teaching foreign language to K-2?

I volunteered to the PTA (what was I thinking?) to assist with a foreign
language club they're running after school for six weeks at my son's
elementary. The K-2 groups will be doing a 3 week intro to one language,
then switching to another language for another 3 week intro (one class
per week). So we just need to come up with three lessons for one
language, and we'll teach that same lesson plan again to another K-2
group. Italian, in this case. This is only the second year of the
program, so there's not a lot of precedent to fall back on, and I don't
get the impression my instructor has actually taught anything before.

I am assisting, although one of the six weeks I will be running the
class as instructor has a conflict. I have studied the language we're
teaching, and although I don't consider my self fluent, I feel competent
enough to teach a K-2 group for one hour. It is a bit more than I
thought I was getting myself into, but isn't that always the case?

I'll be having a meeting later this week with instructor, and while I
plan to defer to her lesson plan overall, I would like to have some
ideas to bring to the discussion, especially as I will be doing one
class on my own. As the age group is young and some not reading yet,
they are encouraging us to do projects, crafts, hands-on type of stuff,
which my instructor commented was not really her strong point.

Beyond coloring a flag and a map outline, anyone have any ideas, either
crafts or teaching tips?

Thanks in advance,

-Karen, mom to Henry 5 and William 17 months-

dkhedmo wrote:
I volunteered to the PTA (what was I thinking?) to assist with a foreign
language club they're running after school for six weeks at my son's
elementary.

Beyond coloring a flag and a map outline, anyone have any ideas, either
crafts or teaching tips?


For this age group learning some simple songs in that language might
work well (Are you sleeping? for instance). Food is always popular in
afterschool programs, so learning the names of foods and table utensils
might work. Maybe a simplified bingo type game, using cards with
colors, pictures, numbers, or shapes instead of the standard bingo
numbers. You say the word in Italian, and if they have it on their card
they cover it. Learning body parts could be fun--with "head shoulders
knees and toes" or Simon says "point to your ear" or whatever.

I think the idea of these programs is to have some fun and remove some
of the "mystery" of other languages. You aren't going to really
accomplish much in terms of fluency in 3 hours! I've led programs in
"science" "castles" and "string figures" in the past and more than
anything the kids like hands-on active things. It's the end of the
day, so they are usually on the wild side! Have fun

Chris

dkhedmo ) writes:
Beyond coloring a flag and a map outline, anyone have any ideas, either
crafts or teaching tips?

Ideas:

-- speak only in Italian the whole time, unless you really
need to break into English to handle a discipline problem.

-- use lots of sign language and pictures to supplement the
Italian.

-- don't try to get them to memorize large numbers of words.
Focus on getting them to memorize a few words and actually
use them.

-- use simple question-and-answer format to get them to
answer questions. For example, you might teach them to
participate in a dialogue like this, while you move a teddy
bear to various hiding places:
you: Where is the teddy bear?
children: Behind the desk!
you: Where is the teddy bear?
children : Behind the book!
you: Where is the teddy bear now?
children: Behind the teacher!
(all in Italian, of course.)

You can come up with a number of simple question-and-answer
formats like that, teach them the words they'll need, then
have them act it out. Then maybe switch roles: have one of
the children hide the bear and say "where is the teddy bear?".

-- use one or more puppets. You can use a hand puppet on
one of your hands. You talk to the puppet and have it answer
you. This is an excellent way to demonstrate the little
dialogues before asking the children to play them out.
Try to make the things you say funny and childish as well
as simple: use things like hiding, playing tricks,
deliberately having the puppet make mistakes or act stupid or
act as if it doesn't know the answer (and maybe the children
will call out the answer to help the puppet!).

-- form a goal that in the long term, they will retain
from this 3-week course the ability to say a short list
of useful things including hello, goodbye, please, thank you,
yes, no. They may also remember some of the responses from
the dialogues but that's not so important; it's more
important that they be able to use those words during the
3-week course. What they will retain from that in the
long term is an ability to learn new languages --
a very valuable thing to practice at a young age.

-- Choose one or more features of the language that
differ from English, e.g. word order (does it go
subject, verb, object as in English?), subjectless sentences
(can you say just "is." to mean "it is." or
"has it." to mean "he has it."?) etc.
Focus on teaching them to be comfortable forming
(very simple) sentences that use this feature.
This will help them in the long run, I believe, in
being able to learn foreign languages later on. At
this young age it will be relatively easy for them to
learn to talk in a different way like that, and will
help their brains develop language-learning ability.
Since you only have 3 weeks, you might focus on just
one distinctive feature of the language like that.
I wouldn't explain it to the kids -- I would just
use it, and get them to participate in dialogues in
which they use it.

-- To get them to repeat something after you, you can say
it and then make a motion with your hand that means "repeat".
(Sort-of pointing at them. Hard to explain.)
If they don't seem to get it, you can do the same immediately
again until they figure out what you're trying to do.
(Again, you can demonstrate this with the puppet first.)

-- Get them to make some new sentences. This is not
that hard -- you could teach them 3 nouns, then have
them substitute those 3 nouns into two-word sample
sentences you provide (as in the "where is the
teddy bear?" dialogue above.)

-- Read them picture books in Italian, if you can find
any (or quickly make some). With very simple words of
course, and they would follow the story largely because
of the pictures and your hand motions and tone of voice.
You could use books in English and translate them yourself.
Try to find questions during the story that they can
answer. E.g. "what's this?" while you point to
something, and they shout out the word for it.
You might have just used that word on the previous page.
--
Cathy Woodgold
http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html
We are all Iraqis now.

Another idea: Use a song that has hand motions that
go along with it that explain its meaning. In English,
a good song like that is "Head and shoulders, knees and
toes..." When I was first learning French, we sang a song
to the same tune that went "Sur, sous, dans, devant, derierre ..."
("On, under, in, in front of, behind ...") with hand motions
that showed the meanings.
--
Cathy Woodgold
http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html
We are all Iraqis now.