Subject-Verb Agreement Lesson Plan

Subject-Verb Agreement

ESOL 3^rd grade

Standard: ELA4C1 The student demonstrates understanding and control of the rules of the English language, realizing that usage involves the appropriate application of conventions and grammar in both written and spoken formats.

Objective: The students will learn the correlation between singular/plural subjects and singular/plural verbs to make them agree with one another.

Rationale: It is important for students to understand subject-verb agreement so that they are able to correctly speak and write sentences.

Anticipatory Set: The teacher will show a video on BrainPop about subject-verb agreement called “Its No Good When They Argue.” Once the video is over, the teacher will explain to the students what subject-verb agreement is and have students come up and model what singular and plural means. Then the teacher will tell the students that today we are going to learn about subject-verb agreement.

Teacher Input: The teacher will introduce the rules for having a correct subject verb agreement by displaying the rules on a PowerPoint slide. The teacher will go over each rule with the students to ensure that they understand how to have a balance between the subject and verb. Then the teacher will provide each student with sentence strips that have a sentence written on them and two choices for the answers, one singular and one plural verb. The teacher will explain the rules of the activity by telling the students that they are allowed to work in groups of two or three and determine which verb correctly goes with each sentence. The teacher will be monitoring each group by walking around for assistance.

Active Participation: The teacher will divide the students into groups of approximately two to three students. Then the teacher will provide each group with their own sentence strips with a sentence on them that has the verb missing from the sentence. The students will also receive the answers that have singular and plural nouns on them and the students will have to determine which noun correctly goes with each sentence. The teacher will give the students a two minute “thinking time” where the group will determine the answer. Then the teacher will ask each group to come up to the front of the classroom and reveal their answers to the class. As the groups are giving their answers, the students will show a “thumbs up, or thumbs down” if they agree or disagree with the answers.

Retention Aid: Various students will come up to the front of the class to model what singular and plural means.

Independent Practice: The students will complete a worksheet on subject-verb agreement provided by the teacher.

Closure: As a ticket out the door, the students will write down one of the four rules on a sticky note that they remember on subject-verb agreement.

Assessment: The teacher will check the student’s answers to the subject-verb agreement worksheet.

Materials: Subject-Verb Agreement Rules, Subject-Verb Agreement worksheet, sentence strips with answers, BrainPop video “Its No Good When They Argue,” sticky note, and a PowerPoint slide.

                                                         Name_____________________

                              Date______________________

                                               Subject-Verb Agreement

1. I _____ (are, am) happy.

2. Rice ______ (taste, tastes) good with chicken.

3. They ______ (are, is) wearing a blue shirt.

4. Robert and Pete ______ (plays, play) soccer.

5. Sally ______ (drive, drives) a car to work.

6. Tom ______ (use, uses) a fork to eat.

7. Jenny ______ (am, is) a good student.

8. Cars ______ (take, takes) people from one place to another.

9. She ______ (has, have) a nice smile.

10. Those pencils ________ (need, needs) to be sharpened.

Subject-Verb Agreement Rules

1. If the subject is singular (one), use a singular verb.  (Generally, a singular verb ends in "s" or "es")

2. If the subject is plural, use a plural verb.

3. If the subject is compound joined by "and," always use plural verb.

4. If the subject is compound joined by "or" or "nor," look at the subject closest to the verb and follow rules #1 and #2.

 Examples:

The book or pencils are on the desk.

Neither the children nor Dad knows where the bank is located.

Lab Experience- Final Week

            This week is going to be bittersweet because it is my last week working with these children that I have made such great relationships with. It is always hard leaving when you have spent so much time working with them and getting to know who they are. However, I will cherish all the memories that I have from teaching the various grade levels. Within this last week I am scheduled to teach two lessons, one Tuesday and one Thursday. Tuesday I taught a lesson on pronouns to the fourth grade. I started out the lesson by asking them to define what they thought pronouns were and I had them give an example. I had previously made a chart divided into two sections (singular and plural) and I gave each child a pronoun and instructed them to solve what category their word went in. The children did great with this activity and seemed to have few, if any, problems. I knew that I was ready to move on to “Pronoun Bingo,” where they had to fill up their boards with pronouns and then we were ready to play! They all loved this activity and wanted to keep playing the whole class period. The final activity was an independent activity where I gave the children a worksheet to complete. Overall, this lesson was a huge success. At the end of the lesson, a sense of sadness came upon all of us because the children knew that it would be the last lesson I taught with them. Since I was there a majority of the time in the mornings, I was able to work with the fourth grade class more than any other. I made wonderful connections with each child and I am sad to let them go; however, I know that I was able to plant the seeds of knowledge in them so they will be able to flourish in their upcoming educational journeys.

