¡Música!

There is nothing like music to learn vocabulary. When we associate new words with rhythms and movement we have the perfect combination. The students LOVE the song La canción de las frutas, from the book/CD "Music that teaches Spanish" by Patti Lozano. For the lyrics, click here

Language Acquisition and other topics...

I had some very interesting conversations with some interested people about Language Acquisition. For more information you can click here and read an article from NCLRC (National Capital Language Resource Center), a non profit organization located in Washington DC, funded by the Department of Education, and led by Georgetown University, The George Washington University,and the Center for Applied Linguistics.

All we do in class is oriented toward that goal. Check out the new projects on the right side: Dinosaurios (2nd grade), Animales del Océano (3rd grade) and packing for Venezuela (4th grade).

Some books

Here are three books that the children absolutely loved. La Vaca que decía OINK demonstrates to young children the advantages of speaking an additional language!

What we do...

What we do in the Foreign language Elementary School (FLES) program is oriented towards language acquisition. Specifically, second language acquisition (SLA), since their primary language, for most of the children, is English. The way children acquire a second language is somehow similar to the way they acquire their native language. The process begins, in most cases, with a “silent period”, in which they speak very little. Some children reject hearing/listening to the foreign language because it is “incomprehensible”. That is what happens when some children complain about “I don’t understand a word you are saying” o “Could you say it in English?” However, these “silent learners” are rehearsing important “chunks” of information. The first words or phrases are then used in one or different situations and become “attached”. A handful of words and phrases are used to accomplish basic purposes. The most direct source of information in the classroom is the teacher and other authentic materials we work with. This is the “input”. Classroom management and differentiation is extremely important so that this input can reach everyone. When students process the input in a way that leads to learning we call it “intake”. The amount and quality of input the children receive is the most important factor affecting their learning, but it has to be at a level comprehensible to them. The input should be just beyond what the learner can fully understand; it is comprehensible, but not 100%. And that is OK!! Another factor is the use of the language in interaction, that is how the students generate new contexts for words and new combinations. The more exposure, the earlier… the better.

Feliz Año Nuevo

Happy New Year! I hope everybody had a great winter break. I am happy to have the children back in the classroom, I missed them!! Before the Holidays we talked in class about how people welcome the New Year in Spain: on New Year's Eve friends and families wait for the clock to strike midnight on the streets or at home in front of the TV. Every time the bell strikes we eat one grape, that makes a total of 12 grapes. Then, adults and children toast (with juice, of course) for the New Year and wish each other health, love, money and luck. Even Nico ate the 12 grapes!!

Gracias por...

Thanksgiving was an exciting time for the whole school. It was a time to count our blessings, stop and think how fortunate we are to have friends, family, etc. The children were thankful for so many reasons! Familia, amigos, maestros, la vida, la naturaleza and even Nico, our stuffed bull! They wrote on paper leaves what they were thankful for, and each grade formed a beautiful, big, strong tree. All the trees formed a "forest" in our lunch room. Even the teachers wrote in Spanish! Come, check it out!! For pictures (until you get there) look at the slide show on the right side of this blog. Gracias por compartir sus hijos conmigo. Thank you for sharing your children with me and a big thank you to all of you who helped cutting leaves!

Some reflections...

I have been thinking about how I try to address the multiple intelligences that I see in all of the students at Beye. The special area teachers get to know all the children in the school, that is about 400 kids!
The verbal-linguistic intelligence: Spanish has different sounds than English. In addition to that there is a wide variety of dialects of Spanish in the vast territories of Spain and the Americas. Children notice right away when somebody doesn't speak like the teacher; "it sounds funny", they say. I smile because this is proof of this intelligence. The teaching of sounds and the rhythm of words is reinforced in my classes with songs. The verbal ability to speak a languages is key when we tell and act out stories using TPRS.
Mathematical-logical intelligence: I encourage this in different ways: the obvious one is when we learn about numbers. When the children learn to write numbers and count they look for a pattern: how does Spanish construct the numbers? They reflect about "how we do it in English" and how are they different/the same. They use the numbers in authentic situations, I joke with them: "If you can do this I know I can send you on a field trip to Mexico" Another way is when we learn about verb conjugation: it takes a logical mind to search for a pattern and apply it when writing and speaking. I also like to label everything in the classroom: masculine nouns have a blue background, feminine nouns have a pink one. The first week of school a KINDEGARTENER came to me and said, and I quote: "I know what you are doing, the blue words end in -O and the pink end in -A. I don't know what it is yet, but it has a meaning and I will find it". Isn't that something?
Musical intelligence: I remember when I was learning French in elementary school, I looooved singing in French, I pretended I was a French child and tried to imitate the pitch, timber, the accent... We love doing that in class: el baile the los colores, los dias de la semana, arriba-abajo, etc If you listen carefully you won't hear an accent either!
Visual-spatial intelligence: When we act out a story the children draw a cartoon of what takes place where. When the third graders build a school or design a city, or even work with the big model of the city of Chicago that we have upstairs they are using their visual-spatial intelligence to learn a language.
Kinesthetic intelligence: Music come accompanied by body movement. When Kindergarten, first and second graders practice the date they use their bodies to say that "hoy es mier-co-les, 19 de no-viem-bre, dos mil ocho". Ask your child to show you. When we learn the time we use our arms, when we learn seasons and clothes that we need for our trip we'll use our bodies to pretend we are getting dressed, etc. There is something to be said about muscle memory, whether it is writing in a foreign language or speaking. At the beginning it is like driving: you need to focus on every step, then it becomes automatic.
Interpersonal intelligence: Some of the work we do is individual, but a lot of it is interpersonal. Language, by nature, is interpersonal; it is bridge out to people and cultures. There is constant work in collaborative groups within the classroom and collaboration between me and the classroom teachers and other special area teachers. There are dialogs in Spanish, presentations and games where you also have to focus and be fast!
Intrapersonal intelligence: Students also have the option of working on their own. Sometimes they will ask for a place where they can work on their own. I got to see how your children use this intelligence during the celebration of the Day of the Dead. Their self awareness regarding this topic was amazing . I was humbled by how genuinely they shared with me their feelings and values.
Naturalist intelligence: There is a big tree out side our window, and because it is high on the wall, we see the sky. When we learn about the weather it is right in front of our eyes. We learn about farm animals, pets, even take polls on what is their favorite insect... The favorite topic in second grade is dinosaurios. We dedicate 2 weeks to learn about them in Spanish (but they already know everything!!) Third grades are absolutely fascinated about El sistema solar. Even children who do not like to read will do so in Spanish: a package on information on every planet and questions about them. Space is fascinating, I agree, in my next life I want to be an astronaut...