Foreign Language Acquisition

8/8/2019 Foreign Language Acquisition

1/22

MINISTERIO DE EDUCACIN PBLICA DE COSTA RICADIVISIN DE DESARROLLO CURRICULAR

OFICINA DE LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS

Developing Childrens Oral Skills in The Foreign Language

MAYO DE 2004

RELANZAMIENTO DE LA EDUCACIN COSTARRICENSE


2/22


Presentation

Developing Childrens Oral Skills in The Foreign Language is a documentcompiled from different sources of information by the National Advisors of the Oficina de Lenguas Extranjeras, Ministerio de Educacin Pblica. Thisdocument aims to provide the Regional Advisors of English and the English

Teacher for I and II Cycles with both the theoretical and practical tools thatwill help them meet the most important changes of the new English Syllabus for Iand II Cycles, starting in the 2005 school year.

In the teaching of English in the I and II Cycles, the oral and aural skills of thelanguage are the object of study. Emphasis is given to the two basic linguisticabilities: listening and speaking , the main focus of the curriculum.In the I Cycle, students acquire communicative competence through theintegration of oral and aural skills listening and speaking only , at a basic level.

They demonstrate improvement of communicative abilities in the oral and auralskills by performing real meaningful language situations.In the II cycle, reading and writing skills are introduced gradually to complementlistening and speaking skills by promoting sub-skills, techniques, activities andtasks, such as substitution, skimming, looking for details and production of shortpieces of writing, in order to improve communicative competence. In addition, theteacher should design varied teaching procedures based on the above guidelinesto create a highly motivating atmosphere to encourage meaningfulcommunication. (English Syllabus for I and II Cycles)

The compilation focuses on how to develop the spoken language with children. Italso includes some suggested ideas for the implementation of the EnglishSyllabus for I and II Cycles.

2


3/22


Theoretical Basis

I. Children Starting to Learn Another Language

The debate as to how children learn another language continues, and is likely tocontinue, as the number of young children increases and more research becomeavailable.In their desire to communicate, young learners create situations in whichlanguage can be acquired. Acquisition takes place subconsciously in situationswhere speakers communicate naturally. They want to say something, and withoutthinking they communicate with the language they know (use) rather thananalyze it in order to find out the correct usage or way to use it. They are willing

to use language and to experiment with sounds, without worrying about mistakes. They rarely have the inhibitions typical of adolescents and adults. When a youngchild learns another language, he approaches it in the same way as when helearns language 1: his awareness of what he talks about normally takesprecedence over his awareness of what he talks with (Donaldson 1978). Thus forthe maximum language acquisition in the classroom, young children need to beexposed to a program rich in meaningful, real-life activities, in whichcommunication takes place naturally.In acquiring L2 research suggests two approaches: Gestalt language , whichconsists of prefabricated routines or patterns, which are memorized as wholeutterances. By contrast, analytic or creative language develops word by wordand the speaker consciously constructs utterances. In the initial stages of learning, prefabricated language is more used; however, all learners develop useof creative language, which eventually dominates. Research indicates that formany Language 2 learners, Gestalt speech serves as a short cut to allow socialinteraction and interpersonal communication with a minimum of linguisticcompetence. Analytic or creative language begins to predominate as learnersattempt to express specific and possibly individual ideas.

The linguistic environment of the classroom is conductive to prefabricatedpatterns and routines. A program which allows the same framework, with familiarand new activities slotted into it, gives children an opportunity to predict themeaning of the language used, since much of it, for example the organizationlanguage will be the same. With regular repetition of the same prefabricatedlanguage, children quickly understand situations and memorize the languageinvolved. It appears that children learning another language have a great capacityto imitate and memorize long utterances, as they have already had to do thiswhen learning L1. Once a child has memorized some prefabricated language, hehas a feeling he can speak a lot of English and as soon he has understood howto transfer language, he seems to have an ability to use the little language heknows in different situations maximum communication. When he can

3


4/22

communicate with others, he can acquire more language and gradually developmore fluency.

