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Session 3. Planning Language-Aware Lessons Across Subjects
Objective. Add a language layer to a 45-minute subject lesson: find its language demands, write one language objective, place three scaffolds at fixed minutes and plan which language is used at each stage.
Most lesson plans describe the content with care and leave the language to chance. Yet pupils meet new words, long sentences and demanding tasks in every subject, and a lesson that ignores this works well only for those who already have the language. A language layer takes about ten minutes to add and changes what happens in the lesson. This session shows how to find the language hidden in a lesson, write one language objective, and decide which language is used at each stage.
Key ideas
Every subject lesson is also a language lesson
- A science lesson asks pupils to name things, describe processes and explain causes. These are language jobs as much as science jobs.
- A word problem needs reading, a map task needs comparing words, a history task needs time words such as “before” and “after”.
- The subject teacher is the best person to teach this language, because the language lives inside the subject.
Three kinds of language demand
- Words: the subject words (vapour, denominator) and the school words (compare, therefore).
- Sentences: patterns such as “The more ..., the more ...” or “If ..., then ...”.
- Tasks: what pupils must do with language, such as listen to instructions, read a paragraph, explain to a partner or write three sentences.
A language objective next to the content objective
- Keep the content objective from your backward plan (course 5.2). Then add one language objective that pupils need to show it.
- Example: content, compare two climate zones; language, say “In ... it is ..., but in ... it is ...” with three climate words.
- One language objective is enough. Test it like any objective: could I see it?
Plan the languages and the scaffolds by minute
- For each stage decide the language: for example, Russian article in the input stage, Uzbek pair talk in guided practice, the lesson language for the exit ticket.
- Place scaffolds at minutes: pre-teach words in the opening, show a model in the input, give frames in guided practice, remove them in independent practice.
- Tell pupils the rule for the day: which languages are for thinking, and which one is for the final answer.
Adding a language layer in ten minutes
Reading your own lesson as a pupil would
Take the task “compare two climate zones” and read it as a pupil who is still learning the lesson language. Words: warm, dry, rainfall, zone. Sentence patterns: “In the north it is colder than in the south”; “but”, “while”, “both”. Tasks: read a paragraph, talk to a partner, then write. Each layer can block a pupil independently of the geography.
This reading takes ten minutes and often shows that the hardest part of the lesson is not the idea but a pattern such as “the more ..., the more ...”. Teach that pattern in one minute with two examples, and the whole lesson becomes easier to enter. List only what pupils will truly need; a long list is as unhelpful as no list.
One language objective, languages by stage
Add one language objective to the content objective: what pupils will say or write with language, in an observable form. “Pupils can compare two zones in three spoken sentences using ‘but’ and ‘while’” can be checked in the closure. A vague one such as “improve vocabulary” cannot.
Then decide the language for each stage and tell pupils the rule. For example, the source text may be in Russian, pair discussion in Uzbek or Russian, and the final three sentences in the lesson language. Write the choice in your plan next to the minutes. The point is not to allow every language at every moment, but to use each one where it helps thinking, and to keep the language of the final product clear.
Examples from the classroom
“Times more than” in mathematics
Scene. Aziz teaches Grade 5 mathematics in Samarkand. The content objective is to compare two quantities by multiplication. He notices the phrase “times more than”, which many pupils read as “plus”. His language objective: pupils say “A is three times more than B” aloud with a partner. He writes the frame on the board at minute 12 and uses two cotton-bale pictures as a model.
Insight. A single sentence pattern was the real barrier, and naming it let Aziz teach it in two minutes.
Three sources, three languages
Scene. Dilnoza teaches Grade 10 history in Tashkent. Her source is a Russian-language document, her pairs discuss in Uzbek, and each pupil writes a four-line summary in Uzbek. She tells the class the rule at minute 2: read in Russian, think in Uzbek, answer in Uzbek. At minute 25 she gives a frame “The document shows that ... because ...”.
Insight. Telling pupils which language does which job turned a mixed-language lesson into a plan.
Pre-teaching before the story
Scene. Malika teaches Grade 2 in Fergana. The reading is a short story about making sumalak for Navruz. At minute 1 she shows a wheat stalk, a pot and a big spoon, says each word twice, and pupils repeat in chorus. At minute 6 she reads the story slowly. Pupils who had never heard “sumalak” follow the story easily because they met the words first.
Insight. Five words taught in the opening made the later reading easier to follow.
Common pitfalls
- Writing three or four language objectives, so that none is taught or checked.
- Adding scaffolds without minutes, so they never appear in the lesson.
- Letting every language be used everywhere, so that the lesson-language product never happens.
- Forgetting the tasks: pupils can know the words and still not know how to “explain” or “compare” in the lesson language.
Add the Language Layer to a Lesson
- Read the sample Grade 6 natural science lesson plan in your Activity Kit. It has a content objective and 45 minutes but no language plan.
- In pairs (10 min): find the language demands. List at least three words, two sentence patterns and two tasks, and underline the one that is most likely to block pupils.
- In pairs (15 min): write one language objective, then place three scaffolds at fixed minutes in the plan and mark the language (U, R or E) for each stage.
- Swap plans with another pair (10 min). Check that the minutes still add up to 45 and that the language objective can be seen. Give one praise and one question.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which scaffold did you place in the opening and why there?
- Did your language objective ask for too much language? How could you cut it to one pattern?
- Where in your plan do pupils think in one language and answer in another?
Reflect
- Open your next unit. Which phrase in the textbook text will pupils skip because they do not know it?
- Which stage of your lessons currently has the least language support?
- Which language rule will you announce to your class at the start of a lesson?
Try it tomorrow
- Take tomorrow's lesson and list three words, two sentence patterns and two tasks that could block a pupil.
- Write one language objective in the form “Pupils can say or write ...” and test it by asking whether you could see it.
- Mark a language beside each stage of your plan and tell pupils the rule in the first two minutes.
Further reading and links
Plan the language as carefully as the content: name the demands, write one language objective, place scaffolds at minutes and decide the language of each stage.