Unit Plan for English learners - Essay Example

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UNIT PLAN FOR SOCIAL STUDIES College social studies Grade: sixth grade areas: politics Time required: 36 hours Unit goals: By the end of this unit the student should be able to do or know the following Define and understand what politics is and how it affects them Be able to know the different people who influence the political life of a country Be able to understand the different roles of politics in a country and to the general world population Determine their role in the society and the political responsibility and how they can influence the political life of a country Be able to differentiate good and bad politics Be able to learn how to tell and vote for good larders How good political leaders have an influence on the life of the people in a community The learner should also be able to write and debate about the different political issues that are affecting people in the world today Be able to understand certain political philosophies and philosophers and to be able to tell which of the philosophies are right and which are wrong Be able to learn how to be good political leaders in case that one day become political leaders and too know how to relate with people. Be able to deal with political issue and to understand how to protect oneself from any political issue The learner should be able to get some English concepts while learning social studies in class Introduce the use of computers in the teaching of social studies Unit objectives By the end of this course the learner should be able to 1. Identify the different types of politics in a given country and to give different countries in the world that use different forms of politics. 2. Identify the different methodologies that can be used to collect data relating to politics and how this can be improved. 3. Identify the different people in the world who have contributed positively and those who have contributed negatively to politics in the world 4. Be able to identify the different themes in journals that they get in class and to explain how each relate with the different politics and how it can be changed 5. Provide a good summary of the things that is learnt in class and how to implement it 6. Be able to present a well written essay about the political scene of the country in good grammar with no grammatical error. 7. Be able to differentiate the different types of citizenship and the roles of international boundaries to the development of the economy of the people in the world as a whole. Fitting the unit to the goals of the subject The main goal of this subject is to teach student to learn how to become responsible people for their country and to know how to make important decisions that pertains to the development of the country. The subject also has the goal of making the learner know how his actions as an individual can affect the whole republic. Apart from the political sides, the learner is also supposed to learn some Basic English concepts. Writing is one of the English concepts that the learner is supposed to grasp from the experience of this writing. Apart from the writing skills the learner should also be able to equip themselves with necessary skills in research work such as the methodology that is to be used in a particular field of study. All these are fulfilled by the study of this unit. First the objectives of the study ensures that the learner fully understand the political responsibility that he has to fulfill to the nation and what his role to the politics of a nation is. The unit also entails some small research that involves use of different methodologies to find out more about the research thesis. By this the unit is able to achieve one of its major goals which are to enhance the learner to be able to identify the different methodologies that are used in a particular subject. Writing skills is also a goal that is achieved as the learner is able to get some writing skills from the unit. Student characteristics Most of the learners in this class have English as their first language and so they don’t find it hard to ask or answer questions in this class. Because of this they make the learning simpler as the teacher has less time to explain words to them. The students are sixth grade and so most of them are beginning to be responsible and can be able to take more work home for practice. However some students are stubborn and it is a very common scenario to find that some student doest want to do his homework. This is always treated as a special case and the student closely interviewed. The students have the will to learn and this can be seen from the questions that they ask in class and from the different opinions that they come up with regarding the political opinions that they have been exposed to. However some of them are weak but this does not discourage them rather they try to cover up for this by concentrating more. However different students are in the class and so it should not be confused that they have the same level of understanding rather they sometimes show different characteristics to education. Concepts used in the class about politics There are various political concepts that have been applied in this class. One of the main concepts is the general government structure, its role and all the necessary ways in which a government is run. The student gets the concept that politics is the core concept in the running of a nation and that no nation can run smoothly without a good political leadership. The concepts of good citizenship are also used to bring out the political responsibility of the students and how they can become better citizens in the future. When teaching this the teacher should be general and avoid using personal information or try to give their opinions to the various political parties and groups. The students too should keep their political preference to themselves since this can lead to a big debate that can never end. Background information to the unit This unit is based on the basic questions of many students about the functionality of the political leaders and why leaders seem to be more important than any other person in the society and why the president is treated more special. To answer these questions and to help create more responsible citizens, the unit has the above objectives which it makes possible to realize by their implementation. The unit is long and the only way to completely cover it is by attending all the classes. However this is not a chance for the teacher to raise their political opinions to the class and cause a lot of discussions which are not expected here (Burlamaqui, 1972). Relating the goals to the curriculum This unit provides a baseline for most learners to be able to get more concepts regarding the syllabus and to be able to continue the study in the future. The curriculum is broad and so its first part is covered here in this unit. Different goals are related to the curriculum in different ways. However it is important that as the curriculum is being realized then the goals too are realized. This creates a win situation. How to improve the illiteracy development of learners There are lots of ways to improve the bilatracy development of learners. Some of this includes the assessment that is given to the learners as well as the getting the learner to be more and more involved in the learning process. Below are some ways that are discussed in this essay. Getting the learner to be involved in the study There are a number of ways to get the learner to be more into the area of study. One such way is to ask the learner questions and to also get