperative learning – instructional activity #3

• Check for understanding – instructional activity #10

• Self-monitoring reflection – instructional activity #11

Assessment: Exit Slip: Students will record two science facts that they remember hearing in

class on an index card and submit their card to their teacher. They will also write a sentence

explaining why they could or could not complete the exit slip successfully.