Lesson Planning for EPI in the US- Post 1- Single Block Schedule

Lesson Planning for EPI in the US - Post 1 - Single Block

Disclosures and Disclaimers:

I am not a certified EPI teacher because I have not yet had the opportunity to complete the full EPI certification program. I have done several of the PD sessions with Dr. Conti, and have presented on EPI or aspects of it at multiple conference sessions here in Ohio. Dr. Conti is aware that I present and advocate for EPI.
I am a Quizizz Brand Ambassador for which I receive Quizizz free.
I am a Guest Proofreader for The Language Gym - uncompensated.
I have been a beta tester for SentenceBuilders.com and TextActivities.com for which I initially received free access, but am now a paying customer.
I have no financial interest in or relationship with The Language Gym website nor do I receive any benefits from referring others to it.

It is summer vacation for most of us in North America, and although the rest of the world may think that “teachers have the summer off”, many of us are working hard planning for the next school year. I know I have been preparing my curriculum for the four preps I will teach next year - French 1 through 4 - to save myself some stress and time during the school year.

There have been several teachers from the US and Canada asking in Facebook discussion groups about implementing EPI and using the Language Gym materials in our North American classrooms, and I have offered to explain what a sequence might look like for a unit using different schedules. I have previously taught both traditional 45-55 minute classes as well as double block classes (90-100 minutes either daily for a semester, or A/B days for a year).

These are outlines of how I might teach a unit under a single block (45-55 minutes daily). I will be including things that fall outside of EPI but align with the general expectations and standards in the US that we are teaching intercultural communication and including authentic resources. I do not give homework - district policy - but will include some ideas. I would advise against written homework or anything that can be done using Google Translate.

REMINDER: MARS EARS = Modeling, Awareness, Receptive Processing, Structured Production, Expansion, Autonomy, Routinization, Spontaneity

MATERIALS: French Trilogy 1 - Unit 4 - School Subjects and Teachers (Main workbook; speaking workbook; grammar workbook; PowerPoints from Language Gym)

ONLINE ACTIVITIES: LanguageGym.com; SentenceBuilders.com; gamified learning of your choice/access - Quizlet, Quizizz, Blooket, Gimkit

OTHER RESOURCES: Aurélie Lethuilier’s MARS EARS templates; Simona Gravina’s Padlet

Note - When creating my own activities using these templates, I am attentive to being inclusive of my students’ home cultures and non-metropolitan French cultures as well.

END OF UNIT TEST: Will include listening comprehension, reading comprehension, writing OR speaking (you can do both but that depends on your schedule, time availability, program goals, etc - I generally do one or the other for a simple unit test)

SINGLE BLOCK (45-55 MINUTE CLASSES DAILY)

Note: For this topic (school subjects), I would create an additional or edited version of the unit sentence builder that included all the subjects my students would have access to at their school so the lesson is relevant.

DAY 1 (M, A):

Register routine/Check In (I do this orally almost every day - depends on group how I do this - if they will not be polite while others are talking, I walk around and check in individually at each desk) - Question can be “Comment ça va?” or something using recent vocabulary & phrases to continue spiraling learned content.
Introduce new sentence builder page 39

Review pronunciation - have students repeat (can do funny voices/whispers for interest)
Point out any salient grammatical points (in this lesson I would likely pick gender markers) and pronunciation/phonetic points of interest (Note: In Spanish, you may not need to spend much time on phonetics)
I like to add color coding during the introduction - for this lesson I might have kids mark the positive adjectives & verb phrases in green and the negative in red. Could also have them color code the nouns by gender.

Listening activities page 40 (may not complete depending on time)

If I have students with IEP/504 (not sure what this is in Canada - students with learning disabilities or other health conditions like ADHD who require accommodations and modifications), I would provide word banks for Activities 4 and 5 - maybe on the screen via PowerPoint or on a separate sheet of paper.