responses from him concerning the questions that you ask them. No matter how bad their answer is always try to encourage them but never discourage them. You should also allow them to ask questions that relates to the unit that is being studied. When this happens, then the learner is able to get what he dint get right. The learner should also be given chance to add to the topics that has been studied. When this happens, then they are able to express their understanding of the topic (Burlamaqui, 1972). Surveys The teacher is supposed to survey the whole class and see how much they are moving on. By doing this he is able to remove personal weaknesses where one student is unable to understand basic concept. The spelling mistakes should also be looked into to know if the student has any grammatical error and if this can affect the overall performances. The individual homework performance should also be checked to know if it is able to affect the student performances and how to improve their homework. Assessment The students are to be divided into groups then each group is to assed based on the work that they have done so as to know how they are moving on. This assessment can be done in form of simple short questions that are to be read and understood. If any mistakes are seen in a particular group then it is to be corrected and then given beck the overall marks back. Remember ranking should not be involved here. Widening understanding of concepts The teacher is to insist the social studies learners to fully understand the roles of the politicians in a country and to appreciate their work towards the development of a country a and what should be done to help them in their work and line of duty. For instance, the teacher may ask the learners to look for synonyms and antonyms of various words they have learnt in the classroom (Burlamaqui, 1972). The teacher should also ask the students to state the roles and the different words that can be used to replace the word government. By so doing the students will do more research and come up with ways in which they can help improve the political scene of their country. Assimilation Here the teacher is to ask students to crate different forms of the government and how the government branches can be divided into groups and how they should master the different arms of the government and how to relate it to the everyday life. The student is to also find the relationship between the gorvernment and politics Strategies to assessing the students Both the summative and the formatives angles of assessment will be used here. It is important to know that for the full realization o the objectives of this course, the two assessments must be done and under no circumstance should one be left out. This is because all of them are important to the study and help in the building of the objectives of the unit. Formative assessment This type of assessment involves the teacher doing the assessment during class hours. The teacher does this by asking questions and noting down the students who have weaknesses at any point of the study. The teacher also takes notes on the relevance of the questions that the students ask in class and how this can be implemented in class. This type of assessment is very useful since the teacher has the time to change the student and can do that anytime during the teaching process. The assessment can be in form of small questions that are to written in exercise books and which the learner is to Summative assessment In this type of assessment, the teacher gives the assessment after the unit is over. This can be in form of exams. This is used to rate how well the learner was able to grasp from the learning of the unit and how much he can be able to recall. This can be done as a sit in exam or a practical exam where all the skills are tested including the writing skills as well as the reading skills. In case a student is not able to pass the summative assessment, then this means that he was unable to fulfill the objectives of the unit and so is expected to repeat the unit and this time they have to be serious. A student who passes the summative assessment is to proceed to the next level of the unit where they are able to expand more on the unit (Wiles, 1988). Preparations Have the students to watch news a lot and to ask their parents about the leadership structure of the country. They should also be able to know why leaders are important in a country and be able to know some of the country’s top leaders. Magazines should also be read by the students. Parents should also be informed to help create a crave for politics in the minds of these students by telling them more about the history of the country and how politics has changed in the past. If the parent is not well conversant with this then the teacher should find a way to make the student want to learn more about the policies of the country (Wiles, 1988). Activities All these activities are to be done in class but some of the activities involves going outside to read magazines and to watch the news on any relevant topic that might be of interest to the topic of discussion. However, the magazines and the television set can be brought in class so t hat the news is watched in class and the student records the different themes that they get from the study. The main objective of the activities is to identify the roles of politics in our lives and to be able to know how politics surrounds us and how this can be improved in the future. The activities that are done here should also be able to equip the learner with good grammatical writing skills that enables them to be able to write good grammatically correct English that can be used in essays and other academic works in the future. Implementation For this plan to be successful, a lot has to be done. The first thing that has to be kept here is time. The teachers need to be time conscious as this will lead to them being able to finish the work on time and be able to finish the syllabus on time. In case the time is not kept then the objectives will not be fully met within this time. The other thing that needs to be done is the assessment of the students in class and after the completion of the unit. All these are important and it requires the teacher to be serious and to try and follow the guidelines correctly so that they don’t end up assessing the wrong way. For implementation, the students also need to be kept in the mood to want to know more and this can be done by involving them more on the different ways that politics affect our lives. The teacher must however ensure that the students are always obedient and keep doing their homework and not just coming up with cooked methods. This unit plan is only able to realize its objectives if the parents are also involved. The parents have to be given their roles in the creation of emptiness in the minds of their children by telling them different stories that relate to the political scenes and trying to inform them on how this affects us. Reference Wiles, Bondi and Associates. (1988). The interdisciplinary unit sampler. Tampa, Fl: Wiles, Bondi and Assoc. Core French for the Middle Level: Unite 6.5: Clothing. (n.d.). Prentice Hall literature: Copper. (1996). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall. Burlamaqui, J. J. (1972). The principles of natural and politic law. New York: Arno Press. American Political Science Association., & International Communication Association. (1990). Political communication. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis. Wright, W. (January 01, 2005). The Political Spectacle of Arizona's Proposition 203. Educational Policy, 19, 5, 662-700. Read More