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Designer: Chan Yu Tung Jennifer
Differentiated Lesson Plan
Subject / KLA:
Class:
Unit of Study:
Lesson Period:
KUD’s:
English
Primary 4 (Class size: 24)
Module – Food and Drinks; Chapter 3 – Healthy Eating (Primary Longman Elect 4B textbook, Longman)
Single Lesson (35 minutes)
By the end of the lesson, students should be able to
K:
Know how to use “more”, “less” and “fewer” to give suggestions on healthy eating
U:
Understand the concept of healthy eating
Understand the need to eat more healthy food and less unhealthy food
D:
Categorize the learnt food items into food groups, i.e. steak, grapes, lychees, longans, lettuce, broccoli, carrots,
peas
Differentiate between countable and uncountable nouns
Prior Knowledge:
Students’ Prior Knowledge:
1. Food Vocabulary: banana, pear, mango, potato, peach, cherry, strawberry … (2A), mushroom, onion,
tomatoes, vegetables, noodles, rice, congee, chicken, beef, pork, prawns... (3A), spaghetti, macaroni,
pasta, pork chop … (4A)
2. Countable and uncountable nouns (3A)
3. Rules for forming plural nouns, e.g. add s/es, change y to ies (2)
4. Determiners: some (2A, 3A), a lot of (3A)
5. Directions: on your right/left, straight ahead, opposite, turn right/left, at the end (2)
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Skills:
1. Reading – Students read the names of the food items and the sentence patterns (“You need to eat
more/less/fewer_______.”)
2. Writing – Students write down the three healthy tips to themselves using the target structures
3. Listening – Students listen to T’s instructions in “Miss Chan says” and different tasks
4. Speaking – Students discuss which food items to be put into the two categories ; students come out to
share their health tips to the class
Teaching Materials and
Aids:
Pre-assessment:
1. Books: Textbook (Primary Longman Elect), Grammar book (Primary Longman Elect) p. 7, 8
2. Pictures: Pictures of the food items with the name below (examples in Appendix I)
3. Others: Power point (Appendix II)
1. A pre-dictation on the taught vocabulary items in previous chapters
(i.e. banana, pear, mango, potato, peach, cherry, strawberry, mushroom, onion, tomato, vegetables, noodles,
rice, congee, chicken, beef, port, prawns, spaghetti, macaroni, pasta, pork chop)
(Most students could spell the learnt vocabulary items correctly, with individual students spelt prawns as
“pauns”, tomatoes as “tomatos”, spaghetti as “spagetti”)
2. A worksheet on the division of countable and uncountable nouns; the use of “more”, “less” and
“fewer”
(Most students could categorize most nouns into countable and uncountable groups, with the exception of new
vocabularies, e.g. clams, lobsters, donuts and ink. Overall, the students failed to use “more”, “less” and “fewer”
in an accurate way.)
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School Culture, Learning
Environment and Student
Characteristics:
School Culture
The school put heavy emphasis on English. Apart from the one NET teacher that the HK government
subsidizes, it also used extra resources to employ another NET teacher to teach students at school. Every
Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, students would gather and play interactive, fun English games. The
school also participated in a scheme which aims at increasing language input to students, so it is common to see
English vocabulary and phrases around the school.
Learning Environment and Student Characteristics
Overall, students are active, obedient and willing to learn. The learning environment is enthusiastic and
relaxing. Although their proficiency is intermediate, most of them worked very hard and tried their best to
engage in classroom activities. There are 5 students who have bad temper and are always distracted from class,
of whom three are of particularly low proficiency in English.
Grouping:
This is the seating arrangements of the class in usual lesson:
Student 1
(Worst temper)
Student 2(Less
able)
Student 3 (bad
temper)
Student 6
(Least able)
Student 5
(Worst temper)
Student 4
(Less able)
This is the seating arrangement of the class in English lesson which required pair work:
English
helper
Student 1
Student 2
3
Student 6
Monitress
Student 5
Monitor
Student 4
Student 3
English
helper 2
This is the seating arrangement of the class in English lesson which required group work:
Student 4
Student
6
Monitre
ss
The Triangle Group
Student 5 Monitor
The Square Group
English
helper
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
English
helper 2
The Circle Group
The Star Group
The Circle Group< The Triangle Group < The Square Group < The Star Group (in terms of the angles of
the shape, as well as the number edges that teacher need to take special care of)
By such naming, students would think they are just shapes without particular meanings. Yet, the teacher would
be able to differentiate the different needs of students.
