Justification for each lesson

Materials one consists of incorporation of my creative writing background. I personally have a

love for writing and poetry. For a multi-cultural classroom, I wanted my students to not only
learn more about themselves but explore the identities around them. In chapter three our book
says, “Peoples human identities are those things we share in common with other human beings;
recognizing them involves recognizing what makes us all members of the human race”
(Wintergerst 131-132). So, my lesson plan involves doing just that. Each student will develop a
personal poem about themselves and where they’re from. Essentially, what makes them them.
Then it develops to speaking what you wrote aloud to their peers, this will help with
pronunciation and learning about those around them. The lesson involves reading, writing, and
listening. I consider this activity to be one of my more intense ones due to the engagement and
involvement on the student’s part. This activity will help develop their lexicon as English
speakers and not lose sight of their identity since that is one aspect lost on many when dealing
with culture shock. Our book calls this role shock stating, “The roles that compromise a persons
identity are changed or even lost in a new culture… New roles and social expectations create
stress and anxiety for individuals, which, in turn, threaten their self-identity” (Wintergerst, 132).

Materials number two is about English slang and English culture in general. Its created on the
basis of the teacher’s generation and what is “slang” for them. It can be fun to see the difference
in terms from generation to generation or what weird terms and words are used now that mean
something so simple. This lesson touches upon pragmatics of the English language, “the study of
how language is used in communication, encompasses a broad range of phenomena, including
the functions of a language, the rules of discourse, and the structure and appropriateness of
communicative interactions” (Wintergerst 80). Students watch a clip of the 90’s show The Fresh
Prince of Bel-Air which conveys a lot of slang and terms still used today. Teachers can also
touch upon topics of disagreeing and agreeing in the same sentence, such as, “Yeah, no, of
course” is a yes. These simple but confusing rules make up the English language and I believe its
important to incorporate these real scenarios within English learning. Within the video is also a
scenario of avoided conflict, “In English the mere term conflict inherently carries a negative
connotation and much effort is expended… to avoid or contain conflict…” (Wintergerst 84). this
can show how in American culture deals with conflict and how we confide in someone close to
us like Will does with his Uncle. Our book states how in Greek Culture conflict is not considered
wrong but stimulating. This is just one of the many differences you can draw upon when
teaching this lesson.

Materials number three is my experimentation on trying to make a more linguistic centered

lesson it’s based on sounds and how they differ in from language to language. In English a dog
barks while in another language it goes bow wow. This lesson will help students understand the
etics of the English language compared to other languages, “Rather than focusing on one culture
and making discoveries within one system, the etic approach focuses on studies of more than one
culture and from a position outside the system” (Wintergerst 19). Like I said all dogs make a
sound, but how a language interprets that sound and reproduces it is specific, this, then, shows
emics. For the lesson there is an English list, a Korean list, and a global list of onomatopoeia. I
believe this would be fun and interesting to look at the different learned sounds all over the
world.
Materials number four is for more advanced students within a high school or college setting. This
lesson provides comprehension of strong themes such as loneliness and death within poetry.
There is one poem written by a Korean man about death, Yun Dong-Ju. The other poem is about
death as well but written by American poet Mary Oliver. I believe these poems can help show
the difference in cultural beliefs and values about or on death in different cultures. “Cultural
beliefs include fundamental teaching about what reality is and expectations of how the world
operates” (Wintergerst 20). When it comes to death the students can see how Mary Oliver
addresses religion and compare it to Dong-Ju’s representation. Both poems show what each poet
values as they are speaking about death, “… shared assumptions or judgements about what is
good, right, and important” (Wintergerst 22). The poets convey death in their own ways and
detail what aspects of life they believe to be important Dong-Ju reflects in while Oliver reflects
on outside forces. This can speak to the values of the two cultures each poet is from. Again, this
is for more advanced students focusing on comprehension of a text more than being speaking
focused, so they are only given a few minutes speaking to their classmates.

Material number five is targeted for upper beginner to intermediate English language learners. It
focuses on their listening and reading skills, comprehension, and cultural awareness. They are to
watch a northern culture-based Coca-Cola ad and explore the representations of American
culture they see in the video. It involves understanding topics such as individualism, “In an
individualistic culture you can see a focus on the I rather than the we. Self-expression,
independence, and individuality is encouraged more so than dependence and group-oriented
goals” (Wintergerst 63); and collectivism, “collectivist cultures the goals of the group are valued
over those of the individual… promotes interdependence, respect for authority, hierarchical roles
and relationship, and group consensus” (Wintergerst 63). The students can discuss norms and
attitudes as well. Many other cultures aren’t to exposed to acceptance of LGBTQ and the use of
They instead of He and She pronouns. This commercial will serve as a teaching of what students
can expect to experience when in America or northern cultures. I believe this will help with
culture shock as well.