           Thursday was the last day of the lab experience which brought a wide range of emotions. I am happy that I accomplished one of my personal goals which was to teach older children so that I can become a well balanced teacher. However, it was very sad to see the children’s faces when I told them that it would be my last day here. In particular, this one little boy asked me if I would come back to teach them next year because he loved me teaching him. Hearing a little boy tell me something as sweet as that just melted my heart and at that moment I knew I had made it as an aspiring teacher. Those are the moments that I will cherish forever and the reason why I want to become a teacher. I did teach my final lesson today over subject-verb agreement to the third grade group. Overall, it was a big success and I feel like the children really understood the concept once the lesson was finished. I started with a BrainPop video and then went into an activity that allowed the children to work in groups. The groups were given sentence strips with sentences on them and they had to choose the verb made the sentence correct. Lastly, I had the children work independently on a worksheet so that I could assess their knowledge in this subject matter. I cannot believe how fast this experience went. There have been some low points, but their have also been wonderful moments that have made this experience worth while. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to work with ESOL and be able to expand my abilities as a teacher outside of what I am comfortable with.

Lab Experience - Week Four

            This week was a very hectic, but short week because on Thanksgiving. Among all of the holiday festivities and plays that the children were putting on, I had to teach two lessons this week. One lesson Monday and one lesson Tuesday, both of which had to be observed. With only having these two days I decided to do a two day lesson on the story called The Lotus Seed. Monday I introduced the key words in the story. To start off the lesson I asked the students what was special to them to introduce the special seed that was going to be in the story. Then I assisted the students in a short story called The Special Seed which had all of the key words throughout. I had the story for them to see on a PowerPoint as well as a handout for them to highlight all of the words as we went through and read. Once we read the story, I went over each word and gave them the definition and a picture that they could relate with the word. For the students to stay attentive while I was teaching them these words I made them each individual dictionaries that had the definition already on each page and all they had to do was fill in the missing word and draw a picture. This seemed to help the students a lot, not only so they would be paying attention, but it gave them a tangible object that they could keep to remember each word. After that, I displayed a piece of butcher paper on the board with all of the words scattered on it. The students were given magazines and put into groups of two or three and they had to find pictures that represented each word. They all loved this activity because they were able to interact with their classmates and have fun at the same time while learning the material. I was surprised at how well the students remembered what each word meant because they did not even have to use their personal dictionaries for assistance. To help the students remember all of this information, I gave each student a key term where they had to describe/act out the meaning of the word. Lastly, for independent practice I gave the students a worksheet where they had to find the missing key word that fit into each sentence. All of the students enjoyed this activity and I could see that they were ready to move on to reading the story on Tuesday.
            Tuesday was a fun day because it was the last day before break and there were so many fun activities going on. There were Thanksgiving plays, arts and crafts, and a more relaxed atmosphere in the classrooms because the teachers wanted to leave on a good note for the break. However, I did have to teach a lesson today. I did a continuation lesson from yesterday. Since the children already knew the key terms associated with the story, today we went further and read the actual story, The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland. To start of the lesson I showed them a picture of a building in a foreign country and they had to name as many things as they could that look different from the buildings here in the United States. This made the connection to the story where the grandmother went to a foreign country. After that I explained that the genre of the story was realistic fiction, the characters, and the setting. Then we started reading the story. I randomly called on the children to read because they all were eager to read. As we were reading the story I asked them comprehension questions to see how much they really understood the story. The students did well answering the questions and seemed to be paying close attention to the events in the story. Once the story was finished, I provided each student with an envelope that had the events of the story in random order. They each had to correctly sequence the events and glue them in the correct order on a piece of paper. The last activity I gave them each a seed to remember the story by and I had them write a couple of sentences as to what they would do with this seed and why. They also were to draw a picture to represent what they were going to do with this seed. I loved being able to walk around and see their creativity in full force. All of their answers were very well thought and some were very creative!

Lab Experience- Week Three

Monday was just like any other day. So far, I have helped Ms. Stephens grade some papers as well as copying papers. I was also preparing for my lesson on Thursday by looking through some of her teaching edition books to get some good ideas as to what I wanted to do. I have been enjoying the children because by now they are getting comfortable with me being there every day. When they come into the classroom they greet me with a big smile! Once I see their faces with that smile on their face I know that this process is worth every minute of it. This has to be one of my favorite memories thus far in this experience.

