Lesson Plan for English Language Learners

Content Objectives: Students will be able to predict what words will mean using the context
sentences.
Language Objectives: Students will be able to use their vocabulary words to create a new
sentence.
Key Vocabulary: Construct, trend, appearance, thoughtful, suffer, outstanding, access, and
refuse
Supplementary Materials: Worksheets, attached.
Lesson Sequence:

The teacher explains that sometimes we can know what a word means without seeing a
formal definition, by looking at the sentence/context. The teacher models with to the class
by writing the following sentence on the board, making guesses out loud what the what the
word could mean, then getting the actual definition to see if she was right. The students will
observe changes in their science experiments and write them down in their journals. She
does a think aloud guessing what the word could mean or what other words you could fit into
that sentence. Then, she reads the actual definition and explains how she was right or wrong.
(Actual definition can be looked up in the classroom dictionary or just given as to watch or
to examine.)

Students sitting on the carpet with teaching in the front of the room. Teacher writes the word
consider on the board, and asks students to do a turn-and-talk with the person next to them
about what they think the word means. Begin the turn-and-talk with the words I think the
word means _____. The teacher calls on each pair/cluster of students and asks them to say
what they think the word means and writes options on the board.

The teacher writes the following sentence on the board: Rachel had to consider whether she
wanted to go to the mall or to the pool. The teacher asks the students to turn-and-talk to a
partner, using the language form I think it means _____ because ______ and discuss
whether they thought the word meant the same thing or if the sentence changed their
perception of the meaning. The teacher then calls on each pair/cluster of students and asks
them to say what they think the word means.

The teacher hands out the worksheets (see attached) to students and they go sit at their desks.
Instructions are on the top of the worksheets, and teacher should read/explain them to the

class. The worksheets are printed front/back, and students are told not to turn to the second
page until they have finished the first page.
Reflections: I have tried to incorporate the 4 Ps in this lesson in order to help the students
internalize the information better. In order to increase comprehensibility, I have included a
modeling aspect, where the teacher models and does a think aloud of how one could guess or
predict what a word means. In order to increase interaction I have included a turn-and-talk to
help the students formulate what they want to say and also to help them bounce ideas off of each
other. To increase connections I have included a place to students to use the words they learned
and create sentences of their own. This will help give them ownership over the new vocabulary
words. Finally, to increase higher order thinking skills, I have asked students to predict what a
word might mean using context clues. This should help students get into the mindset that they
might not know exactly what every word means, but they have strategies to help hypothesize
what the words could mean.

Worksheet: Can I Find the Definitions Myself?

Instructions: After reading each word and its Context Sentence write down a prediction of what
the definition of the word is in the column What I Think it Means. Once you have completed
that column, find the word on the Word Definitions page (page 2 of your worksheet) and copy it
into the Definitions column. Mark down in the Was I Right column whether your prediction of
the word was right of not with yes, no or maybe.
Word:

Context Sentence:

What I Think it
means:

Definitions:

Was I right?
(yes, no, or
maybe)

Construct

The boys constructed a

giant tower out of blocks
and toys.

Trend

Many of the 2nd grade girls

wear leggings to school
because it is a new trend.

Appearance

Hannah wants to change

her appearance by getting a
haircut and buying new
clothes.

Thoughtful

Jill is very thoughtful, and

she always asks how I am
feeling when I look sad.

Suffer

Mike suffered a lot when

he crashed his bike and
broke his arm.

Outstanding

Tom did outstanding on his

test because he studied for
much longer than his
classmates.

Access

The queen could access the

gold room, but her slaves
could not.

Refuse

I refuse to give you my

cookie because I really
want it.

Word Definitions
Access the chance to get into something or somewhere
Appearance the way something or someone looks
Construct To build or create
Outstanding really great, better than everything else
Refuse say no to
Suffer to feel pain
Thoughtful kind, nice
Trend something that a lot of people do

Instructions: Use the top of this page with word definitions to fill out the chart on page one.
When you have finished page one, write a sentence bellow using each of the new vocabulary
words.
Access:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Appearance:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Construct:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Outstanding:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Refuse:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Suffer:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Thoughtful:
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Trend:
_____________________________________________________________________________.