II. Teaching a Foreign Language to Young Learners

Children are often more enthusiastic and lively as learners. They want to please

the teacher rather than their peer group. They will have a go at an activity evenwhen they dont quite understand why or how. However, they also lose interestmore quickly an are less able to keep themselves motivated on tasks they finddifficult. Children often seem less embarrassed than adults at talking in newlanguage, and their lack of inhibition seem to help them get a more native-likeaccent.What makes them different from adult learners? The list probably includes someof the following aspects: their ages, personalities, preferences, learningstrategies, attention span, and for those who have little experience of children,some tongue-in-cheek comment like 'they're shorter'. Sarah Phillips (1993) in theintroduction to her book 'Young Learners' describes them as children from the

first year of formal schooling (five or six years old) to eleven or twelve years of age. However, as any children's teacher will know, it is not so much thechildren's age that counts in the classroom as how mature they are. There aremany factors that influence children's maturity: for example, their culture, theirenvironment (city or rural), their sex, the expectations of their peers and parents.

The child's learning of a language is not independent of the fact that they are'professional' learners who spend most of their day in a learning environment.

Therefore, those who argue for an integrated approach to language learning(Garvie, 1991) are simply advocating the full exploration of the child's dailylearning context. Equally, the characteristics of good language learners and theway they learn will be highly influenced by the environment, and the way in which

they are learning, particularly with very young learners. The belief that learning tolearn is fundamental when teaching young learners (Brewster et al.1992; Ellis,1991) becomes, therefore, of paramount importance. Young learners may not beable to read or write, they may be new to learning in a group and in a schoolenvironment, they may not even be aware of the concept of a foreign language,but they do not come to the language classroom empty-handed. They bring withthem an already well-established set of instincts, skills and characteristics, whichwill help them to learn another language. We need to identify those and make themost of them. For example, children:

- are already very good at interpreting meaning without necessarily

understanding the individual words;-already have great skill in using limited language creatively;-frequently learn indirectly rather than directly;-take great pleasure in finding and creating fun in which they do;-have a ready imagination;- above all take great delight in talking!

III: Beginning English Oral Communication

4


5/22

The need to communicate in English is immediate and from the first lessonactivities should take place in English. Gestalt speech serves as a short cut, aprefabricated tool to allow social interaction with a minimum of linguisticcompetence. Analytic language eventually predominates. In order for activities totake place in English, even from the first lesson, the teacher needs to rely heavilyon prefabricated language for class organization.

Teachers, especially many nonnative speakers, are often amazed that lessons canbe run using only English. They are equally surprised by the ease and speed withwhich young beginners can pick up and use quite long and complex phrases andsentences. To be able to run an all- English lesson, teachers need to organize andcontrol activities, so that children have opportunities to use and repeatprefabricated language. With constant repetition of the same routines, childrensoon acquire the language involved and can begin to use it themselves toorganize activities or games.

IV. Learning the Spoken Language

a. Guiding principles

The development of childrens skills in using the spoken language is built aroundtwo guiding principles for teaching.

Children should use their foreign language in a real classroom task-in action, inwhich the teacher and task construct an environment for the use and learning of the language.

b. Meaning first

- Childrens drive to find meaning

Piagetian and Vygotskyan theories of development, see children as activelyconstructing meaning from their experiences in the world. Vygotsky emphasizedthe shared construction of meaning with other people, and Bruners notion of scaffolding develops this is a to show how adults can support children in theconstruction of understanding. From early childhood, the desire to connectemotionally and communicate with other people seems to drive speaking. As

children move through infancy, they begin to communicate with others aboutthings in their shared world, and develop their vocabulary of labels alongside theirdeveloping abilities to categorize (Locke 1993). Underlying any social interaction,including scaffolding, is the human desire to make contact with other people, tocross the gap between their thoughts and ones own. Even if, ultimately, we mustacknowledge that we never have complete access to anyone elses mind, weseem to be driven to keep trying. In this quest to connect with anothersthoughts, language is the primary toll we have. When we interact, we use wordsto try to capture our own and other peoples sense our own particular

5

Meaning must come first: if children do notunderstand the spoken language, they cannot learnit.

