I have something to offer you and something to ask of you this week.
My question is for those of you already implementing Portfolio Based Language Assessment (PBLA), especially if you teach literacy or a low level.
In my literacy class, we are spending four weeks building skills toward being able to communicate needs and complaints to the landlord. During week one, we read "Jack's Apartment" in the Talk of the Block short vowel series - Home. Week two revolved around being able to read "A Crack in the Tub" in the same series.
We are just building vocabulary and becoming more and more familiar and comfortable with the concepts of our dwellings and what can go wrong in them.
Week three our topic was rooms of the house or apartment and what furniture or appliances could be found in each room.
These past three weeks' classroom activities were not strictly limited to learning to read these simple stories about fictional Jack and his leaky bathtub. We also spent some time on each of the following:
- CVC words; we are working our way through all five short vowel sounds (TAP, BED, RIP, POT, TUB).
- Being able to read analog and digital clocks in order to communicate to one another at what time we engage in various activities.
- Counting from 1 to 60 (for clock skills).
- Functions such as being able to ask and answer "What time do you take a shower / eat breakfast?"
- More practice with "how many" in the context of "How many rooms are in your house/apartment?"
- Review of colours via "What colour is the (room in the house)?"
This coming week we will finally dive into the CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario) learning activity booklet for CLB 1/2 called Tenancy Law - Maintenance and Repairs. Yes, this material is, strictly speaking, too high for them. That is why I spent three weeks helping them build vocabulary around rooms of the house and what is in a house. By the time we tackle this set of activities, they will have already learned words like landlord, stairs, hall, living room, bedroom, sink, tub, leaking, and broken.
Here's my question. If I am writing out a MODULE PLAN for my supervisor in accordance with PBLA guidelines, would one of these weeks constitute one module with the end goal of that module being the ability to read the story about Jack (not a RWT), or would the module be the entire four weeks (three weeks of skills building to get to the Real World Task of being able to talk to the landlord or write her/him a note)? My manager gives me one answer, but some colleagues disagree.
Okay.
Now onto what I am offering YOU today. If you teach a lower level, such as Literacy Phase I or CLB 1 or 2, my activity pack for this CLEO workbook may be useful to you and your class. You can download the PDF word search puzzle, PDF word shapes worksheet and an MS Word document containing four different activities. This last item is something that you are FREE TO EDIT as you see fit (the true / false sentences currently refer to my own students by name, so you would change them). Just go to my website at www.kellymorrissey.com and then to FREE RESOURCES - Settlement Themes. Click the Canadian Law panel and scroll down to Tenancy Law.
Enjoy! (Oh, and DO let me know if you end up using these materials. It would make my day.)
