10 张敦
Lesson Plan: Bargaining on Fruits
Dun Zhang
| School Type: Public
Grade: Grades 8-12 Teaching minutes: 48 min Topic: Bargaining on Fruits |
Number of students: 17
Proficiency Level: Novice-Low Methods: Practice and Performance Materials: Fruits and Fake Currency |
Ohio’s New Learning Standards for World Languages |
| a. Interpersonal Communication
2. a - Engage in greetings, introductions and leave-taking. b. Presentational Communication 2. g - Advocate for and against the purchase or sale of products and/or services to a variety of audiences. c. Culture 1. i - Solve complex problems and complete elaborate tasks while taking into consideration diverse cultural perspectives. |
Context |
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This lesson builds upon what we have been learning about fruits and bargaining for a better price when buying fruits. Students have already reviewed the content (vocabulary on fruits and bargaining) covered from the previous few days, have practiced using the information and skills from those learning experiences to express themselves appropriately in the specific cultural and linguistic settings. We also had class discussions related to bargaining for a lower price at vendors’, a common practice in China, where there are small markets and vendors. Thus, the students are expected to complete a task related to that. To integrate cultural elements into the task, students also are expected to consider what gifts would be appropriate to give during the Chinese New Year season, what greetings should be used in occasions such as cultural festivals. |
Content — Big questions from this unit |
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1. What is the simple, adequate socially and culturally acceptable response when served fruits? 2. How do you bargain in China? When and where do people normally bargain? What is it like to bargain in China? 3. What are the expressions to enable one to bargain for a better price? |
Task for performance (24 points) - Presentational Assessment |
| At a Fruit Stand
You are invited to a friend’s house for the New Year celebration. Understanding that you must bring something as a gift when you meet the family, you go to a local fruit stand (/R shui guo tan) to buy some nice-looking, fresh and delicious tangerines, because you know that tangerines are lucky fruits to give around this time of the year. The vendor told you that the tangerines are 10 yuan per piece. You tell the vendor that the price is high, and that you are willing to buy 8 tangerines at 4 yuan each. a. You were instructed to construct a set of dialogue (writing in pinyin is ok at this point) with the above description as a guideline. Your dialogue should also have included (New Year) greetings, asking for a price, the back-forth bargaining and an logical ending o f the dialogue. (Performance length: 2 minutes) b. Based on the dialogue that you have constructed and have rehearsed in the previous session, please perform the task with your partner — without script. |
Lesson Objectives |
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After some practice in the previous sessions, this lesson/session is for the students to demonstrate how they have completed a linguistically and culturally significant real-life task. Vocabulary link is attached at the end of this lesson plan. |
Target Content |
| Vocabulary
Key sentences New Year Greetings: Sample Bargaining Sentence Set: Buyer 1: Seller: Buyer 1: Seller: Buyer 2: Buyer 1: |
Procedures |
| 1m |
The class starts with the Chinese class ritual in Chinese. • (Class monitor commands (-) All students get up. |
| 1-2m |
Teacher provides brief directions (see next step) for the students. |
| 6-8m |
a. Students work in pairs on practicing their fruits-bargaining dialogue sets (see Sample Sentence Set). Students are reminded to focus on accuracy, fluency and authenticity of their dialogue. Students are expected to know the role and content well as a buyer and a seller. Each group will practice the dialogue set at least twice. Use a timer to keep track of the performance time (It should be a 2-minutes' performance) b. Meanwhile, the teacher will circle around each group to provide help, when needed. Mini lessons might still be necessary for some pairs.Attendance can also be taken at this point. |
| 10m |
Each group will be paired up with another group to perform their dialogue to each other. Each student needs to use the Peer Checklist to check other peers' performance and provide feedback. |
| 20-28m
Time here depends on the class size. |
a. Each pair will come to the actual "Fruit Stand" and set up in the front of the classroom, to perform/act out/role play on "Bargain at the Fruit Stand". b. Peer assessment: While one group performs, the rest of the students listen attentively, watch the performance, and grade the performers with Peer Grading Sheet. One grade for each individual, one grade for the entire group, and one relevant specific comment for the performance. |
| 5-8m |
Time permitting, the class can gather and reflect for a moment on the task, the format of the performances and the way how grades are allocated, etc. Discussion on what comes next in our learning experiences. |
| An after-class activity |
* After class, switch roles with your partner (between Vendor and Customer), rehearse your performance again. Present your Bargain Performance in audio/video form. Record your performance and share the file with your teacher. (Bonus points (up to 5 points) can be awarded for this part of the assignment.) |
Peer Checklist: (Please use check marks (✓) to complete the form where applicable.)
