In-Class, Feb. 25th: Dialect/Accent Lesson Plans

For the following task, you need to be able to draw a clear distinction between SLANG and DIALECT/ACCENT.

Today, we are working in groups again. Time for this project: two class sessions; the rest is homework (make sure you know how to contact your group members). The people who are not in class today will make their own lesson plans if they want to make up.

PROMPT:
Create a lesson plan to instruct a 9th grade freshmen high school English class (you can choose between top track / mid track / third track) about the topic “dialects.”

You are a teacher presenting at the NCTE conference, so your audience consists of other teachers. They are interested in seeing your objective, the steps you take as a teacher, and what kind of task you give your students (age- and level-adequate!), and how effective your teaching about dialect is (that is, “what will the children learn?”)

Your group will present your lesson plan on the smartboard; it will be a blog post (a new thread; not a “comment”).

ATTENTION: These lesson plans don't have to contain any specific rubrics for assessment, etc.; you just say what kind of test you're doing, but you don't include the test. You just say what kind of task you're giving, but you don't write down all the single steps. The only thing where you have to go into detail is when you teach your students about your DIALECT: you have to type out which kind of pronunciation changes can be heard on the sound link you integrated.

TASK 1:
Get together in groups of 3-4. Select a country, and within this country a region about whose dialect you are going to talk. (See sound files further down for examples). All the dialects must be DIALECTS OF ENGLISH, although the speakers can come from different countries, and have a more or less strong accent.

TASK 2:
Invent an objective WHY you teach your class about this topic. This can be “discrimination due to dialect” (in this case, your introduction should focus on how hard it is to find a job if you speak a strong dialect, or are an immigrant with a strong accent, etc.), “dialect training for actors” (special courses that American actors have to take in order to play in a special movie, for example when playing the “bad guys” (typically the Russians) in a James Bond movie, or Hitler’s soldiers), “group bondage through dialect,” “Eskimos have many words for snow – what words do you have that I don’t have?”, and any other theme you can think of.

TASK 3:
Select one of the sound files attached further down. You will play this sound file (MP3) to your class, so your students can hear the dialect/accent.

TASK 4:
Your lesson plan should have the components 1.an introduction with an attention catcher, 2. body (containing a mini lecture with sample sound file, and a task for your students with inquiry, learning, and assessment), and 3. a conclusion.

TASK 5:
You will publish your group’s lesson plan on the blog. To make the blog entry more interesting, you have to choose one picture (can be a cartoon about dialect, etc.) as an attention grabber. Also, you need to link your sound file, and any other links you want to demonstrate to your audience.


MATERIALS you will need:

The following is a read-write-think link to lesson plans and teacher suggestions for incorporating learning about dialects in classes:

“What Did They Say? Dialect in The Color Purple”

Sample lesson plans on this website:

“Teaching about Dialects”

“Incorporating Dialect Study into the Language Arts Class”


Here are sample MP3 files of different dialects in English:

1) by different Russian native speakers
(male, female, good/poor English)

2) by different German native speakers

3) British
native speakers of English

4) French native
speakers (textbook accent,
etc.)

On the same webpage, you will find many more dialects/accents by speakers of English of different nationalities.

Have fun!