Language Study

Posted by Diane Farrug

As a French teacher, people often ask me if my own kids speak the language. Well, we're working on it! The benefits of learning a language at an early age are many, and I don't want my children to miss out. Researchers have found that language acquisition is most natural under the age of 10.

My home is not a bilingual one, but I've tried my best to provide a lot of input and exposure: bilingual/immersion playdates, French picture books, dinnertime immersion, French finger plays, Teach Me French CD's, and Muzzy DVD's. My greatest success was the creation of a Mom-Tot class in my home. As soon as my kids were learning along with others, French became something fun that they were motivated to do.

This past year, I returned to my high school classroom and the Mom-Tot class had to go. Sadly, much of my kids' enthusiasm went, too. So, I have a new plan for the summer---Mommy will be a volunteer French teacher at day care. I've taught preschool foreign language in the past, and I can't wait to pull out the puppets and felt boards. Those 3-6 year olds will be speaking, singing, and playing in French in no time! To find out how I'll structure the lessons, read Foreign Language Circle Time.

Also, be sure to check out these outstanding articles by Carla Snuggs, Suite 101's Day Care Feature Writer:

Full Immersion Preschools

Foreign Language in Preschools

Multiple Languages in Preschools

Preschool foreign language instruction is developmentally sound, necessary, and loads of fun. If your child's preschool does not offer a language program, see what you can do to get one implemented.

Posted by Diane Farrug

One of my favorite springtime celebrations is Mother's Day. Although not all cultures honor mothers on the same date, over forty countries around the world set aside a special celebration just for moms.

In honor of Mother's Day, learn how to say "Mother" in a dozen languages:

• Moeder, Moer (Dutch)
• Mère, Maman (French)
• Mutter (German)
• Màna (Greek)
• Ma, Maji (Hindi)
• Anya (Hungarian)
• Madre, Mamma (Italian)
• Okaasan, Haha (Japanese)
• Matka, Mama (Polish)
• Mat' (Russian)
• Madre, Mamá (Spanish)
• Mati (Ukranian)

If you are a teacher, use Mother's Day as an occasion to introduce foreign language and ESL students to vocabulary, greetings, and poetry about and for their mothers. Younger children will enjoy coloring and labeling pictures for Mom in the target language.

You can also create fun hands-on reading activities for students of any age by providing written, target-language instructions for Mother's Day crafts. Try making an International Mother's Day Gift. You can also send a Mother's Day e-card or make a homemade greeting in French, Spanish, German, or any other language.

Let Mom know you love her in a world of ways. Use global languages to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

Posted by Diane Farrug

Several summers ago, I packed up my shorts, sunscreen, and mosquito repellent and headed to Minnesota for the Teacher Seminar program at Concordia Language Villages. The 10-day experience forever changed the way I teach.

Foreign language and ESL teachers from across the country come together at Concordia College for instruction in immersion techniques and methodologies. This course was unlike any I had ever had: teachers outside on the lawn playing games, throwing balls, dancing, and laughing. Boy, was it fun!

The highlights of the Teacher Seminars are visits to the surrounding summer camps, called Villages. There are Villages for 15 different languages scattered throughout Minnesota, Georgia, New Jersey, as well as overseas. When you step into a Language Village, you truly enter another culture. Villagers go through customs, exchange money, and dive into an immersion environment. Even the buildings and food are authentic.

Visiting Lac du Bois, the French Village, I learned a wealth of songs and activities to take to my classroom back home. I saw kids and teens speaking much more French than my students did in class. And they were having fun. From that point on, I put my textbook aside and attempted to give my students a fun, interactive, relevant experience. I also created my very own French day camp.

Even more powerful was the day I spent in the Finnish Village. No, I don't speak Finnish--or at least I didn't until I wanted to eat lunch. Every language teacher needs to relive the experience of learning a language as a true novice. It is an important reminder of what it's like in our students' shoes.

Out of 4 stars, I rate Concordia Language Villages Teacher Seminars a 5!

