Ever since the #ukesolchat I summarised in my last post, I have been pondering on "relevance" and how I can ensure that I am doing every thing I can to furnish my learners with the language they need for every day life. You can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon this wee gem of a lesson during the course of a late evening resource trawl: http://esol.britishcouncil.org/lesson-plans/parents-evening
"Tis the season for parents evening in Shetland schools: events which can be as nerve wracking for parents as they are for pupils (and teachers). I'm sure it must be a particularly hard slog for the parents and guardians of EAL pupils, which is why the parent's evening lesson plan (and accompanying teacher's notes) of the ESOL Nexus website is such a fantastic resource.
Both the lesson plan and teacher's notes are detailed and easy to follow and can be downloaded for free on the website, so I will not waste time repeating the procedure here.
My learners were thoroughly engaged throughout. Even those who are not parents themselves can learn useful language and practice a variety of skills during the course of the lesson (although the majority of my learners do in fact have school age children).
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the concluding role play activity: I chose more confident learners to work as teachers, while other learners worked as pairs to devise questions about their imaginary offspring before attending "parents evening" together. The resulting performances generated much hilarity, but the earnest way in which the learners took notes during our whole class feedback session showed that they felt they would have a real need for this language in the near future.
A lesson which was both relevant and entertaining: thanks again ESOL Nexus!
