Karen L. Fowdy-ACTFL Teacher of the Year submission
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Supporting materials for classroom video segment Unit: Märchen (Fairy Tales) Lesson Plan Level: German 4
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: The curriculum for the Advanced German class is organized by thematic units based on the process outlined in Standards for Learning World Languages. 1 In each thematic unit, the “5 C’s” of the Standards are included. Performance tasks in each of the three modes of communication describe what the students will be able to do by the end of the unit. Culture is the starting point of this unit, as the stories, which were gathered by the Grimm Brothers from the oral history of central Germany, have been shared with the world. The grammar, vocabulary, and language functions taught in this unit are determined by what the students will need to know to be successful in the performance tasks. (See file in this folder:“Thematic Unit with IPA’s”. The performance tasks in the three modes of communication are outlined in the spaces at the top of the template.) The activities of this daily lesson plan provide practice to prepare for success in the Interpersonal Performance Task (asking and answering questions, narration, and expressing opinions) and the Interpretive Performance Task (reading a lesser known fairy tale and answering questions to demonstrate comprehension) (See file “Guide to Lesson Planning” for practice activities that precede or follow this day’s plan.) Interpersonal Performance Task: Students will discuss their favorite fairy tales in small groups, including details about the characters, the plot, and the lessons taught in the fairy tale. Interpretive Performance Task: Read a lesser-known fairy tale and demonstrate comprehension by answering questions. This daily lesson takes place at the end of the second week of instruction in this unit. Instruction and student learning previous to this daily lesson: listening to two different fairy tales (read from large illustrated book by teacher to group)listening to the story told by the teacher and acted out by student volunteers with finger puppets. small group reading of a fairy tale employing reading strategies reviewed in prereading task independent reading of at least five fairy tales in interactive texts and comprehension quizzes in various formats on the internet various songs based on fairy tales, including a children’s song and game based on “Sleeping Beauty,” the opera Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck, and a rock song by Die Toten Hosen based on “The Frog Prince” grammar instruction and practice focused on the use of the narrative past tense Note: This previous learning has provided the cultural context and practice for the Interpretive Performance Task.
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Planning curriculum for Learning World Languages, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Madison, Wisconsin, July 2002.
Karen L. Fowdy-ACTFL Teacher of the Year submission
Page 2 of 2
Supporting materials for classroom video segment
SPIRALING AND TRANSFER OF LEARNING : Students spiral prior learning from themes of family, household chores, describing people, German history and geography, weather, and leisure activities. The functions, vocabulary, and grammar transfer to other themes and topics. Examples include narration in simple past tense, noun cases, the subjunctive mode, and question formulation, adjectives that describe people and places, adjective agreement, and weather. Lesson Plan: Activity 1) Warm up: Students review “Language Ladder” 2 phrases from previous week related to fairy tale theme. Partner work: short dialogue using phrases and expressions. Sample (Language ladder phrases provide colloquial and idiomatic expressions for Interpersonal Performance Task) Activity 2) Setting the stage: Recall and brief discussion of fairy tales students have heard or read in groups or on an interactive website. (Class participation: Short recall answers provide an opportunity for ALL students to volunteer) Activity 3) Partner reading activity. Pairs of students receive envelopes with pictures that show the fairy tale “Snow White” and sentences that tell the story (related to the pictures) cut into strips. Students work together to put sentences in logical order matched to pictures. Check with sentence strips on Overhead projector. Volunteers come to projector to put strips in order. Partners check their own work. (Practice for Interpretive PA) Activity 4) Students put sentences away and begin to tell fairy tale in their own words with their partners using picture clues 1-4. Check as volunteers share with class. (Practice for Interpersonal PA) Activity 5) Homework: Students write a portion of the story (short paragraph) in their own words. Partner A writes the story for pictures 5-8, Partner B for pictures 9-12. Share with partner on next day.
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“Language Ladder” technique introduced by Dr. Constance Knop, University of Wisconsin Madison (