To learn discourse skills, children need both to

artici ate in discourse and to build u knowled e


6/22

contextualized understandings and connotations for events and ideas (Vygotskyl962). For infants, language often seems to play a secondary role to the socialand affective, and less attention is paid to the actual language content of talkthan to its probable social meanings. Locke (1993) describes three year oldEnglish speakers who were happy to respond to and adult who spoke to them inSpanish that they did not understand, The children seemed to use the social

context and intonation as guides to how to respond. Locke points out that weneed to be aware that young children must inevitably have to operate with onlypartial understanding of much of the language that they hear every day, but thatthis does not stop them interacting. As they get older, so they build upknowledge of word meanings from a wider range of contexts, and languagegradually becomes a more precise and effective toll for communication. The movein language use from partial to more complete understandings must also beexperienced by foreign language learners.Donaldsons work with children taking part in experimental tasks showed howthey use their experience of intention and purpose in human activity to makesense of what they are required, to do (Donaldson 1978) . As human beings, we

are driven by a need to make sense of, and to other people. In what has beendescribed as an innate drive for coherence (Meadows 1993)., children cope withthe continual novelty of the world by seeking sense, bringing all they know andhave already experienced to work out a meaning in what someone has to them orin what they see happening. Research with autistic children adds further evidenceto support the idea that children are formally driven to construct understanding;these children are not able to make coherent sense of these events bur seem tosee them as bewilderingly unconnected. The use of first language is driven by asocially motivated search for understanding and a need to share understanding.Lets then imagine children, who we have described as actively trying to makesense of new situations and events, sitting in a foreign language classroom. The

social and affective drive to share understanding will still operate (unless it istrained out of them, which can happen). When they encounter new language, wecan expect that they will try to make sense of it by bringing their socialKnowledge`, i.e. what they know already about how the world works, how adults,in this case teachers, talk to children and what kinds of thing those adults havepreviously wanted them to do. This knowledge and experience will help childrenfind social purpose that can be used as a key to understanding. It will also helpchildren understand the foreign language as a means of communication, as wordsand phrases are learnt to fit familiar contexts, such as greeting and naming. Whenchildren are put in a situation where they want to share understanding with otherpeople through the foreign language, they will search their previous language-

using experience for ways to act in the foreign language. If their languageresources are not sufficient, then the social motivation to construct sharedunderstanding, what Skehan has called communicative pressure ( Skehan 1996),is likely to lead to use of first language or mixtures of L the foreign language andI. This tendency towards communication at any cost affects learners of all ages. Inthe learning-centered approach to classroom activity adopted here, the humandrive to find and share meaning is harnessed to support language use by beingbuilt in to task demands.

6


7/22

- Why teachers need to check that meaning is accessible

If adults find themselves in a situation where they cannot make sense of whatthey were told or asked to do, they will probably ask directly for clarification orfind some other way to understand. Children are importantly different in thisrespect because it takes some years for them to become equal participants in

interaction, and to see that each participant has responsibility for makingthemselves understood to the other (Ricard 1993, Meadows 1993; Anderson andLynch 1988). Generally respecting and wanting to please their teachers, childrenmay continue with activities even if they do not understand, They will continue tospeak in the foreign language and continue to perform classroom activities,without understanding. And, if they are not understanding, they cannot belearning. It is not unusual to see pupils in lessons mouthing the sentences in thetextbook back to their teacher, appearing to complete an activity, butunderstanding, and learning, nothing. Here though we should note the importanceof teachers continually putting themselves in the childs position and asking:

Can the child find or construct meaning in this language /activity?

