Literacies for LCTLs Lesson Plans

The lesson plans below arose out of the Literacies for LCTLs workshop series to respond to teachers’ need for more examples of how to implement multiliteracies pedagogy in LCTL classrooms. All lesson plans were created by practicing teachers in collaboration with the Literacies for LCTLs workshop leaders.

All lessons are published with a CC-BY-NC-SA license, meaning that you can use, copy, adapt, and share them as long as you give appropriate attribution, share them using the same or similar license, and don’t use them for commercial purposes. To make adaptable copies of documents in the lesson plan folders, right click on the document and select “make a copy” from the pull-down menu.

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Changing Traditions: The Modern Italian Family

This four-day lesson plan on traditions and Italian families, which serves to supplement to the content presented in commercial textbooks, uses target language texts to help students reflect on how family dynamics have changed in recent years, and how the cultural imagery and terminology of the family develops and evolves to include new paradigms and respond to societal transformations.

Freedom of Fashion (Mandarin Chinese)

This three-day lesson plan focuses on the intricate language of self-expression and identity. For many people, choosing what clothes to wear is a form of expression, and it's essential to respect the freedom of clothing. In June 2012, the Shanghai Subway issued a statement warning women not to wear revealing clothes on the subway, citing potential harassment. This sparked dissatisfaction and heated debate among women and netizens. The lesson explores the freedom of fashion and addresses the issue of anti-sexual harassment.

Japanese Business Manners

In this five-day lesson plan on Japanese business manners, students learn to describe and present themselves in context- and situation-appropriate clothing; read simple directions to understand appropriate behaviors in business contexts; provide advice about appropriate business attire; and build awareness of inclusive workplace practices.

Part-Time Job (Japanese)

In this six-day lesson plan on working part-time, students interpret various multimodal texts to compare part-time work conditions and motivations in Japan and the United States; examine the language and conventions used to talk about part-time work in multimodal texts; and design an effective video commercial for an organization seeking part-time employees.