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In the United States, there is a lot of variance concerning quality ofÌýeducation, and who receives it. Low-income groups and students of color are impacted the most by discrepancies in education, so who better to learn about these issues than the students themselves?

By: Jenna Lowe and Giovanna Martinez
Course: Teaching Second Language (L2) Oral Skills and Communication (LING 4620)
Advisor: Professor Raichle Farrelly
LURA 2021

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ÌýÌý ÌýIn the United States, there is a lot of variance concerning quality ofÌýeducation, and who receives it. Low-income groups and students of color are impacted the most by discrepancies in education, so who better to learn about these issues than the students themselves? In our curriculum design project for our TESOL L2 Oral Skills class, we, in collaboration with Debbie Landman, designed three lesson plans that aimed to instruct high-school-age, intermediate-level English learners in listening, speaking, and pronunciation skills. All of these lessons are taught using the educational approach of content-based instruction (CBI), with a content focus of educational equality, or lack thereof. The cohesive lesson plans allow students to work on their language skills while also learning about major cracks in our education system.Ìý

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ÌýÌý ÌýWhen we were presented with this project for our Oral Skills class, we were assigned into groups based on our interests. Meeting over Zoom for the first time, we discussed what parts of the education system make this a social justice issue and why the three of us chose to pursue this issue. As a group, we decided to present three main issues that seem to have an observable impact on our education system. Related to the first issue of private and public schools, we found so many discrepancies in how class sizes are managed, cost, and teacher treatment. When introducing Affirmative Action as our next topic, we looked up numerous videos and articles to be able to provide the students with information that was still at an appropriate English learning level for English learners. Our reaction to researching this topic was to see it like scales, because of the balance of the benefits and disadvantages as well. The last lesson plan focuses on low-income and high-income schools, because there is a disconnect with the school districts since they rely so heavily on property taxes. Researching all of these topics opened our eyes even wider to what our education system looks like, and that the money that is funneled through tuition and taxes can make or break a child’s education in many cases.Ìý

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Ìý Ìý Our three lesson plans focus on students’ listening, speaking, and pronunciation skills. The first lesson plan introduces the topic of public and private education systems. While investigating these two systems in the first lessons, they are also developing their listening skills through an assortment of activities. In the second lesson plan students explore the topic of affirmative action including the perceived pros and cons of this initiative. They engage with the content through articles and videos. Lesson two allows students to build on what they have learned in lesson one to be able to present their ideas and have an in-class debate to improve their speaking skills. Our last lesson plan targets pronunciation, and vocabulary that was in the previous two lesson plans is reintroduced through guided worksheets to target the stress patterns in words that are familiar to both the student and topic.Ìý This lesson’s topic is high income vs. low income and builds upon the two previous lessons that the students have been introduced to.Ìý

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ÌýÌý ÌýAll three of these topics concern things that often directly impact ESL students, which can be sensitive material. Social justice issues, in general, are often sensitive topics, but it is important for students to interact with real-world problems. Many teachers think the ESL classroom is purely a space for language learning, but incorporating social justice gives many benefits.Ìý First, it opens up the floor for students to ask questions that might not have easily accessible answers. Students might have already noticed discrepancies between their education and others’ or how people are treated differently. Addressing social justice in the ESL classroom makes the information they want available to them. Second, it gives students the opportunity to think critically about problems that impact them.Ìý Rather than letting them observe and accept the inequalities they see, ESL teachers can advocate for their students and encourage them to advocate for themselves. Being students ourselves, this area of social justice was incredibly interesting to research and adapt.

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The full set of lessons can be found here: Ìý

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