Tasks to Complete Before Teaching

Getting Started
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- Identify the topics participants will explore in the project.
- Learn the names and interests of other participants.
- Create ground rules to guide the group’s behavior during the lessons.

Lesson Preview

- Illustrate the purpose for the lessons with a demonstration.
- Discuss the themes and topics of the project.
- Identify similar and different interests and characteristics of participants in the group.
- Learn about one another in structured sharing with a partner.
- Share self-introductions in the large group.
- Generate a list of ground rules for participants’ behavior during the lessons.
- Discuss their responses to the lesson.

Materials Needed

- Visual means for recording ideas (paper, chart paper or white/chalk board and markers/chalk)
- Bottle with a narrow neck
- Glass filled with water
- Funnel

Tasks to Complete Before Teaching

- For Generating Interest in Topic: Place the bottle, glass filled with water, and the funnel on a table at the front of the room.
- For Information to Share: Prepare a visual of the themes of the program. Use the following format:
* Write each theme as a title.
* Leave enough space to write 3-5 topic ideas.
* Include the following themes:
Getting a Job
Communicating With Others
Friendships
Staying Healthy
Working Out Conflicts
Keeping a Job
Gaining Self-Confidence
Making Good Decisions
Respecting Self and Others
Leader’s Note: If you are adding some of your country specific lessons to the program, add some of those themes to the above list.

- For Information to Share: Prepare a visual listing all of the lessons to be taught during the program.
- For Group Activity/Practice: Prepare a visual with a vertical line down the center of the chart paper or white/chalk board. Label the left-hand side “Comfortable and Respected” and the right-hand side “Uncomfortable and Uneasy.”
- For Group Activity/Practice: Prepare a visual with the title “Ground Rules.” The information that is written on this visual should be posted each time the group meets. It may be helpful to use chart paper for this visual.

Prerequisite Skill or Lesson

- None

Length of Lesson: 45 minutes


LESSON PLAN
Generating Interest in Topic
Leader Input and Demonstration (5 minutes)
1. Welcome participants to the group.

2. Introduce yourself by sharing your name, role with the organization, some of your interests, reasons you want to be a part of this project, and your excitement about working with the participants.

3. Tell participants you want to begin with an illustration. Point out the bottle with a small opening and the glass filled with water on the table at the front of the room.

4. Explain that you want to get the water from the glass into the bottle. However, if you pour the water very fast it will probably spill and go outside the bottle. If you pour it very slowly, it is likely to dribble down the side of the glass.

5. State that, in order for you to save all of the water and get it into the bottle, you will need skill and tools. You will need a funnel, the tool, and the skill to pour the water at the right speed to allow the funnel to work properly. Again, if you pour too fast or too slow, it will not work. If the bottle isn’t big enough and you try to pour all of the water into it, it will spill.

6. Illustrate the concept by pouring the water into the bottle.

7. State that this group/class is designed to give them opportunities to learn skills and tools they will need in life, whether they are in school, working at a job, or have a family. In some ways, the participants are like the bottle and its capacity to hold the water. The number of the tools and skills they learn and use in their life depends on their capacity and willingness to stay interested and attentive in class.

Information to Share

Leader Input (5 minutes)

1. Explain the purpose for the project.

- This project is designed to help participants gain the knowledge and skills to be more successful in school or on the job.

2. Display the visual listing the major themes of the project. Ask participants to think about the themes and be ready to share what topics they think might be covered in each theme.

3. After a minute or two, ask for ideas from the participants for each theme. Write their ideas on the chart in the space between each theme.

4. Display the visual of the lesson titles. Have participants compare their list of ideas with the lesson titles. Note the similarities and differences.

Leader’s Note: If there are many ideas suggested by the students that are not on the list of lesson titles, suggest that you will try to incorporate their interests throughout the course. As you lead discussions during the teaching of the lessons, try to remember their ideas and integrate them as appropriate.

5. Tell participants it will be more fun and easier to learn if they get acquainted with one another and begin to learn one another’s names and interests.


Group Activity/Practice

Activity (20 minutes)

1. For the first activity, explain that they will find others in the room who have the same interests or characteristics as they do. You will suggest some common interests and characteristics. When you state an interest or characteristic, they are to get up and move around the room forming groups with others in the room who share the same interest or characteristic as they do. Provide an example.

- If you, the leader, said, “Find others who like the same favorite fruit,” participants would get up and find others in the room who were saying the name of their favorite fruit.

- Share your favorite fruit and tell participants that, if you were playing the game, you would be trying to find others who were saying the name of “(your favorite fruit).” Then, you would stand together.

Leader’s Note: If possible, play the game with the participants so they learn about your interests and characteristics, too.

2. Have participants try the activity using the interest or characteristic you used as the example.

3. When they have formed groups, ask each group to report its favorite fruit or the interest or characteristic you used.

4. Repeat the process with the following interests or characteristics or create your own. Select those that are appropriate for the culture and group with which you are working.

- Favorite topping on rice
- Favorite evening activity
- Favorite musical group or artist
- Favorite breakfast food

5. After conducting the first activity with three or four interests or characteristics, have participants find a partner who was not in their last group and someone they do not know well. Have them find a comfortable place to sit together.

6. Ask them to decide who is Person “A” and who is Person “B.” Tell them that Person A will be talking with Person B about a topic you will give them. They will have one or two minutes to talk. Person B will listen and learn more about the person. The following are suggested topics. Select those most appropriate for your culture and group or create your own.

- Job I’d like to have some day
- Early childhood memory
- Characteristic I look for in a good friend
- One thing I worry about is…

7. After one or two minutes, ask the pairs to reverse the roles. This time Person B will speak and Person A will listen. Select a different topic.

8. When Person B is finished, have the participants form a seated circle. Have each participant introduce himself or herself by sharing:

- Name
- City or region where they live
- Something they like to do in their free time
- Someone they would like to meet if they could meet anyone in the world

Activity (10 minutes)

1. Display the visual with the titles “Comfortable and Respected” and “Uncomfortable and Uneasy.”

2. Ask participants to share with you behaviors that will make them feel comfortable and respected in the group. Write their ideas on the left side of the chart paper or white/chalk board.

3. Ask participants to suggest behaviors that will make them feel uncomfortable and uneasy. Write their ideas on the right side of the chart paper or white/chalk board.

3. Ask participants to look at their ideas. If you have participants who cannot read, review the ideas by stating them.

4. Tell participants they will use their ideas to create a list of ground rules for the group’s behavior during the lessons. Ask them to select the ideas that are the most important to them and create a list of five to eight ground rules.

Leader’s Note: If participants have difficulty suggesting rules, offer a few of the examples from the next step to get them started.

5. Write the ground rules on the visual titled “Ground Rules.” If the participants do not suggest the following ground rules, offer them as ideas that are important for you, as the leader, to be comfortable in the group.

- Show up for the lessons.
- Share your thoughts and opinions.
- Do not interrupt others when they are talking.
- Pay attention when others are speaking.
- Do not make fun of others or put them down.
- Do your share of the work in small groups.

6. Keep this visual posted whenever the group meets.

7. Tell participants that each group session/class will be 30-45 minutes in length. Be sure they understand the schedule for the lessons and when the next lesson will be taught.


Personal Application

Discussion (5 minutes)

1. Ask participants:

- What is one thing you are looking forward to as you think about attending this group/class?

- Why do you think it is important to have and adhere to the ground rules?

- What is something new you learned about someone in the room?