Material number six also focuses on culture but at a more basic level. It is made for upper
beginner to intermediate as well but instead the students will be explicitly defining the terms
culture, race, and ethnicity. They will learn the definition of each term and how they differ.
These terms are often used interchangeably, even by English speakers, so I thought it’d be
important to pay special attention to them given they are concepts of a broader scale. Same as
lesson four this one will touch on values and beliefs of a culture and how it differs from their
own. This does have a more group-based approach so rather than working alone students can
bounce around ideas of what they believe these words to mean.

Material number seven is another attempt of me trying to create a linguistics approached lesson.
It involves the practice of pronunciation of English words using tongue twisters. One page is of
Korean tongue twisters, since that is my audience, and the other is of English tongue twisters.
This incorporates speaking aloud since the teacher will say a line and the students are expected to
repeat it back to the best of their abilities. Often perfecting another languages accent is
overlooked. This lesson will help students combat stereotypes when using the English language,
“Stereotyping is a psychological process whereby members of one group ascribe characteristics
to another group, creating beliefs and expectation about people’s behavior…” (Wintergerst, 74).
Since often in America an accent is seen as a negative attribute, I created this lesson so as
foreigners they can avoid this. The last part of the lesson involves them choosing a consonant
and creating a tongue twister of their own. Often tongue twisters have a similar or similar
sounding first letters in the words in the sentence so this will also help expand their lexicon.

Materials eight targets American English rather than British English or Australian English. Like
materials two it focuses on slang but though text. Since each subset of English has their own
slang, they also have their abbreviations. Especially when it comes to texting. This media-based
lesson teaches students when it is and when it isn’t appropriate to text someone or use
abbreviations within a message to someone (depending on relationship etc.) This teaches
students the importance of societal roles and more specifically role expectations which,
“…refer[s] to the demand of a role in a specific situation… what is considered ‘normal’ or
‘accepted’…” (Wintergerst 214). Since this is for a beginner class it targets simpler tasks like
texting an American friend using abbreviations. I always found this fun and useful when learning
another language since it is more likely for those without a deeper understanding of a language to
use the wrong expression or misconstrue the meaning of a message.

Materials nine is for a beginner classroom setting but is more oriented towards a multi-cultural
classroom. I did give instruction for both types of classroom settings whether it be one or
multicultural. Students are expected to rate various etiquettes and say whether it is okay or not
okay to do something at the dinner table or when eating with friends. This lesson focuses on the
norms of a culture which are, “fixed behavior patterns for member of a cultural group. They are
shared notions about what is appropriate behavior” (Wintergerst 23). This lesson will get the
class to speaking [in English] about their norms and listening to others and their norms. This will
not only serve as a speaking-based lesson but a listening one as well as a lesson on their peers
around them. I made sure to include a fun fact video portion for the classrooms that are not as
diverse. I thought this lesson to be important and interesting for those in the classroom that want
to go to other countries but not want to accidentally be disrespectful to those around them.

Materials ten is my last lesson which happily involves music from three different cultures: K-Pop
(Lullaby by Got7), American Pop (7 Rings by Ariana Grande), and Latin Pop (Hips Don’t Lie by
Shakira). This last lesson I found so fun to make because I researched the music genres myself to
see what a student would find, and I found some really cool things! Designed for a upper-
beginner to intermediate class there will be more group work seen but also more speaking
needed, the students are to choose a genre of music from a different culture and discuss the
values represented, this touches upon how “culture is a set of lenses through which we see the
world” (Wintergerst 35). In this lessons case it’s the musical lens, students will learn how a
culture is developed or displayed through the video’s images and lyrics. Not only will students
see values and beliefs at play [defined previously] but this will help raise their own cultural
awareness, “Cultural awareness plays an essential role in overcoming communication problems
or difficulties between members of a culture with divergent or even opposing beliefs, values,
norms, and attitudes” (Wintergerst 34). Towards the end of the lesson each student is to speak
and say which genre they found most interesting and why, so everyone has a chance to speak in
English.