Posted by Diane Farrug

I admitted an embarrassing fact to some of my high school French students today: I don't know how to text. After their initial shock, they were happy to step into the role of teacher and give me a little lesson. I am proud to report that I sent my very first message this afternoon. Now I feel inspired to figure out my iPod and enter the world of podcasting.

I am not nearly as tech-savvy as my teenage students who, I suspect, feel naked without their cell phones and iPods. Luckily, many of my fellow Suite 101 writers are well-versed in technology and offer outstanding tips for learning language with podcasts. I have been checking out their articles and I am excited by the possibilities. Podcasting offers the auditory input necessary for language learning, and it is convenient, affordable, and motivating.

Here is your Suite 101 resource for language learning with an iPod. I have included introductory articles about podcasting for a newbie such as myself, as well as informative articles specific to language learning.

What is Podcasting? by Nicole Allard

Getting Started with Podcasting by Robert Taylor

How to Create a Podcast by Alan L. Hammond

Podcasting in the Classroom by Beth Lynne

Using Podcasts to Improve Language by Sarah Dion-Marquis

Podcasting: The Modern Way to Learn a Foreign Language by Sarah Dion-Marquis

Learning a Language with the iPod by Paul Read

Learn Languages for Free by Michelle Snow

Posted by Diane Farrug

In a way, poetry is a language in itself. I used to think that asking novice-level language learners to create a poem would be a daunting task. Now I look forward to the opportunity for my students to play with words and break free from strict grammatical rules. And since learning any language is for communication, poetry offers a unique way to express an individual's ideas, thoughts, and images.

I once took the simple concept of "J'adore" and "Je deteste" and had students create lists of the things they loved and hated. Their items ranged from mosquitos to chocolate to homework to peace to getting up early or sleeping in late. Final drafts were prepared along with collages and illustrations. My students felt a sense of pride and accomplishment (so did I) and I got to know them a little better in the process.

This April, celebrate National Poetry Month by creating poems in a foreign language. Play with Magnetic Poetry. (Don't you just love a product that is available in nine different languages?) Meet at a coffee shop for a poetry reading. Memorize and recite a poem with your whole class. Join in on a discussion about your favorite foreign language poem, poet, web site, or writing activity.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Robert Frost, "Poetry is what gets lost in translation." Only a person who speaks more than one language truly understands that statement.

Happy Foreign Language Poetry Month.

Posted by Diane Farrug

Bonjour! I'm tickled pink (or should I say "rose") to be the new Language Study Feature Writer here at Suite101. I can't wait to share my ongoing "Confessions and Adventures of a French Teacher." Check out my profile to learn more about me and my background.

Although I take the profession of foreign language education very seriously, I must admit that I have had colleagues accuse me of being all "fun and games." On a rare occasion when I complained about going to work one Monday morning, my husband retorted, "Why? You just play all day."

Fun and games? Play? I feign extreme offense. After all, my students strive to use the target language to listen, speak, read, and write. Projects and tests are challenging. I am careful to address established standards and benchmarks. But here's my first confession . . . my job is an absolute blast! I get paid to enjoy songs, rhymes, puppets, props, drama, stories, movement, and games with my high school students. Some days I dance and eat French food. It's fun--but with purpose.

The most effective way to learn any language is through immersion. What better context for immersion than a game? Motivation is at an all-time high during play. Here are just a few of my favorite games for foreign language classes: Immersion Basketball, Tic Tac Toe, Numbers Games, and Body Parts Games.

Playing games makes language learning fun, effective, and motivating. I've started a discussion about this topic. Come share your thoughts and favorite games.

Posted by Marc Roberts

I have been teaching advanced ESL writing classes for nearly a decade, and the one "trick" I share with my students which always (and I mean "always") guarantees them better grades on writing assignments is this: When you have finished writing your paper and taken it through all of the useful peer review and dialectical revision processes that make your ideas appear clear and organized to a reader, print out a copy of your paper and circle all of your verbs.

