Before explaining what today’s featured lesson in, I just wanted to congratulate all the ETAs who completed the 2022 Global ETA Workshop! I hope it was helpful for everyone and that you were able to develop a portfolio of resources. Here at Fulbridge, we’re always looking for ways to support old and new ETAs. And now, for the lesson I picked from our database 🙂
Did you ever have a pen pal when you were younger? In today’s world, it might seem a little old-school to be writing actual letters, but I wanted to introduce a postcard lesson that I think would be a fun way to introduce students to the very basic structure of English writing- the introduction, body, and conclusion. Plus, since it’s the start of a new school year in the US, if you have teacher friends, you could get them to partner up with you and send some postcards between your classes! It would certainly create some memories for your students.
Sometimes we as English speakers forget that other cultures and languages have different ideas about what constitutes good writing. If we don’t teach our students what people expect when reading something composed in English, then no matter how good their actual English skills are, they won’t be able to communicate their ideas as clearly.
That’s why I’m impressed with Hillary’s Postcard PPT explaining how to write a postcard. While simple, it introduces the concept of the beginning, middle, and end structure of English composition.
It’s also a great example of scaffolding- she includes possible sentence structures for the students to use and color-coded important parts of the PPT. While this lesson seems to be more geared toward lower-level students, I think it could also be a fun lesson, if expanded, for more experienced students, perhaps as part of a unit on traveling abroad or tourism within their home country.
And that’s all I have for today! If you’ve had a successful experience in setting up a pen pal program, or having your students write letters to people, please share in the comments!!