Topic: Community needs and wants.
Content: This topic deals with the various jobs done by different people in the community at various levels to earn a living. People have unlimited wants and needs that can only be satisfied by obtaining the necessary resources, income being the most important resource. Many jobs are done by people, however, the guiding intentions or their objectives all-narrow down to one i.e. satisfaction or provision for the basic human needs and wants.
Learning outcomes
First, the students should be able to identify the various means used by the community around them to meet their daily wants and needs. Second, they should be in a position to explain what human rights are to the basic needs and wants and what the violation of these rights entails. Third, they should be able to realize their role in the communities they belong to. They should also establish the basis for responsible behavior in the community and the consequences that come with irresponsible behavior. Finally, they should be in a position to list the various methods that are used in saving energy, especially the non-renewable and ways of tapping renewable energy (Teacher created resources Inc., 2010).
Objectives
The students are expected to gain knowledge of the services provided by the community and the jobs done by different people to enable them to meet their daily wants and needs. They should also learn how to obtain information by carrying out interviews and doing research. The other objective of this lesson is to enable the students to develop an awareness of the human rights and values concerning their wants and needs as well as appreciate their contribution to society in general. Finally, they should be in a position to present their research findings through the use of charts, simple graphs, and profiles.
Materials needed
The materials that will be used in this lesson include teacher’s notes, social study textbooks, charts, and wall hangings with pictures of people in their various occupations, writing materials for the students, and crayons for drawing the illustrations.
Procedure or method of instruction
First, the instructor will explain the concepts of the topic using his class notes. After that, interactive learning should take place, which involves allowing the students to take part in the learning process by answering oral questions, discussing the topic in groups, and brainstorming, where they will be expected, to ask a random question and come up with the answers (Koopman, 1996). Here, the teacher’s role is to maintain order and ensure that they come up with correct answers and explanations.
They should come up with a list of ways that can be used to obtain work information from the community. It is in preparation for the practical part of the lesson, which will require them to go out to the community, obtain any relevant information, and draw conclusions from it.
Various illustrations will also be used to ensure that the students can relate the topic to their daily lives. The best example to be used in this case is that of “Denise the carpenter woman and who runs her carpentry business. It earns her very good income despite the criticism she faces from the community that believes carpentry is a job reserved for men. It is, however, what pays her bills and educates her children” (Teacher created resources Inc., 2010). From such an illustration, the students are expected to learn the importance of being true to oneself when looking for a job as well as gender issues that need to be eliminated to ensure that everyone is at liberty to do whatever work pleases them as long as it is decent.
The teacher should divide the students into various groups, each representing different occupations. They should then discuss their occupations listing the gender challenges experienced in the field, the advantages of the people in that occupation together with their disadvantages. They should go as far as interviewing a person working in that field, though these people should be availed to the students by the teacher. The questions and the answers should be recorded in charts, which will enable the students to develop the profiles of these people.
Evaluation or assessment
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to present the ideas they have developed in the course of the lesson that is relevant to the topic. They should share the experiences they come across in their communities of different people in different occupations. They should then relate these to the evidence that they have obtained from the fieldwork and come up with conclusions on issues such as the most common jobs, gender balance in different occupations, and the different experiences in these occupations. This report should include the challenges, benefits, and future occupational developments.
The teacher should leave behind written assignments to be assessed before the next class. It should be an individual assignment whose aim will be to assess individual students in the subject area. To prevent dubbing cases, the assignment should mainly be on the application of the subject, where each student will be expected to come up with their unique ideas. From this, the teacher will be able to determine the capacity of each student and come up with ways of assisting the slow learners to catch up with the rest of the class, which could be offering them, extra tuition classes.
The teacher should also encourage the students to keep journals, which should be updated daily or at the beginning of every lesson (Mowrer & Klein, 2000). It should contain information on the knowledge acquired during the lesson and its practicability to real life situations. It should enable the teacher to know the part of the lesson that troubles most of the students and hence arrange to repeat it. It will also ensure that all the students get the opportunity to explain their problems since some students are usually too shy to express themselves verbally.
The program is used in lesson development
The program that will be used in this lesson is the sheltered instruction method. In this, English is used as the main language of communication though native language can be used occasionally to make clarifications. Different strategies and techniques are used to ensure that the content of the lesson is comprehensible to second-grade students who are English language learners, hence promoting the development of English as the learning language in class (Koopman, 1996). It is the best program for this level of education since the children are learning many basic ideas that will be useful to them throughout their school life.
At that point, it is much easier for them to adopt English as not only a language for learning but also for communication both in school and at home. As a result, the students develop fluency in English at an early age, and they do away with their native languages along the way. It is important because it promotes effective communication in the school and ensures that all the students are at the same level of language development.
