The Way Back Home – ESL lesson plan – Year 4

I recently gave an ESL lesson in my 9 year old’s Hebrew speaking class. The class have been studying English for almost two years. My aim was to give them a positive experience, integrate some digital tools to enhance the learning outcomes, and lastly to show the teacher that you can do interesting things beyond the textbook. I chose to teach The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers, and decided to use Quizlet for the very first time. The class was equipped with an overhead projector, speakers, an internet connection and a computer. I created the keywords list in English with Hebrew translations and decided to give it a go. The response was so exciting. The pupils liked the flashcards but loved scatter and race and were shouting out the words in English as they appeared in Hebrew on the screen. I typed the answers, to avoid choosing one lucky child, and we played as class a couple of times to beat our previous score. I chose to show the Youtube video of the story rather than the book itself to engage everybody whilst enabling even the pupils at the back of the room to participate. I have since then added a few things to the lesson plan and would like to invite you to collaborate on the lesson plan to make it more interesting. Looking forward to hearing from you and seeing your edits to the google doc provided here.

Collaborative lesson plan ‘The Way Back Home – Oliver Jeffers’

6 thoughts on “The Way Back Home – ESL lesson plan – Year 4

  1. What a fun lesson! I bet the class will be asking you to return again and again! And I KNOW how large these classes are!
    Good work!
    Naomi

  2. Hi Naomi,
    Thanks for your comment. It was a really fun class and I will go back. I didn’t get to the interview questions but I created it as a lesson to give to the teacher to continue with if she wants. I was most excited by the Quizlet part as I had seen what Leo does with this tool but didn’t know how it would work with a whole class.
    Regards,
    Jane

  3. Sounds great. Another amazing book by the Oliver Jeffers is The Day The Crayons Quit – can lead to so many exciting activities – I used it for weeks with my (English speaking) year one class! Love all his books.

  4. Hi Jane,
    This looks like a great lesson plan. This is exactly how I use Quizlet with classes. They get very excited by the space race and everyone shouts out the answers. Depending on group sizes, you could also have teams competing on Scatter, but it sounds like there are big classes so it might not work.
    Apart from that, nothing to add/change!
    Sandy

    1. Hi Sandy,
      Thank you for your comment. Inspired by both you and Leo I got to see the possibility of Quizlet with quite young learners. I will try the scatter race with ESL teachers at next week’s Pre-conference event, attended by Russell Stannard and organised by Leo. It will be interesting to hear Israeli teachers reaction to the lesson plan.
      All the best
      Jane

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