It is crucial for teachers to take the responsibility for checking whether their pupilsunderstand the language being used and the purpose of activities being carriedout.

c. Meaning in speaking and listening

Speaking and listening are both active uses of Language, but differ in the mentalactivity involved and demands that they make on learners of language in terms of finding and sharing meaning. Listening can be seen as (primarily) the active use

of language to access other peoples meanings, whereas speaking is the activeuse of language to express meanings so that other people can make sense of them. The labels receptive and productive uses of language can be applied tolistening and speaking respectively.

d. Developing Oral Language Use

To construct understanding in a foreign language, learners will use their existinglanguage resources, built up from previous experience of language use. In activelistening, the goal of the mental work is to make sense, e.g. have a story orinstructions, and is thus naturally meaning to focus rather than language

focused. For example, children listening to a story told in the foreign languagefrom a book with pictures will understand and construct the gist, or outlinemeaning, of the story in their minds. Although the story may be told in the foreignlanguage, the mental processing does not need to use the foreign language, andmay be carried out in the first language or in some langue-independent way,using what psychologists call mentalese. If we were to check what the childrenunderstood, we might find they could tell us the story in their first language, i.e.they could recall the meaning, and they might recall some words or phrases in theforeign language. It is very unlikely that they would be able to re-tell the story in

7


8/22

the foreign language, because their afternoon has not been focused on the wordsand syntax of the story but on its underlying meaning. Different types of listeningactivities are required to ensure a language-focus (Field 1998).

To speak in the foreign language in order to share understandings with otherpeople requires attention to precise details of the language. A speaker needs to

find the most appropriate words and the correct grammar to convey meaningaccurately and precisely, and needs to organize the discourse so that a listenerwill understand. When listening, the nuances of meaning carried by grammar ordiscourse organization can often be constructed from other clues, but speakingdoesnt allow for this so easily.

The demands of re-telling a story in the foreign language after listening andunderstanding should not be underestimated: the language needed at word,sentence and discourse levels must be found and produced. Speaking is muchmore demanding than listening on language learners' language resources andskills. Speaking activities, because they are so demanding, require careful andplentiful support of various types, not just support for understanding, but also

support for production. The terms 'Input' and 'Output' are often used to refer to listening and speaking(and reading and writing) respectively. This terminology reflects a computermodel of the human brain that sees language used by other people as'information', which is received as input, is mentally processed, and the resultsproduced as output. The computer metaphor has been helpful, but is notadequate to describe listening and speaking in a foreign language because thekey processes between input and output, that we have described as finding andsharing understanding are down-graded in importance.For some time in the 1980s, it was suggested that comprehensible input', i.e.listening to or reading English and making sense of it, was not just necessary forlearning a language but would be enough on its own to drive languagedevelopment (Krashen 1982). Research in immersion situations, however, showedthe limits of this comprehensible input theory. Pupils in Canadian schools wholearnt their school subjects through French as a second language received plentyof meaningful and comprehensible input. Evaluation of their language skills andrecourses showed that their listening comprehension skills were very good, butthat their production often showed a lack of precision and grammatical accuracy.It was clear that, in addition to being exposed to large amounts of comprehensibleinput, learners need to use their skills production resources and skills, if they areto develop knowledge, and skills to share their understandings fully andaccurately (Swain1995) .Pre-fabricated phrases have a structure that does not quite fit into the talk or theyare longer than the rest of the childs utterances, but help produce language.Children rely on such chunks of language that come ready made and can be

brought into use with less effort than constructing a phrase or sentence. Thesechunks of language can be learned as wholes units, and help to avoid long pauseswhile taking part in talks.Examination of young learner course books show that many chooseconversational phrases as units of language to be taught, and that they seem toexpect these to be learned as formulae. Phrases are presented to childrenthrough stories, songs, rhymes, dialogues, and through classroomlanguage.

8


9/22

When the child uses English, adapting his or her oral skills to the task languageacquisition occurs. The accumulating experiences of using language will producemore changes in language resources that constitute learning/acquisition. Overtime and many varied use of language, the child will move partial to morecomplete understanding of aspects of language and develop range of languageresources and skill; when the child is then put into a new language-using

situation, there are more language resources and skills to select from and thelanguage can be adapted more precisely to fit. Language-using experience in avariety of situations means that the childs language resources can be usedacross an increasing range of contexts; where at first a child can count in thelanguage only in a recited sequence: one, two three, etc, gradually languagebecomes available for use in more and more situational contexts: I like fourapples. The repeated use of the same words in different physical and languagecontexts helps to construct in the childs mind the sound, shape and use of theword/phrase/sentence, as a continual change.

