While many of the lessons found in the English Forward Curriculum already have Extension Activities, you have the opportunity to create your own for any lesson! The idea behind Extension Activities is that the students get to take what they learned in the lesson and apply it to the real word in some way. This can be big or small, simple or complex. For example, in lesson 1.4, How Do You Feel?, the extension activity is simply having students practice saying hello and goodbye to different people between classes, or using the Beatles song “Hello, Goodbye” for a Cloze Activity. Lesson 7.2, The Grocery Store, has a much more complex extension activity that has the class plan a trip to the grocery store, including creating a list of items to purchase, budgeting money, and conducting a scavenger hunt.
Think about how you might extend English Forward lessons and other lessons that you bring into class. How can you make it real to students? How can you get them to apply what they’ve learned in the real world?