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This lesson plan is intended for a high-level integrated skills course for foreign students. I based it on the curriculum of a cultural content course for ESL learners at the American Language Institute at San Francisco State University.

play in verbal and non-verbal communication, and in familial and personal relationships”

Classroom activities incorporate all four skill areas: Readings, class discussions and oral presentations, vocabulary notebooks, and journal entries.

· Family values articles and discussions comparing family values of different cultures.

· Personal relationships: reading articles on friend relationships in America and considering love relationships through discussing a fictional story: “Alligator River”.

· Students compose questions they would like to ask Americans but were afraid to.

· American guest speakers (native English speakers) come to the class to discuss relationships with the students.

· Students write a reaction journal entry to the relationships panel discussion, describing what surprised them, what they liked and what they would still like to know about Americans.

· Students develop a survey based on what they would still like to know and seek out Americans to ask more questions, then present their findings to the class.

Students will discover and reflect on the underlying cultural values in familial and personal relationships.
Students will learn about Americans’ opinions about their relationships with others.
Students will practice using English in classroom discussions.
Students will practice English with native speakers.
Students will practice reading in English.
Students will practice writing fluency by writing journal entries.

Rationale: The class discussions and the panel discussions will be conducted on Daedalus Interchange, a local area network program designed for collaborative writing that has a chat room feature in which students can communicate in real-time via the computer in groups or as a whole class. Egbert et al. outline 8 conditions for an optimal language learning environment in which they believe teachers should take into account when designing classroom learning, especially when deciding to integrate technology into the classroom. Traditionally, the unit I have described above has been conducted with face-to-face classroom discussions and a face-to-face panel discussion. I felt the use of a synchronous computer mediated communication (SCMC) tool would benefit this unit for several reasons. I will outline these reasons within the framework of Egbert et al.’s 8 conditions for optimal language learning.

1. Learners have opportunities to interact and negotiate meaning. Several studies have shown that SCMC offers great opportunity for negotiation of meaning. (Pelletieri in Meloni, Kelm).

2. Learners interact in the target language with an authentic audience. The students will have an opportunity to interact with native speakers during the discussion panel. Also, I have designed the in-class discussion tasks so that students are discussion personal opinions and information so that they become an authentic audience to each other.

3. Learners are involved in authentic tasks. Asking Americans about American culture is a very authentic task for foreign students. They are interested in learning about American culture, as well as about the cultures of their peers.

4. Learners are exposed to and encouraged to produce varied and creative language. SCMC suits an integrated skills course very well. It takes advantage of the reading, writing, and speaking aspects of the medium. The exposure to the language is also varied. The readings come from various sources: textbooks, books, and articles. “Alligator River” is an oral story about love relationships. The students also get a chance to interact with each other, the teacher, and outside guest speakers.

5. Learners have enough time and feedback. The teacher has a great opportunity to offer feedback to class discussions on Daedalus Interchange that have been saved. The instructor can make comments on transcripts about content and form if a grammar objective is warranted.

6. Learners are guided to attend mindfully to the learning process. Journal entries offer a perfect opportunity for mindful learning. In SCMC discussion, students can review saved classroom discussions and reflect on what was discussed as well as look at their own language use. These transcripts are also useful because the activities that precede the panel interview are to get students brainstorming about questions to ask, so it is useful to have a transcript of those discussions.

7. Learners work in an atmosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level. Using Daedalus Interchange for the panel discussion lifts unnecessary stress caused by a sensitive and emotionally charged topic. Students want to ask personal questions, but are embarrassed to do so. Also, participation from shy students will increase when debilitating stress is lifted by anonymity in the CMC environment.

8. Learner autonomy is supported. The follow up activities of this unit encourage students to go out and seek more information from American native speakers. Also, the reflective focus of the discussion to look into the underlying values behind American’s actions will help them to have a strategy for applying knowledge to situation in American culture that they do not fully understand.

Performance Objectives and Expected outcomes:

· Students will improve their communicative skills by practicing in classroom discussions and in the panel discussions

· Students will improve reading fluency by practicing reading several articles and chapters.

· Students will gain a better insight into the values behind the actions of Americans in their relationships with others

· Students will use the panel discussion to ask the questions they never dared to but always wanted to.

· Students will be able to log in, communicate, save and print out discussions, and exit the Daedalus Interchange program.

(this is technically optional, but it is very difficult to demonstrate how to use the technology with out it.)

If Daedalus Interchange or networked computers are unavailable, the discussions can be conducted in chat rooms over the Internet.

