Languages and Children: Chapter 6

Effective lesson planning has been one of the most challenging and empowering teacher knowledge I have acquired this year. As I read this chapter, C&D kept confirming what I've learned in these last few months: good instruction planning advice is found with the ESL and Exceptional Learning professionals. ESL and Exceptional Learning teachers and researchers have spent the last several decades learning so much about the brain and how it works best (this chapter, obviously, focuses on the advantages of planning units/weeks/days around a central theme or big picture) using the most up-to-date technology and research practices. While other factions of the education world have done a great job of completing their research and have come to the same conclusions (no more lines of desks in a classroom, no more memorizing arbitrary lists of words, etc), the ESL and Exceptional Learning research gives the best practice advice available.