Learning and Teaching Activities
Hook (3 mins)
Teaching
Materials
Warm-up Activity
1. Illustrates the rules for “Miss Chan says” (that Ss have to follow what the T instructs
only when the instructions start with ”Miss Chan says”)
2. Invite a smart S to come up and demonstrates once to the whole class by using the
example “Miss Chan says raise your right hand” “Put down your hand” to tell Ss that
they should only raise their hands, but not put down their hands
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3. Asks Ss to stand up and follow T’s instructions
4. Gives Instructions that are related to the glossary that Ss learnt in Chapter 2 (e.g.
Miss Chan says turn your whole body to your right; Miss Chan says shake your
hands with the person next to you; Miss Chan says point at the end of the classroom;
Miss Chan says say “hello, how are you” to the person on your left)
5. Ends the activity with the instructions “Miss Chan says sits down quietly and rest on
the table”
Pre-task (7 mins)
“Come Out and Stick the Food” Activity – The Six Food Groups
1. Divides the blackboard into six columns
2. Put one picture under the five columns as demonstration
3. Gives each group six different photos and lets Ss discuss under which column should
they put the pictures
4. Checks Ss answers and asks Ss to state the name of the food groups of the columns
(e.g. meat, fruit, vegetables, grain products, desserts)
5. Drills Ss on the food items which is more difficult to pronounce (e.g. steak, lettuce,
broccoli)
6. Asks Ss to name extra examples of the food groups
7. Introduces Ss the other food group, “seafood”, and elicits Ss to give some examples
Pre-task 2 (7 minutes)
Pictures of food
Blackboard
Chalk
“Come Out and Stick the Food” Activity – Countable and Uncountable Nouns – Think, Pictures of food
Blackboard
Pair, Share
Chalk
1. Asks Ss to return to the seating arrangement which facilitates pair work
2. Changes the titles to “countable” and “uncountable”
3. Reminds Ss the difference between countable and uncountable nouns
4. Assigns students A and B in all the pairs with A responsible of listing the countable
nouns and B responsible of uncountable ones
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5. Gives Ss 1 minute for Ss to think of the food items to be put in their own category
6. Give Ss 3 minutes to share and discuss their views with their partners
7. Asks different pairs to come out and share their ideas with the whole class by
rearranging two pictures at a time using the new categorization
8. Checks Ss answers and elicits extra examples of countable and uncountable nouns
from Ss
Introduction (3 mins)
Introduction of Language Items “More”/ “Less”/ “Fewer”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Task (10 mins)
Introduces the concept of healthy eating and asks expert of the day to report on the
topic
Lists the benefit of eating health food (e.g. healthy food is good for us/makes us
strong/helps us grow)
Points out the concept of unhealthy food (the prefix un is equal to not, e.g. unhappy,
unknown)
Shows Ss the continuum from fewer/less to more to indicate the quantity
Highlights the sentence pattern (You need to eat more __________ [healthy food].
You need to eat fewer/less_______________ [unhealthy food]. )
Tells Ss to use “fewer” before countable nouns and “less” before uncountable nouns
Tells Ss to use “more” for both countable and uncountable nouns
Activity – “What Do We Need to Eat More/Less/Fewer?” – Scaffolding
1.
2.
3.
Power point
Power point
Shows three sets of pictures to Ss, with two pictures in each set (mostly one healthy and
one unhealthy food)
Asks Ss to use their bodies to imitate “tick” or “cross” for “healthy food” or “unhealthy
food”
Tells Ss to say the key structure afterwards (You need to eat more __________ [healthy
food]. You need to eat fewer/less___________ [unhealthy food]. )
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Closure (5 mins)
Demonstrates with the first picture set (cherries and sweets)
Checks the inattentive or weaker Ss’ understanding of the instructions
Instructs Ss to vary their ways of giving the suggestions from time to time (e.g. point to
the person sitting next to them; point to the T; point to the guest; point to individual Ss)
Asks Ss to contribute their own idea of the food items as substitute of one of the learnt
food vocabulary
Repeats the activity again with both two new items suggested by the Ss
Repeats the activity without showing the target sentence structure and sees if Ss could
say it by themselves
“Three Health Tips to Myself” – Produce and Share
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Paper
Sign pens
Gives students a piece of paper to write down “Three Health Tips to Myself”
Instructs Ss to use the target sentence patterns, “I need to eat more/less/fewer….”
Advices Ss they could choose the food items according to their wills and that they
could use the sign pens to decorate the paper
Invites individual Ss to come out and share their health tips with the class
Wraps up the lesson by starting the rules of using “more”, “less”, “fewer”
Asks Ss to research “food pyramid” at home to prepare for tomorrow’s lesson
Group Specific or Student
Specific Notes:
Student 1 – with bad temper, on medication, intermediate-high proficiency because of personal tutorials
Student 2 – less able and always creates disturbance to his peers
Student 3 – with bad temper; speak Cantonese all the time
Student 4 – less able; bad relationship with student 5
Student 5 – emotional breakdown frequently; intermediate proficiency with the help of parents
Student 6 – older than his peers; low proficiency; cannot listen to even simple English instructions
Lesson Flow:
Assessment:
Whole class warm-up exercise -> group work-> pair work -> individual work -> sharing
Self Assessment from Students
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Students are required to tick the self-assessment checklist, which includes the following items:
Learning Focus
I can read, spell and use the vocabulary
taught (types of food)
I can use need to give advice
I can use fewer, less and more to give advice
about the quantities of food.
Well Done
Ok
Work harder
The checklist is designed to be simple and concise, so that Ss would be able to check by themselves. Also, the
choice of words (even for the poorest area “work harder”) is positive and encouraging.
