PRACTICE II, DIDACTICS OF ELT AND PRACTICUM AT PRIMARY

SCHOOL LEVEL, UNLPam (2014)

Students: Mendez, Yoana and Suarez, Dalma

Lesson Plan: Short Storytelling: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

In chapter 2 Teaching Literature in the Classroom: Fostering Communicative Competence,

Intercultural Awareness and Critical Thinking in Young Learners (Braun, E. 2011), Griselda Beacon

and Ana Maria Cendoya maintain that literary texts provide “rich linguistic input, a trigger for the

development of intercultural competence, effective stimuli for students to express themselves in

other languages and a potential source of learner motivation.”

In connection with stories, they say that they are multi-purposeful: they contribute to “develop

literacy, thinking skills, emotional growth, positive interpersonal attitudes and intercultural

competence.”

Aims:

To introduce literature in the classroom.

To engage and motivate students through the use of authentic input.

To foster the development of cognitive skills through the teaching of narratives and the

way they are built.

To create a positive, comfortable and anxiety-free environment in which student can share

their opinions and express themselves freely.

To introduce, revise or reinforce days of the week and food (vocabulary), and prepositions

before, after and between.

Materials: short story, a video, construction paper, craft supplies, glue, scotch tape.

Procedure:

Show the video (6:30 minutes)

Re-telling of the story using the book (teacher’s voice, facial expressions and body

language, as well as, flashcards: food).

Give students paper and glue so they construct their own caterpillars.

Ask students if their caterpillars are hungry. Ask students to take from a box a flashcard of

a food item (they do not have to show it).

Game: the teacher asks which caterpillars (students) eat e.g. “oranges”, so the students

with oranges stand up and wave their caterpillars.

Presenting the prepositions posters. Guessing game: Which day comes before Monday?

The students answer back (they have as an aid cards with the days of the week arranged in

order in the wall). If the students answer correctly several times, encourage them to form

the questions themselves and pose those questions to other students.

Paste their caterpillars and food in the wall under the correct day.

Ask student to make their own butterflies.

Extension: The short story is about a little caterpillar, which first pops out from an egg, then

becomes a big caterpillar, later wraps itself in a cocoon and finally becomes a butterfly. This story

could be expanded using CLIL. The English teacher could work with the Natural Science teacher

and together teach the cycle of life of caterpillars/butterflies. Students may be ask to produce a

poster with the different stages in the cycle, using pictures, their own drawings, arrows, and

briefly describing the amount of time that each stage lasts.