Sample Lessons for the Two-Way Immersion Classroom

You are about to view several examples of lessons created specifically for dual language, or two-way immersion, classrooms.

Lesson Plan Format
The many elements that the two-way immersion teacher has to keep in mind while planning lessons have been laid out in the lesson model on the following pages. What you will be viewing is the thinking process the effective two-way immersion teacher follows as she/he plans a lesson. “What is the big idea, or focus, of my lesson? How will I engage learners? What language will I be teaching along with content?” It is not being suggested that all lesson plans be written in this detailed format. Rather, these lessons provide an insight into the thinking and planning that goes on before a lesson is implemented in the classroom.

Creating lessons for two-way immersion classrooms requires teachers to be experts in content delivery, language teaching, and differentiation. The two-way immersion teacher must teach to high academic standards while at the same time engaging both the native language speaker and the language learner; whether the language of instruction is English or the non-English language, half of the students in the classroom are learning in their native language while the other half are learning content while at the same time learning a new language.

Sample Lessons
Each unit begins with a short narrative describing the population for which the unit was created. As you will see, many two-way immersion programs are still in the growing process: some programs continue to allow in new, monolingual students, even in the upper grades, while others do not yet have the population for a true two-way immersion program. Yet all the programs are working towards the goals of two-way immersion – students who are bilingual and biliterate – in an environment of additive bilingualism.

After the population narrative, there is an overview of the unit and the standards to which the unit is teaching. Following that are the lesson cycles. Each lesson cycle includes a preview, focused learning, and an application phase. For an overview of the lesson cycle and its many components, please see an overview of the lesson plan format. For a more complete description of the lesson cycle, please see Dual Language Instruction: A Handbook for Enriched Education, by Cloud, Genesee, and Hamayan.