E. Discourse Skills Development

Young children are not very good at taking other discourse participants intoaccount and shaping what they say to fit the needs of others. Young speakersbetween five and ten years lack awareness of how to cater for other participantsand are not very skillful in planning their talk. As listeners, they understand otherpeoples talk relative to their current level of social and cognitive resources.Children up to age seven seem to blame themselves if they do not understandsomething said to them, rather than judging that what was said to them mighthave been inadequate. Even 10 and 11 years old who have problems inunderstanding something may not ask for more information.

The maturation of social and cognitive understanding over 5-12 age range has

implications for foreign language use and learning. When children are asked totake part in conversations that are beyond their development, they cannot fullyparticipate and may forced to repeat without understanding. Discourse in younglearner classrooms should follow patterns children find familiar, from their homeand family, or their school experience, and should not demand more of childrenthan they can do. Expressing causes, beliefs, making judgments and summarizingsomeone elses point of view are likely to be a demanding task for a child.Familiarity of content and context in foreign language use will help children asspeakers and as listeners. Learner training in communication from eight years onmay help children to be able to say when they do not understand what they hearand to formulate helpful questions to understand more. The final implication takes

us back to the teachers responsibility for ensuring that children understand andcan make sense of the foreign language they hear.Children develop skills to produce different types of talk including-narratives-descriptions- instructions-arguments-opinions

9


10/22

Narratives appear not just as discourse form but as mental organization of children. They are primary in oral language acquisition because of their keyfeatures, organization of events in time, actions of participants, resolution of problems presented as myths, fables, stories and fantasies in many types of talksand visuals too: in story books, in songs, in cartoons, on TV and video, incomputer games and as part of everyday talk in the home and in school.

Descriptions on the other hand, allow children categorize the world organizationby animals, people and objects and express relations between categories.In order support children in developing oral skills, teachers can transfer thefollowing ideas into language development tasks.

Support through motivating topics: The first point to be made is that children areto talk meaningful in foreign language classrooms, they must have somethingthey want to say. The teacher must take on the responsibility for adjusting tasksand topics so that they relate to pupils interests. A sure way to do this is bybuilding in to a task an element of choice for pupils. Encourage them to choose

which animal they want to talk about, and if they lack at least motivated todiscover it. Find things in which the children are experts, whether that is the life of budgies, how to program the computer, or soccer teams, and use these interestsin tasks.

Support through task structure: Children usually benefit from knowing what isgoing to happen at the different stages of a task.. It helps if a task has a clear goalor purpose- communicative or interpersonal.

Support through language practice: Unlike first language, foreign languagelearners are not immersed in a continual stream of spoken discourse, from which

they can pick out words and phrases through discourse practice.General language learning principles and research show that language learnersneed the following, and young learners need much the same but in shorter burstsand more frequently:

- models of language use to listen to, notice and appropriate;- plentiful opportunities for repeated listening;- plentiful opportunities to say the words and phrases;- feedback on production to improve fluency and accuracy

Producing extended talk in addition requires:-preparation time;

support for remembering the information to be included, while talking;-rehearsals of large chunks of talk, as well as words and phrases.

VI. Activities to promote the spoken language The activities below, can be organized in terms of learning opportunities todevelop oral skills. For purposes of simplification, the thematic contents areanimals, however, the teacher can adapt the procedures to any othercontent/topic.

10


11/22

Listening and doing:

In these activities the main learning focus for the children is to listen to the namesand characteristicsof the animals so that the English words and phrases become familiar, and the

children begin to notice features of the English. After playing the games a fewtimes, the children will begin to speak as well as listen, and can gradually takeover the teachers role and play in pairs in pairs or in groups. Most of the gamesproduce an outcome, e.g. one picture left or a scenario completed, that can betalked about as immediate revision of the language.

