Young Learner English Lessons

The Year of No More Corn by Helen Ketteman

Pictures by Robert Andrew Parker, Orchard Books, 1993.

A wonderful modern "tall tale" set in the corn fields of Indiana.

Lessons that can be used to expand ideas gained reading of this book:

Introducing the story and extending it.

Questions to guide student research about topics introduced in the story.

A bibliography about corn - a staple food in the U.S.

Sources to purchase the book: http://www.helenketteman.com/year_of_no_more_corn.htmA

A Few Instructional Activities for Large Classes

Newspaper Headlines can be collected over times. Cut headlines (large print) from the newspaper and divides them into single word strips of paper. Do not include hard words, names of people or abbreviations. Put the word strips in a small (shoe) boxes. Groups of students can use these words as sentence starters by selecting a word then saying or writing a sentence that uses the word.  

English Clubs can be established at internet cafes. Meetings can be weekly on specified topics that are determined by the members, possibly, on a topic that one or more members want to know about prompted by a web search or web content. 

Read aloud to the class. Big Books are the answer for big classes but they are not available everywhere. First a teacher can read the little book to the whole class, standing in front of them and showing the pictures. Second, the teachers can make a big book by writing the text of a little book on large sheets of paper. Third, as each page is done it can be given to a group of students to read the page then draw a picture to illustrate the text on that page. Fourth, the teacher posts all the pages on the class walls then reads the story aloud again from the pages on the walls.  The students who illustrated that page should read it aloud with the teacher.