Assessment from Teacher
Students’ work, “Three Health Tips to Myself”, would be collected and marked. The marking rubric would be
distributed to them beforehand. The focus would be the ability to use “more”, “less”, “fewer” in a
grammatically correct way; and that they advice according to the principal of healthy eating. Yet, the difficulty
of food vocabulary and the outlook of the advice paper would be not one of the marking areas.
Areas to be assessed
The use of “more”, “less”, “fewer” is
grammatically correct.
The advice matches the principal of healthy
eating
Handwriting is neat and tidy.
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Possible Problems and Solutions
1.
Weaker Ss may not be able to pronounce the more difficult food
1.
T provides words with similar pronunciation for Ss to aid their
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items.
2.
Ss with poorer memory or are weaker may not be able to recall
their prior knowledge on the difficult concepts, countable and
uncountable nouns.
3.
Ss with low attention span may be lost their attention because of
their short attention span and the repeated drillings on the key
structure.
learning (e.g. /steɪk/ for steak and /stɪk/ for stick ; /’let.ɪs/ for
lettuce and /noʊ.t̬ ɪs/ for notice ).
2. Asks individual Ss to stand up and pronounce the difficult words.
1. T shows a table with the list of countable and uncountable food
items or food groups which Ss have learnt to help Ss recall the
meaning of countable and uncountable nouns.
2. T highlights the common feature of countable nouns (plural form).
1. T let Ss engage more by varying the ways to give advice (e.g.
refers to the favorite food that individual Ss fill in the first lesson
and asks the whole class to give him or her a healthy eating
advice)
Rationale Behind the Designed Lesson Plan
The lesson is designed to prepare the primary 4 students for the new chapter, “healthy eating”. Since this is relatively a weak class, the learning
objectives set are detailed, explicit and “crystal clear” (Kumpost, 2009, p. 3) so that the teacher could make sure the students master at least one
extra thing at the end of the lesson. Also, the class has low motivation to learn English and very short attention span, so a variety of interesting
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activities are included in this lesson plan to raise students’ interest and engagement in the classroom. For example, as a warm-up exercise hook,
students are asked to move their bodies under the instructions of the teacher, so as they could recap the previous knowledge about directions and
be prepared for the lesson. This sets the foundation for the broad directions in designing the lesson for this particular class.
For the specific strategies and activities in lesson planning, there are a few modifications made to address the needs of the students of higher
proficiency. For instance, in the “Come Out and Stick the Food” activities, after listing the known food vocabulary, the teacher elicits responses
from students on a new food group (seafood) as well as some more extra food items on the known food groups (meat, vegetables, fruit) and the
countable/ uncountable columns. This is a complex application of the learnt content, as students would have to think critically on the vocabulary
they learnt and make use of them in abstract and unfamiliar concepts like the new food group, i.e. seafood.
In another activity, “What Do We Need to Eat More/Less/Fewer”, the concept of scaffolding is applied. At the beginning, the teacher provides
both two pictures and the sample sentence patterns. Then, the teacher hide one picture and asks students to suggest one food item that they like
as substitute. After repeated drillings and when teacher sees that students are more ready, the teacher would hide both food items and the
sentence pattern. In this case, students could be stimulated to think of new ideas and extend their creativity. At the same time, students could try
to remember the target sentence pattern in their minds. Throughout the activity, the teacher would show pictures on the screen (visual), repeats
the sentences and drills them (auditory), along with the warm up activity (kinesthetic), more than one modality is adopted in the lesson to meet
the different learning styles of students.
As for classroom management and learning environment in particular to the weak students, the two major beliefs are to deal with students based
on mutual respect and let students participate in the decision making-process (Nordlund, 2003). On the first lesson, rules are set with
consultation of students’ opinion, including some which cater to the huge individual differences in this class, let it be behavioral or language
proficiency differences (Heung, 2006). First rule is assigning “expert of the day” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 125) every lesson, and asks the
student to report on the some interesting fact he or she has found on the topic of the lesson (i.e. healthy eating). Students have equal opportunity
to assume this role.
Second rule is the “question chips” rule (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 124), in which students are given two poker chips at the start of the
lesson and they must pay one chip if they need teacher’s assistance. In the “Come Out and Stick the Food” activities and writing the three tips,
less able students could use their right to seek help. If they use up all their chips, they may have to ask their peers for help. It is specially
designed so that in three out of four groups, there is at least one student of higher proficiency (English helpers, monitor and monitress).
“Classmates can be an excellent source of help” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, 124), so the class could learn to develop collegiality which is
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beneficial to learning in the long run.
Bibliography
Heung, V. (2006). Recognizing the Emotional and Behavioral Needs of Ethnic Minority Students in Hong Kong, Preventing School Failure:
Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 50 (2), 29-36.
Kumpost, J. N. (2009). Understanding the “understands” in KUDS. 1(1),1-3. Retrieved from:
http://differentiationcentral.com/examples/UnderstandingKUDs.pdf
Nordlund, M. (2003). Differentiated instruction: meeting the educational needs of all students in your classroom. Lanhma, Maryland: Scarecrow
Press, Inc.
Tomlinson, C.A. & Imbeau, M.B. (2010). Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom. Professional Development Series. United States.
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