English Literacy Discovery (Part 2 out of 8)

Introduction (5 minutes)

• Welcome the participants
• Introduce the course (the general objective, the number of sessions, the expected outcome)

General objective: This course aims at enabling you to write and decipher English Words. We won’t learn the whole alphabet but starting with a few letters to get strong base.

Number of sessions: 7 sessions in total, 2 sessions a week in average

Expected outcomes: To be familiar with the English alphabet, to decipher and write your name and some chosen keywords, to have the base needed to decipher the picture dictionary.

• Introduce today session (objective and how long it will be)

Ice-breaking game (10 minutes)

• Ask the participants who lives close to whom and pair them up depending on that
• Now explain the game by saying: By playing this game we are going to make new friends today.
• Give all the pairs 5 minutes to get to know each other (name, their favorite color, favorite food, etc.)
• After the given time, ask each pair to come forward. Ask them to introduce their new friend to everyone by sharing the information learnt.
• Make sure when each pair is done presenting, others are clapping to encourage them

Main activity (70 minutes)

Part 1 – Introduction of the notion of alphabet (40 minutes)

• Give everybody a Latin alphabet sheet, a pen and a notebook
• Explain:
• What is an alphabet: An alphabet is a series of letters or symbols used to write a language. Show example: Burmese Alphabet, Arabic Alphabet: pics 1 and 1.2. There are different alphabets, and the letters and symbols vary from an alphabet to another. One alphabet can be used to write different languages. For example, the Latin alphabet is used to write English, French or German.

 

• What is a capital letter and a small letter: When beginning a sentence, the first word’s letter is always capital letter and the rest of the letters are small letters except some exceptions. In this course we will learn how to write some words in both.
• What is a word: A word is a series of letters that, written together, have a specific meaning. In the latin alphabet and the Burmese alphabet we write from left to right. In Arabic, from right to left.

 

• Focus on the Latin alphabet: How is it? How are the shapes? Compare it to alphabet you know.
• Explain to the participants that you will learn how to hold a pen. Show them how to hold it, first by showing where to put the fingers on the pen, then by writing a few words on the notebook.
• Ask the participants to take their pen, and position their fingers as you showed them. Help the participants who are struggling.
• Ask the participants to practice drawing straight lines from left to right, from top to bottom, and vice versa. Then, ask them to draw shapes like circles, rectangles, squares, diamonds. Compare those shapes with the one of the Latin alphabet sheets you gave them. For example :

A is like a triangle

O is like a round

H is like a rectangle

Etc…

Each time, show on the board what is expected and ask the participants to copy it.

Part 2 – Learning the word “Hi” – 20 minutes

• Write the word “Hi” on the white board, in capital and small letters. Pronounce it several time with the participants and then encourage them to say it by themselves. Present the two letters, H & I : how they are called, how they are pronounced. Ask the participants to find them in their alphabet sheet.
• Ask if anyone knows the meaning of the word. If not, translate it for them.
• Show on the white board, slowly, how to write “hi” in capital and small letters. Ask the participants to write it down in their notebooks while you’re showing it. Help the ones who need more support. When everybody has a clear model in their notebook, ask them to copy the word on a full line, in capital letters then another line in small letters.

Part 3 – Finding the word “Hi” in the word puzzle. (10 minutes)

Distribute the alphabet puzzles (Pic 1.3) explain its concept: the letters are not in their ordinary order; they are mixed and some words are hidden in it. Sometimes, not in the right sense (meaning it can be from left to right, up to down, down to up, in diagonal…) Ask the participant to find the word “HI” in it.

The solution is available for the facilitator in Pic1.4.

Conclusion (5 minutes)

• Thank the participants for their involvement and concentration during the session.
• Summarize what was learnt during the session: Today we learnt what is an alphabet. Ask the participants if someone can remind the others the definition of the alphabet?

If nobody can answer, remind them the definition: It is a series of letters or symbols used to write a language.

We also learnt 2 letters from the Latin Alphabet to form an English Word. H&I : Hi.

• Ask them for next session to find words in the camp (NGO signs, etc) which have the letters H or I in it.
• Collect feedback from the participants. Ask questions like: Do you feel that you learnt something during the session? Do you think this new knowledge can be useful to you? Were you comfortable during the session?

Give the date and location of the next session to the participants, make sure everybody will be available. If not, find a more convenient time and place so everybody can be here. (Remind everyone to bring their pen and notebook for the next session)