Students have been instructed how to used the Interchange program for class discussions. They know how to log on, to join groups, and to send messages.

· Students have read several articles about American families, personal relationships, and have analyzed case scenarios on inter-racial relationships and intercultural roommate situations. This particular part follows a reading about American family values.

All of this preparation leads up to developing questions and interviewing a panel of native speakers about family and personal relationships.

After students have read the articles on family values and have gone over comprehension and vocabulary activities together or as homework, they will discuss the topic of the readings. At the beginning of class, review the procedure for logging on to Daedalus Interchange. Give the following directions on the board or on an overhead screen:

2. Join your group (Instructor can have put students into groups on the board or students may have pre-set groups throughout the unit.)

3. Choose roles. One person will be a coordinator ( making sure to include all group members, keeping the group on task) and one person will be the reporter ( this student will summarize what the group discussed to the class)

4. Follow the directions on the assignment posted in Daedalus Interchange: (Teachers can post assignments in the program by cutting and pasting from a rich text format document. This is optional. The instructor may find it easier to post the discussion questions on the board or on an overhead.)

Read the following common family problems in the U.S. and then answer the questions that follow for each. (As an option to save time, each group can focus on one situation each)

4.The grown children of very ill parents feel that they have to move their parents into a nursing home. The parents refuse to cooperate.

1. Find out how your group’s families would deal with these problems, and if that is typical of their culture.

Brainstorm together how you think American families might react to these situations based on the family values you read about.

I wrote these questions based on Swain’s assertions that meaningful tasks and information gaps(discussing their own culture) encourage negotiation of meaning. The second question was formed keeping in mind that coming to a consensus is difficult in on-line communication, so no final, majority decision is required.

Instruct students to begin and make sure everyone is logged on. The Instructor can monitor the group discussions by opening several windows at once, or by circulating the room and reading over students’ shoulders. Allow students time to socialize and get comfortable in their groups. After groups have had time to discuss the questions in their groups, have the reporters summarize for the class what they discussed along with any interesting points that came up.

Have students save, print or e-mail themselves a copy of their discussions. These discussions will be reviewed before the panel discussion in order to compose questions to ask the native speakers.

This procedure can be repeated several times with all the class discussions or mixed with face-to-face discussions for variety.

Two or three days before the panel discussion, have the students review their in-class discussions and brainstorm what they know about American relationships and what they would like to know more about. As homework, have the students write out several questions they would like to ask native speakers. This preparation is very important so that students have thoughtful questions prepared and it also gives the teacher a chance to screen inappropriate questions.

Before the day of the discussion, explain what a panel is and build some schema for the discussion. Explain that they will be using Daedalus Interchange with fake names so that they can feel free to ask whatever they want. They will have their collective list of questions on a handout during the discussion, to help foster participation.

The day of the relationships panel, introduce the guest speakers ( so that students see that the guest speakers are in fact Americans) and have them log on. They may wish to use fake names as well. Put students into groups around one computer with one member typing so that the guest speakers are not bombarded with too many questions at once. Have students log on to Daedalus with one name for their group. Instruct students to address the speakers specifically so that only one is answering at a time. This topic is very motivating and interesting for foreign students, and with the added safety in anonymity, the discussion should carry itself from there. Make sure you have ample time to have a panel discussion: at least 1 ½ hours.

Practical considerations:

Give a copy of the list to the guest speakers as well so that they are prepared for the types of questions the students will be asking.
Let guests know that they can decline to answer any questions they wish
Instruct the guest speakers how to use Daedalus Interchange
Have a plan of action in case questions get too risqué or inappropriate in some way.
(See other practical considerations and potential problems I discuss in my report ( link))

This unit has been taught so far with only face-to-face discussions, so it is the contingency plan if any technology fails during the lesson. Luckily when planning discussions on-line using a local area network, everyone is present and students can quickly move their groups away from the computers and continue their discussions orally.

Sources

Egbert, J.and Hanson-Smith, E.(1999). In Egbert and Hanson-Smith (Eds.) Call Environments: Research, Practice, and Critical Issues. (17-26). Virginia: TESOL

Daedalus Inc. (1989). Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment [computer program] Austin, TX: Daedalus Group. http://www.daedalus.com/tech/docs.html

McCann, N. ( 2000) American Cultural Perspectives San Francisco, American Language Institute at San Francisco State University.

Shumin, K. (1997). Factors to consider: Developing Adult EFL Student’s Speaking Abilities. English Teaching Forum 8-13

Developing Communicative Competence through Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication

Performance Objectives and Expected outcomes:

Practical considerations:

Sources