Grade two students are in the intermediate level of language development since they have already developed their speech. They are at the stage that determines the language that they will adopt and use in the course of their lives, and this explains why sheltered instruction is the best program. “They belong to the category of SOLOM 17 – 20, which is a classification of the language development stages in children. The first category is SODOM 5, and at this stage, language is not given much consideration” (Mowrer & Klein, 2000). At the intermediate stage, however, English is introduced as the only language for learning, though native language is also used sparingly to explain a few concepts and to enhance understanding, even though this is not encouraged.
Learning theories
This lesson plan has been developed based on several theories. The first one is discovery learning theory. This theory states that learners should be given the room to discover ideas and facts by themselves (Koopman, 1996). It is also referred to as constructivism. This learning theory envisages a scenario where students are allowed to interact with their environments and learn new concepts and ideas from this interaction. This interaction enhances their understanding more when compared to the instructional method, where the students are expected to remember the teacher’s instructions. The reason why this theory is relevant to the studying of the community’s needs and wants is that a proper understanding of this topic requires an interaction with the community and not just the normal textbook information.
The main advantages of this theory in learning social studies are that first, it encourages the students to participate actively in the learning process. It makes the teacher’s work much simpler since he is only required to provide the necessary instructions and ensure that they are adhered to (Mowrer & Klein, 2000). The second advantage is that it motivates the students to develop research skills at an early age.
Next, it promotes independence and responsibility in the learning process. Besides that, it promotes the development of their creativity and problem-solving capacity. Finally, it gives them a learning experience that will last for ages since they will always remember the interactive part of the lesson.
The second theory is the Multiple intelligence theory which provides seven different approaches to the learning process. The first one is the linguistic approach, which refers to the use of language in either written or spoken form. The second one is the logical approach, which triggers the reasoning capacity by providing the students with complex problems, which they are supposed to come up with solutions.
The third approach is visual, which provides the students with scenarios that need to be visualized mentally for appropriate conclusions to be drawn. Forth is the body – kinesthetic approach, which involves mental control about physical movements (Mowrer & Klein, 2000).
The fifth approach deals with the ability to understand music, rhythms, and tones, while, the sixth one focuses on the ability to build up relationships with the people around, referred to as interpersonal. The seventh and final approach is referred to as intrapersonal, and this deals with the ability to develop knowledge of one’s inner self in terms of emotions, abilities, and personal reflection. The approaches, however, that are most applicable in the learning of social studies are the linguistic, logical, visual, and interpersonal approaches. These enable the student’s interaction with the community when they are collecting the information that they need to develop their reports.
Factors affecting Second Language Acquisition
The process of acquiring a second language is usually a little bit complicated and its failure or success depends on different factors which include “motivation, age, language access, personality, development of the first language, the quality of the instructions and the cognitive ability” (Teacher created resources inc., 2010). Motivation is the self-drive in the students to develop a new language. From the lesson plan, interactive learning motivates the students to develop the urge of taking part in the activities, and the only way this can be possible is by learning the language that is being used. The students, in this case, are still young enough to adapt to a new language and develop it in terms of vocabulary and language structure.
Access to the language is another factor that affects the acquisition of a second language. In this lesson, the teacher gives instructions using the English language, and this ensures that the students have an access to the language hence increasing their English learning ability.
The other factor, which is personality, is more inclined to the person’s character than in their experience. Some people have a higher ability to adopt new languages than others do and so this one cannot be influenced by any of the activities in the classroom. Next is the level of development of the first language. In this lesson, the second-grade students are aged between six and seven years old, and so, they have not yet developed their first language completely. It is, therefore, easier for them to adapt to the second language compared to the older students who have developed fluency in their first languages (Koopman, 1996).
The quality of the instructions is also considered an important factor in language development since the students, especially at an early age mostly depend on instructions to earn new concepts. The final factor is cognitive ability, which is the ability to recognize ideas. The cognitive ability as well varies from one person to another and cannot be obtained through learning or education. The lesson plan, however, has a provision for extra classes to assist the slow students to catch up with the others.
English is a common language used in schools to provide instructions, and so it is important to ensure that the students master it further as they progress with their education. It reaches a point where the native language is no longer used and that is why the teachers in the lower grades should ensure that the students develop a fluent language (Teacher created resources Inc., 2010). Illustration, experiments, and practical are an important part of the learning process since this is what most students use to remember the concepts that were taught in class.
Research shows that the students who have a problem with language development obtain low grades in all the other subjects since they are never able to explain their ideas in the examination. It leads to the development of a poor attitude towards school. It is, therefore, necessary for the teachers at the lower levels of education to concentrate more on language development even as they teach different subjects since that is the basis of the child’s future education prospects.
Reference List
Koopman, G. R. (1996). Curriculum Development. New York: Center for Applied Research in Education.
Mowrer, R. R., & Klein, S. B. (2000). Handbook of Contemporary Learning Theories. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Teacher Created Resources, Inc. (2006). Lesson Plan Book. Westminster, CA: Teacher Created Resources.