Exit Pass: To check for any listening comprehension or sound-to-spelling processing issues

Can do on paper or digitally, however you prefer, depending on your tech tools/LMS etc
Write 6 short sentences using the school subjects in French. Read 5 aloud. Students indicate which one they heard. Sound to spelling check.

J’aime l’allemand.
J’aime anglais. (intentionally pick two that could be confused to check sound to spelling recognition)
Je n’aime pas l’éducation physique.
Je n’aime pas l’éducation civique.
Mon ami aime la chimie.
Mon amie n’aime pas la géographie.

POSSIBLE HOMEWORK IF TECH ACCESS: Language Gym or Sentence Builders.com (see Day 2)

DAY 2 (M, A, R)

Register Routine - I would ask “Quelle matière aimes-tu?”
Trilogy PPTs - Multiple choice reading comprehension slides aloud as whole class (make your own if you don’t have these)
Listening page 40 (Finish Act 4 & 5 if necessary)
Tech Options for in class or homework:

Language Gym Vocab Trainer or Listening Trainer - Depending on sequence, may take 10-30 minutes

Set sequences based on student competency - be aware of students with particular needs

Sentence Builders.com

Vocab Chunks - Listen & Translate; Read & Translate - Do Chunk Match and Matching Pairs - Will take less than 5 minutes unless you add on more items
For homework, could assign all 4 modes of Vocab Chunks for a longer assignment

Quizizz Mastery Peak

Vocab Building page 42

Go over directions aloud
IEP/504: If you have students with any kind of processing issues or visual impairments, have them skip Act 3 and 7

DAY 3 (R)

Register Routine - Quelle matière tu n’aimes pas?
Whole Group Activities

Choose from Language Gym PPTs or MARS EARS templates
Quizizz/Blooket/Gimkit/Kahoot (phrases) - Conti may not be a big fan of this but kids find engaging
Language Gym Boxing or Audio Boxing as a Live Game

Could do whole group correction of Vocab Building page if that aligns with your practices/you have time
Reading page 43 Act 1 & 2

IEP/504: I underline the answers in the reading to help students find them

Homework/Tech Option:

Language Gym Workout - Trilogy 1 Unit 4 - Modify as needed for your students
SentenceBuilders.com - SBSentences - Listen and Translate, Read and Translate - choose a few activities

Can also print worksheets to use as homework

DAY 4 (R)

Register Routine - Tu aimes (matière)? - Gives students a chance to use negative in response
Whole Group Possibilities

Language Gym PPTs
MARS EARS Templates - choose from the Modeling or Receptive processing
Listening activities page 41 Act 6 & 7

Reading Activities 3-6
HOMEWORK/STUDY FOR READING QUIZ

Assign some sort of review - could be Quizizz/Blooket/Quizlet or Language Gym Vocab Trainer, SentenceBuilders.com competition

DAY 5 (R)

Register Routine - Comment tu trouves (matière)? “C’est (adjectif).”
Whole Group

Language Gym PPTS
MARS EARS Templates - choose from Receptive Processing

Reading Quiz

Choose what best suits your students - here are some ideas for quiz sections

Sort school subjects by category
Sort sentences into “Positive opinion/Negative opinion)
Find the French - Write a short reading similar to those in the lesson. Have students find the French equivalent for English.

Follow up - comprehension questions

DAY 6 (Structured Production)

Register Routine (choose what you want - could be how are you doing, what did you do over the weekend - using a sentence builder to help - or question about school subjects)
Whole Group

Language Gym PPTS
Sentence Stealers game
MARS EARS templates - choose from Structured Production
Trilogy Grammar Activities

Translation

Paper option - do Translation page 44

IEP/504 - this will take longer for them - I would tell them to choose # of each activity to do

Tech option - SentenceBuilders.com - Translate to French activities

Exit Pass/Culture: Give students/display the school schedule of a student in an equivalent grade in a Francophone country (easy to find online - for example, search “emploi du temps 3e France”). Can do “Find similar/different” or ask specific comprehension questions.
Homework: I would NOT assign translation or writing to do at home. It is too easy to cheat. You could add on more SentenceBuilders.com. You could do cultural lessons by assigning an EdPuzzle about the French school system, or some sort of short cultural reading.

