“Why Thematic Units?”
People are always asking me this. This is an easy question to answer. My first response is thematic units allow teachers to give students real-world opportunities to communicate. Secondly, thematic units have the ability to develop meaningful activities, tasks, and assessments. Furthermore, thematic units give students the ability to have higher level thinking. Create themes by starting with an essential question and work with backward design to develop a unit. You can learn more about how to create thematic units here on this blog post. Or you can further your study by reading this ACTFL publication.
Designing units do take a lot of work and time, but once they are in place they make your life so much easier. Always start with an essential question and work backward from your end goal. You don’t need formal training to accomplish this. There are a ton of resources out there for you.
Real-World Opportunities
Textbooks are designed with memorization tasks and watch and repeat style of communication. One of the outcomes with thematic units is to encourage spontaneous communication in any situation as well as improve proficiency. Students function in the real world using the language in a variety of situations.
Meaningful Activities
Activities are set by the teacher to give students the opportunity to use the vocabulary being taught in a natural, unrehearsed way. If your theme is focused on charitable organizations, you would want the takeaway to be for students to talk about aspects of charitable organizations like fundraising, giving and advertising. If your theme is the weather, you will create activities that talk about weather patterns, temperature, and weather-related activities.
On that same note, your theme could cover cultural topics like Hearing Privilege or Housing. Both can integrate new vocabulary and conversation skills and develop a better sense of the Deaf community.
Higher-level Thinking
Any level of language learner can benefit from thematic units. Any essential question works for a novice student to an advanced student. The difference is the depth, scope, and level of detail of their answers would vary. Staying on the theme of charitable organizations, your essential question might be What is the focus of a charitable organization for the Deaf? Novice students can answer the question by stating what the focus is for the organization. An intermediate student can tell the focus and expand by explaining the needs of that organization in depth. Even more advanced would tell the services the organization provides and how they obtain funding to do the job.
The IPA
By the end of the unit, language learners will have developed a comprehensive answer to the essential question. Guided by the content, vocabulary, and language functions learned throughout the unit’s teaching, students can demonstrate this learning through an Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA). The IPA assesses the three modes of communication interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational.
Jay Ketner talks more about thematic units in his article.