Thursday was a pretty eventful day! I was there the whole day and I also had to prepare for my lesson after lunch time. The whole day I was very apprehensive about teaching this lesson because it was going to be the first time I have taught the third grade group. I was nervous that the children would not adapt to the situation of someone new teaching them especially when I have not had the chance to interact with them since I am only there one full day a week. Since the third grade class comes in after lunch I do not get to see them often, but as I started my lesson the children were very excited and adapted well to me. As soon as I started teaching my lesson, the nerves subsided and I began interacting with them. I was instructed by Ms. Stephens to teach a creative arts lesson on information writing. This lesson was a challenge to find a way to teach with the topic I was given in a creative way. So I started the lesson off with showing them various objects such as a cow, a cat, and a piggy bank and they had to give as much information/facts as possible. Then, I transitioned into further teaching them about informational writing and why it is important to understand the proper way to write it. The children were very attentive and willing to try whatever I had for then to do. Then, after I taught them this I had them made a brochure for their animal that they had chose earlier in the week. As I was walking around I noticed how creative the children were being with their brochure. They really enjoyed this activity and I could tell that they loved being able to interact with each other when they had to explain what they drew and the facts about their animal. Preparing this lesson was a challenge for me, and throughout the whole day I was very nervous. However, all of my fears went away when I saw the children having fun and wanting to do more. I loved teaching third grade and I am looking forward to teaching them more!

Lab Experience- Week Two

This week was a very exciting week because I was able to teach two lessons! The first lesson I taught them was about a story called “Twister.” During this story, the students were to find the key words for the lesson. These key words described the warning signs and aftermath of a tornado and of bad weather in general. To start the lesson, I divided the students into two groups and labeled them voice one and voice two. I then had the students do a chant where group one would say something and group two would reply. After the chant, as a class we went over the key words in the chant. I handed out a copy of the definitions of the key words for the students to use as a reference. After this, I passed out the key words written on note cards. There were several sentences written on chart paper that were in context with the key words, yet the key words themselves were omitted. The students had to match their key word with the correct sentence. Once this was done, I had another piece of chart paper divided into three sections, “Seen, Heard, and Felt.” The students had to match their key word with which sense that it would trigger. For the independent practice, I had the students complete a works sheet. After the worksheet, I had the students draw a picture of a storm and then describe it with as many key words as possible. The students were so attentive and excited about the lesson. I was so glad to see that they enjoyed the lesson and it was also a fun way for them to learn vocabulary words in a new way.
The second lesson was a continuation of the first lesson. Now that the children knew and understood the vocabulary words for the story "Twister" we started actually reading the story. While the children were reading I asked them comprehension questions and we filled out a graphic organizer to help them document the most important facts throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
After this week of teaching and seeing how well the children reacted I am very excited to teach the remaining lessons and be able to interact more with them!

Lab Experience- Week One

My first week of student teaching in the ESOL classroom was challenging. This experience is very eye opening because I typically work with younger students in the Kindergarten through first grade levels; however, in this lab I am paired with third through fifth graders. With the younger students’ lessons require more interaction among the students, yet with the older students they are more self-sufficient. As I was observing this week I noticed that there is less interaction on a daily basis than I would have originally thought. Most of the students in the classroom understood English well enough to learn basic concepts in other subject areas. The biggest difference that I had to adjust to was the use of worksheets instead of a traditional teacher based lesson.

Another major difference that was interesting to me in the ESOL classroom was the push-in and pull-out method. The push-in method is where the ESOL teacher goes into the regular education classes and provides assistance to the EL students. The pull-out method is where the EL students are taken out of their regular classes and come to the ESOL classroom for further instruction. I really enjoyed seeing this method especially in the push in classes where I was able to see how the EL children interacted with other students and see how the teacher makes accommodations.

As the weeks progress, I am very eager to be able to interact with the students as I teach my lessons. I want to understand more completely the method of teaching ESOL to students in the varying circumstances that are found in schools.

Most Apprehensive About Teaching Lab in ESOL

As a person starts any new endeavor there are always many apprehensions that come along with this adventure. As I embark on my new journey with my teaching lab for ESOL I am most nervous about being able to write proper ESOL lesson plans. I feel confident in my ability to write lesson plans; however, adding the ESOL accomodations is somewhat of a struggle for me at this point. Although, as I progress in the lab I am hoping I learn how to write a proper lesson plan for an EL student. Another apprehension I have is, will I be able to connect with the students? In the past, I have had problems connecting with the children. Granted it has taken a day or so for the children to get used to me coming into their classroom, but since I have not worked with EL students before I hope that I will be able to bond with these children and build a relationship with them. Every time I go into these labs, I go into them with an open mind and this lab is no exception. I have a lot of goals set for myself with this lab that I want to accomplish because I have not taught ESOL before. I want to expand my teaching skills and learn more about this area in teaching. Eventhough I have a lot of emotions going into this lab, I am extremely excited to begin and see what lies ahead of me!

