Vacation Fun

Objective: sharing information/giving directions

When my advanced adult ESL class met to begin summer term the conversation moved to how they will manage childcare this summer. Soon one or two began to tell about some things their families enjoyed for holiday activities. I thought this would be a good theme for a project.

Their assignment was to think about one of these activities and come back ready to tell the class about it. I limited it to a place that would be a day trip or a local activity to include everyone.

They orally:

Shared the information (ex. "My children love the zoo.")
Answered questions about the info. (ex. "Which zoo, the one in Inman or Greenville?")

Next, we did a jigsaw activity to plan how we could share the info. in more detail with other classes. After sharing their suggestions they decided to:

Make an MSWord generic template for everyone to fill in with the necessary details about one activity
Add a photo, postcard or brochure.
Add some personal comments ("The best time is in the morning when it's not crowded.").
Re-do the bulletin board to display their mini-posters.
Provide a place for feedback if others visited the same place.

At the end of the summer they plan to do a survey and write a little article for the school news about the favorite vacation spot. Also, send their posters and feedback to each location's PR office.

Everyone is enjoying this. I will take it as far as the interest holds. Obviously it will present many opportunities for related lessons, both individual and group. So far, what they enjoyed most was going to the state welcome center only a few minutes away to look for material and gather more details. One student brought a new photo album for the class to add fill during the summer.

The multilevel class has shown a lot of interest as well. I've centered some of our basic life-skill lessons on the notices - such as time, calendar and map introduction.

Contributed by: Evelyn Stewart-Woods