Invariable, more than 80% of the verbs used will be of an inactive nature: be, have, feel, appear, seem, etc; and while these verbs are useful and seve their own very practical purposes, by recommending to my students that they replace the majority of these verbs with "active" verbs that express more closely the meaning they intended, I have seen the marks they receive on written academic assignments increase considerably.

Of course, some professors will point out all flaws in ESL students' grammatical structure, including errors in article and preposition usage, but the change brought about by the replacement of forms of the verb "be" with other verbs that seem to bring a sentence alive can make a big difference in the perception of a student's overall writing ability.

As ESL instructors, I believe that we have a responsibility to make it clear to our students that the continuous strengthening of their word "power" will prove to be a significant part of their success in learning the English language.

Posted by Marc Roberts

Several years ago I designed an advanced ESL reading course for an ELI program that aimed to introduce the students in my class to the spectacular moment in American culture called "the 60s." For most of the international students in my class, this period in American history was extremely interesting and they were curious to learn about it.

Incorporating some rather challenging native-speaking reading materials at the start of the course, I found that the students began to "turn off" (not Leary's intention) in relation to the prominent ideas of that time, so I immediately made a drastic change to the style and structure of the course.

Turning to "reading" materials that included stories, poetry, and song lyrics, I began to recognize not only a change in their attitude toward the subject at hand, but also an improvement in their ability to articulate their understanding and critical interpretation of the topics we discussed. We also spent time searching the internet for images of the period, which went a long way to providing them with visual meaning and insight. In fact, some of the students pointed to some fashion styles that were popular in their countries at the time our class took place - thirty years later!

However, the key element that made the course a success was the music. Choosing some songs from popular collections of 60s music, I discovered that many of the songs were actually pretty well known by the students, at least the "tunes" anyway, and they loved learning the lyrics and coming to understand some of the references important events of the time embedded in the lyrics.

Do you like music? You might consider sharing your interest with your students.

Posted by Marc Roberts

ESL teaching is hard work. Daily interaction with students at any level keeps a teacher's mind engaged 24/7. Teachers try to grasp the reasons behind a successful class so that they might make the magic happen again, and they reflect on classes that did not goes as planned in order to avoid falling into the same trap in the future. And teachers think about their students- the thirty, or forty, or fifty or more students that demand significant chunks of their time and energy. Where's the ME time? Sadly, for some teachers it doesn't seem to exist.

Personally, I do not view my career in education as a one-way street. I design lesson plans that allow me to learn from my students as much as the lesson aims to instruct them in some new way - a recent grammar exercise required students to rewrite (see Copying exercise) sentences that expressed less commonly known aspects of their cultures. To be sure, I learned some new things, but I also left the class feeling that I had attained a reasonable balance between what I "give" as a teacher and what I "receive" in return as a person interested in learning about other cultures.

Maybe I'm just selfish to think that I deserve get something out of my teaching experience beyond a paycheck and an often vague notion that I'm doing some good in the world. I really dont know, but I'd be glad to hear what you think about it. Feel free to respond to this blog and start a discussion.

Posted by Marc Roberts

Although many publishing companies spend a lot of time trying to find and present the kinds of topics that will sincerely engage ESL students in writing and conversation, the topics they choose tend to be very general. ESL teachers must be willing to keep and open mind about the kinds of topics that their students are interested in and be prepared to redesign lesson plans accordingly.

So what's a teacher to do? If the textbook and supplementary materials are not a perfect fit, then the teacher needs to spend additional time preparing new lessons, right? Not necessarily. Some ESL instructors (myself included) find it useful to let the students determine particular aims of the course by having them suggest topics that will prove interesting to the whole group.

A good exercise that I have used is to let the class know that they will have to figure out which topics might be good for writing or conversation for everyone (or at least the majority) in the class. Set the students on the task of learning as much as possible about their classmates interests, field of study, favorite books, TV shows, movies, etc. Have them take notes like reporters. When they are finished, have them come to the next class prepared to propose some topics that might be interesting to their peers.