Predicticable Routines and Signals in the Classroom

In the classroom, it is important to have some measure of routine that the students can predict from day to day. This consistency helps reduce anxiety and helps students relax and focus on the instruction. EL students do not always completely understand what is said in the classroom, which is why it is important to have routines and practice them daily. In the text, 50 Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners, I found several examples of routines that can be instituted in the classroom to assist students from day to day. I have arranged these ideas into a graphic organizer so that the uses and benefits are shown for each.

Did You Know?

Did you know… that for student’s starting a four year technical degree, half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. Did you know…that in today's society the number of text messages sent and received every day, exceeds the total population of the planet. These statistics can be found in the you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Dhmg6vcXQ&feature=related&noredirect=1.

Our society is constantly changing with the new advancements in technology, which means that as teachers we have to become aware of these changes. Children are no longer accustomed with paper and pencil assignments; instead iPads or computers are what you see. Everything is becoming more and more technologically advanced, even in the classroom.

These changes will affect the way I teach my future children because what is popular now will not be in years to come. As I begin teaching, I plan on using the technology available which currently is the ActivBoards and computers with internet ability. Students can use the computers for research and for creating presentations on the internet or through a PowerPoint. My lessons can be taught using the ActivBoard in creative and interactive ways so that students can become more involved. For example, instead of a student doing a math problem on their paper, they can come up to the ActivBoard to solve a problem. As new technology comes about, I plan on implementing any new technology in the classroom to keep current with my students.

More Helpful Websites for ESOL Teachers

1. Starfall- This is a website to help motivate children to read with phonics. This site is suitable for preschool- second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development children.
2. Kinder Helper- This is a resource that is useful for teachers as well as parents. For teachers, it provides teaching tips and strategies. For parents, there are stories, comics, games, cards, puzzles, role-playing activities, worksheets, songs, etc. 
3. English 4 Kids- A website that offers free tutorial courses that are divided into four levels based on the child's developmental stage. These courses are taught through online videos and have self grading quizzes to take after. 
4. Literactive.com- A leading provider in reading materials for younger children. This site offers comprehensive phonic activities and supplemental reading materials to develop children's reading skills. 
5. TLS Books- This website offers fun, but instructional worksheets for home and school use. 

Five Websites for ESOL Teachers

1. ESL Galaxy- This website contains various resources for both teachers and students. This website is filled with ESL printables, games, kids activities, and online excercises to help with vocabulary, grammer and pronunciation.

2. ESL Flow- This site contains many lesson plans and ideas for teachers of ESL students.

3. Many Things- A website that contains several different activities for ESL students for practice in or outside of the classroom.

4. TEFL.Net- This site contains many different tips for teachers to help create lesson plans. As well as a helpful worksheet generator for various lessons and activities.

5. Rubrics 4 Teachers- A website with many different examples of rubrics for assessing ESL students.

Philosophy of Teaching

Teaching has always been a passion of mine ever since I was little. I cannot think of a time when I wanted to do anything else but teach. Since both of my parents are teachers, I got to experience at a young age what it takes to become a successful teacher. I have gotten to see first hand how much a teacher can change a student's life through the interaction between them.
It would be easy to say that I just chose this career path because of my parents; however, that is incorrect. Teaching has and always will be an infatuation of mine because I love every aspect of it. I love grading papers, decorating the classroom and bulletin boards, organizing the decks, papers and art supplies, and most of all I love teaching children. To see the moment when they finally understand is priceless.
I believe I possess the neccessary qualities to become a successful teacher. I am very organized and creative, honest and trustworthy. I work extremely hard on anything I do because even the thought of failing is not an option. I am very goal oriented and I will not stop until I reach the top and have achieved all the goals I have set for myself. I have a very caring and loving heart especially when it comes to children. I will do anything I can to see that children succeed. Although, having all of these qualitites are neccessary in becoming a good teacher, I think the most important quality is having an open heart and a passion for teaching. Teaching is not for everybody; you have to be a special person to become a great teacher and I think I am up for the challenge. Teachers can become significant role models in their student's lives, and to have just one student think that of me would be I accomplished my goal for teaching. Being a good teacher is a great honor, but having the ability to touch children's lives is the best gift of all.

Welcome!! :)

Welcome to my blog! This blog is for my Methods for ESOL class. Within this blog you will find my thoughts about specifc topics related to teaching and the methods for teaching english to speakers of other languages. I hope you enjoy reading and learning a little more about this topic!