Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan: Comparing Education Around the World
I adopted this lesson from the VITAL website for English for Comparing Education Around the World. I would use this and adopt it for a French Lesson.
Grade Level- 7th
Time Required- 4- 40 minute classes
Part I: Learning Activity
1. Tell students that they will be learning about two classrooms from around the world. Before viewing the first segment, distribute copies of the Education Around the World handout (changed for use in a French classroom)
2. Tell students that they're going to watch a video segment about the culture in American classrooms.
3. After watching the segment, ask students what they remember about the classroom. Use a story map online to go over first segment. Replay the video, asking students to listen for specific information in order to complete the first column of the chart. Afterwards, students copy what you have written.
4. Tell students that they're going to watch another video about schools in other countries. This part of the video would be from a French classroom in France.
5. After watching the second segment, ask students what they remember about the classroom. As before, use a story map online. Have students write what I have written. Replay the video as needed in order to complete the chart.
Part II: Assessment
1. Students use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the differences between a French speaking classroom in France, and how we do things differently or similar in America.
2. Discuss completed Venn diagrams as a class. How are they alike? How are they different?
3. Completed Venn diagrams can be placed in student portfolios to demonstrate their understanding of this concept.
For students with additional help
1. Go over chart with students, marking similarities in one color and differences in another color.
2. Then, help students to organize the similarities and differences on the Venn diagram.
Resources:
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/vtl07.la.rv.text.lpcomped/

Additional Resource: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/neworleans/tguide/index.html#culture
After the two classes about comparing and contrasting the cultures, I would go over this pbs resouce about New Orleans. This would show how the French ended up in America and after they have compared and contrasted, they will watch this video and then would use their knowledge of education in differnet cultures and compare how these people must of felt after coming to America. This would introduce two cultures and then bring the knowledge they know and come up with a hypothesis about how these people adapted to the new world.