Author's note: I have used this lesson successfully with my students at the International Institute of Boston (IIB); some students are non-literate and some are semi-literate in a non-Roman alphabet. All have had zero to three years of formal education.

Objective
After this lesson, students should be able to recognize their own name in print and be able to read the sentence: "My name is _______."

Reading Skills Covered
Letter recognition, word recognition, sentence recognition, visual discrimination, introduction of consonant sounds, reading from left to right.

Students
Beginner level (SPL 0-1) ESOL students at the basic literacy level. There should be a maximum of eight students in the class.

Length
The whole lesson takes about one and a half hours. There is no need to rush this lesson because so many literacy skills are embedded here.

• Answer the questions: "What is your name?" and "Where are you from?"
• Identify the sound made by the first letter of each name of students in the class.

Teachers can begin to teach letters of the alphabet in context by using the first letters of students' names in the class. Teaching letter recognition and sound/symbol correspondence can be facilitated by using an ESOL lexicon. (IIB has created its own.)

1. Oral practice: Students ask each other "What is your name?"
2. Name recognition: Teacher scatters index cards with the names of all the students in the class on a table. Names should be written entirely in uppercase. Each student selects his or her own name from the cards on the table.
3. Spelling aloud: Students practice spelling their own names aloud. If one student cannot spell her name, the teacher can ask a more advanced student:"Can you spell Mohammed's name?" This allows for multilevel flexibility.
4. Word recognition/sentence introduction: The teacher writes on board "My name is Ahmed." and prompts students to guess what it says by asking Ahmed, "What is your name?" The teacher asks other students and guides them to read the sentence by repeating "My" "name" "is" as she points to each word, then substitutes each tudent's name.
5. Reading for meaning: The teacher gives each student a strip that says "My name is" and another strip that has a classmate's name. This is a deliberate trick to get students to read carefully. Students then discover that they have someone else's name. This usually elicits laughter and makes the process fun.
6. Discovery and correction/reading for meaning: Each student discovers that she has a name that is not her own and exchanges name strips with the appropriate student to make corrections. Each student completes his/her sentence with her own name. Students then read their sentence to the others.
7. Sight words: The teacher reinforces each word by holding up single word cards for "My," "name," "is" and the whole group identifies the words.
8. Sight words/sentence structure: The teacher assists each student in cutting up her own sentence into single words and scrambling the words. Students rearrange the words back into the sentence. ("My name is Ahmed.")
9. Sight word reinforcement: The teacher calls out individual words ("Pick up `my'; Pick up `name'; Pick up `is'."and students pick up he corresponding word cards from their reassembled cut-up sentence. Students continue this in pairs.
10. Sentence writing: Each student copies her own sentence.
11. Follow-up: For the next class, the steps above are repeated in a similar manner for "I am from ______."

Marcia Chaffee is the Coordinator of Adult Education at the International Institute of Boston and has 21 years of experience teaching and supervising teachers in ESOL and basic literacy for adult refugees and immigrants. She can be reached at 617-695-9990, ext.152 or by e-mail at mchaffee@iiboston.org