How

The teacher will read a folktale, and depending on the proficiency level of the students, take the necessary time to cover
vocabulary and facilitate a class discussion to verbally summarize the details of the folktale. For those students who do not want to participate orally, they
can write a brief reflection. As a part of the discussion/reflection the main character and his/ her needs or distinct characteristics of the story will be evaluated. For example if one was using
the Folktale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Two important lessons are to be learnt.
One has to respect another’s property (mutual respect) and since Goldilocks ate
all the food, the poor bears had no more food.
If one has to link a community action project to the host country India, then there are many children in Mumbai who go hungry every day. A campaign could be set up to provide food for hungry and deprived children who live on the streets.

Students will then choose two to three folktalesfor the rest of their assignments. One would have to be from India.

The teacher will assign partners ensuring German ELL\'s and all other ELL\'s are paired with an English Speaking partner. Students will then choose a folktale and read with a partner. The students will be taught compare and contrast skills. They will make use of a compare/ contrast chart to compare and contrast cultures. Pictures and artifacts will be used to convey comparisons. These charts will be displayed in the room.

Throughout the unit folkloric aspects such as food,
traditions, rituals, and daily customs will be explored. Guest speakers and parents from the host country and other cultures will be invited to share their
experiences with a short demonstration through an activity from time to time. Students will be allowed to participate in
these organized activities like food tasting, understanding traditions and rituals through artifacts, games, role play and drama.

For the presentation of a community project students will work in a group. Teacher will assign the members of the group. They will read a folktale and compile the information about morals and messages in the folktale. Through simple inference the students will then make a connection with the folktale to a particular need in the community. (as in the example above).Students will then brainstorm ideas to develop the need into a communityservice project.

The teacher will model how to organize, evaluate ideas and draw conclusions. Students will use the selected ideas to develop up
a plan. Graphic Organizers will be used to show how ideas can be connected.

Guests from NGO’s will participate in student group discussions to understand the feasibility of their plans for community projects.

Students will develop a PPT presentation, a mind
map or a digital story to make a presentation about their community project.
They will write their information on note cards and practice their roles before making presentations to the parents.

The students will deliver their presentations group wise. Parents and specialist teachers will be invited to watch these
presentations.

Folktales can be used to assess the reading content to develop and test comprehension and critical thinking skills.
Especially the group task of planning a community activity helps students to connect their learning about the culture to a meaningful activity which could be translated into a real community project. Students will assessed in their ability to make these connections to culture and reality. The presentations also help assessing ELL students listening and speaking skills.

Five Step Action Plan - Building Bridges to Language and Learning