DAY 7 (Structured Production)

Register Routine - Choice
Whole Group - Speaking

Language Gym PPTS
No Snakes No Ladders
One Pen One Dice
MARS EARS Templates - Structured Production
Trilogy Grammar activities

Writing page 45

Skip anagrams if you have a lot of kids with processing or attention issues
Broken Words is also hard for kids with dyslexia
Act 4 - this can be Expansion - grammar - definite articles
Guided Writings- I always model one for the group
Alternatively, create writing prompts that are similar that relate to your students and their personal school schedules. This would be more relevant for them.

Exit Pass: Students write 3 sentences about their school schedule/teachers and how they feel about them.

DAY 8 (E, A)

Note: Expansion/explanation involves doing grammar instruction. You do not HAVE to do this. This depends on your program goals, standards, etc.

I honestly have not really been doing this with my level 1s due to the composition of my classes. I will likely use the new Trilogy Grammar activities beginning this year, but will limit explicit grammar instruction at Level 1 due to the needs of my students.

Register Routine
Whole Group

Language Gym PPTS
No Snakes No Ladders
MARS EARS Templates - Expansion & Autonomy
Trilogy Grammar activities

Trilogy Grammar Activities (your choice)
Language Gym - Sentence Trainer or Rock Climbing (this makes them focus on details)
Could do cultural lesson here instead - look at school schedules from Francophone countries, discuss school system differences between France and US/Canada
Homework: SentenceBuilders.com Paragraphs or Language Gym Sentence Trainer or Rock Climbing

DAY 9 (& 10 possible) (A, R, S)

Register Routine/Check In: Question of your choice - I would do “Tu étudies quoi au collège?” to elicit a response requiring more than one school subject in it.
Whole Group - Receptive

Choose a receptive skill to practice - or both skills - with an activity from the PPTs, a leftover listening activity from the workbook

Productive - Choose several activities from the templates or Language Gym PPTS for this stage

I prefer things that feel like games - more engaging for the students
Emphasize the productive skill you plan to assess - if you plan to assess speaking, practice speaking.
I like to have kids doing something that resembles what they will do on their test

If they will be doing speaking tests with me, I require them to do a practice run with me

Homework - Studying: Can set a SentenceBuilders.com competition, Language Gym Vocab, Listening or Sentence Trainer to do for review;

DAY 10 (or 11) - Unit Test - This is when I require my students to have the entire workbook unit done. I have done daily checks as we worked, but the full thing must be completed by the test.

Register Routine - Ask them how they are doing - some might be nervous
Take any questions before test
Unit test

Listening

Create a short listening activity that is similar to those they did in the workbook.
If you choose to use an authentic passage (IPA style), it should be very short, slow speed, and vocabulary contained should be 95-98% comprehensible based on lesson vocabulary and structures

Reading

Create a short reading passage similar to those they have seen
Can also incorporate authentic resource (USA - IPA type assessment) but again make sure it is comprehensible
Sometimes I have both - the one I create is for reading comprehension, the other is a separate grade for intercultural communication

Writing or Speaking

I would NEVER recommend having them do writing on the computer if it can be avoided.
Speaking - if you need to do this by having them record themselves on the computer, be mindful of if they will have access to Google Translate or ChatGPT etc while they are accessing the site to record/submit it.

Speaking tests may take longer and go to the next day.

Obviously it is possible to need more time on any of these lessons and push the unit longer, and it might sometimes be necessary for some students to complete their workbook assignments at home. Generally, though, if students stay focused during class, they should be able to complete the work in a timely manner and keep up with the pace.

I hope that is helpful! Next post will be about double block schedules.

-DNM