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Task Completion (Y/N) | |||
| Comprehensibility (Y/N) | |||
| Fluency (Y/N) | |||
| Pronunciation (Y/N) | |||
| Content Validity (Y/N) | |||
| Language Control (Y/N) | |||
| Question or Comment |
Peer Grading Sheet: (?/24)
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Task Completion (1-4) | |||
| Comprehensibility (1-4) | |||
| Fluency (1-4) | |||
| Pronunciation (?/4) | |||
| Content Validity (?/4) | |||
| Language Control (?/4) | |||
| Group Grade (?/24) | |||
| Question or Comment |
Lesson Plan Analysis
a. Planning this session was inspired by exploring alignment of communication and culture in foreign language learning, two of the five “Cs’ in the Ohio Standards for Foreign Language competency (See the quoted standards and competencies/benchmarks above). I also considered integrating cultural elements into language learning and real-life task completion. Our district WL standards are based upon the ACTFL, Ohio Department of Education (ODE) standards. In recent years, we also used other rubrics elsewhere as references for assessments. In addition, our district is currently promoting “Seal of Biliteracy”, in response to the new emphasis/approach to achieve World Language proficiency from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). (See link below) Thus helping students achieve proficiency by all means is very important and relevant.
b. Backward Design of units, lessons, activities and assessments have been critical in my teaching, I prefer to envision the big picture, a holistic panoramic “view” of what I need to do in order to plan relevant and valid steps along the way of students’ proficiency.
c. Bargaining for a better price has been a common practice in China. Foreign visitors experience that while visiting China as well. The Theme is on fruits. The cultural context is during the Chinese New Year time (gift-giving and what gift to buy – definitely culturally relevant). The assessment is achieved through a task that students are expected to perform, ‘Bargaining at a Fruit Stand.’
Students are given (close-to) real-life tasks to perform as they venture into Chinese learning. As they complete tasks, they begin to “perform” (“act-out” or “role-play”) in a culturally appropriate manner. This practice is also known as “performance-based learning.” This approach is instrumental in blending the culture and the language in classroom learning. Realia are sometimes brought in as tools to help students feel closer to the target culture. This realistic live act with props help in “live” understanding of the culture and language. In return, they will be more motivated to learn and explore.
d.This lesson plan is meant for the end of the new-content/unit assessment, when vocabulary terms have already been taught and when small tasks and checkpoints have already been completed. Having the students work in small groups lowers their affective filter and encourages their full engagement, creativity and critical thinking skills. In a psychological and pedagogical sense, their performance can be maximized. The needs for differentiation are addressed here as well. The end-result is that students produce different dialogue sets, suitable to their skill levels and to some of their preferred word choices. Having students practice, rehearse and perform in multiple ways boosts their confidence and competence. It also helps them to familiarize their content and message.
Students should create their own dialogues for this performance. The goal is to encourage and support their creativity and critical thinking skills. In the case of this lesson, script/dialogue- writing should be a process for them to incorporate class lessons into a setting of Chinese New Year. Therefore, the students not only have to express Chinese New Year greetings, but most importantly they need to complete tasks in a culturally adequate way. This includes which fruits to purchase, what price is considered reasonable and the cultural significant of the holiday.
The checklist helps all students stay on task. It also provides a reason for the audience to pay attention to the presentation, and for the performers to take their performance seriously. These steps also help in classroom management. Students will have plenty of opportunities to hear their peers’ presentations which in turn will give them listening, speaking and confidence in their own performance.
It is important to keep the activities moving efficiently. It is the teacher’s responsibility to review and provide suggestions so that the final performance is a success.
Appendix
1. Ohio learning standards for world languages: http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Foreign-Language#Standards1
2. Scoring guides for World Languages in Ohio:
3. Rubrics Resources – Rubrics by levels from PWC Public Schools –
https://www.pwcs.edu/academics___programs/WorldLanguages/p_a_l_s_rubrics/p_a_l_s/
4. Ohio “Seal of Biliteracy”
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Foreign-Language/Ohio-Seal-of-Biliteracy
5. Links to helpful vocabulary are available at:
https://quizlet.com/274590122/zls-shui-guo-for-csu-flash-cards/
https://quizlet.com/277018801/vc1-bargain-at-the-fruit-stand-flash-cards/
Personal Bio:
Ms. Dun Zhang received her B.A. from Wellesley College, Mass, and her M.S. and teacher licensure from OSU. She has taught Chinese as a FL in American secondary schools for 12 years. She piloted an interactive video conferencing Chinese T&L program for one year, and witnessed a great increase in students’ enrollment the following year.
Another teaching opportunity brought her to the current in-classroom teaching post in a public school system. She is teaching Chinese 1, 2 and 3, supervises some Independent Studies students, and has been an advisor to Chinese Clubs in all three high schools in her district for ten years. She teaches Chinese 1 through 3 and blended learning in a mixed environment. She travels to three different buildings to teach students in grades 8-12.