Listen and identify:

In its simplest form, the teacher says the name of an animal and the child pointsto the picture or puts a counter on it. The teacher can see at a glance whether thepupils understand the spoken word. The game can be developed by the teacher

describing a picture in more detail: This animal has fur, four legs and barks.Bingo:Each pupil chooses six animals, and put the other pictures back in the envelope.

The teacher says the names of the animals at random. When the pupil hears oneof his or her animal names, she or he turn that picture over. The first one with allthe pictures turned over shouts bingo! and is the winner. A variation can bedeveloped by the teacher saying the features rather than the names as the gameis played in a small group.

Listen and take away:

Pupils start with the full set of pictures. The teacher instructs them to take awaycertain animals: Take away all the animals with wings/beaks/ that live in the rain forest. This continues until only one animal is left. Anyone who has that animal is awinner.

Find the odd one out:

The teacher says the names of four or five animal. The pupils pick them out andhave to decide which on is the odd one out:e.g budgie, cat, dog lion- the budgie is the odd one out because it can fly.

Listen and put:

Pupils draw a cage, a house and a field. They follow the teachers instructions of where to place the animals pictures:

The lion lives in a cage. The cat and the dog live in the house. This is a form of picture dictation that can be adjusted in many ways:

11


12/22

i. The activity can be varied by changing the original picture. The pupilsmight draw a zoo and be told where the animals go, or use a map of theworld to place the animals by their original habitat.

ii. Pupils could draw the animals rather than using ready-made pictures.iii. At the end of the activity, pupils tell a partner about their picture.

Listening and saying:

Each of these activities requires pupils to say something, either as individuals orall together in chorus.For some, it is useful for the teacher to have a set of much larger pictures thatcan be held up for the whole class to see. Again, pupils can take over theteachers role and the games can be played in pairs or in groups.

Look and say:At its simplest, the teacher holds up a picture and the pupils say the name of the

animalthe large pictures can be placed on the board and pointed to by moving aroundthe pictures very quickly, the pupils get lots of enjoyable practice in saying thenames.

Listen and choose:

The teacher gives the pupils a description that fits several animals. Each pupilchooses one animal and tells the class or his/her partner what s/he has chosen.

Choose your favorite pet/an animal with four legs and a tail.

I choose a dog.

This can be developed into a class survey by collecting the results together anddisplaying them on a graph.Listen and sort:

The teacher names some animals and pupils pick out their pictures. They then have to describe the group that they have, e.g. dangerous animals.

Tennis game:

Pupils are divided into two teams across the classroom. A pupil from the first teamsays the name of an animal and a pupil from the other team responds withanother animal. The teams keeps going for as long as they can. The winner is theteam who knows most animals.

This is an excellent vocabulary revision activity that can be played in a fewminutes, with a range of topics: animals, parts of animals, things animals eat,places animals live in etc.

Guess my animal-questions:

12


13/22

The teacher (or pupil chooses an animal but does not tell. The pupils have toguess by asking yes/no questions. The simplest version uses the name of ananimal: Is it a lion?Pupils can also use descriptive language to ask more powerful questions: does ithave wings?More open wh-questions are more challenging to answer: what does it eat?.

Note that the questions will need to be modeled by the teacher first. The guessing can be done about a category of animals that have been chosen.

Guess my animal- actions:

In this guessing game, a pupil chooses an animal and other pupils tell him or herto act like the animal using different verbs: eat/walk lie your animal.

They have to guess by watching what the chooser does.

Focus on sound in discourse:

The activities work at two levels: discourse and phonological. The sound of thelanguage interact with the meaning of the words and the form of the whole. Theyallow attention to the pronunciation of words and of the rhythms of the spokenlanguage. In a kind of language play (Cook 1997), intonation and stress can beexaggerated dramatically, allowing children to notice (probably not consciously)and practice aspects of the foreign language that may be different from their firstlanguage.

Poems or chants:Simple poems can be very easily put together from the earliest stages, Many can

be composed and learnt orally. Poems also provide meaningful writing practice, as

they can be carefully copied out and illustrated. Once the poems are composed,they become part of the class repertoire to say or chat together in any oddmoments.

The class chooses an adjective to go with each of 3 or 4 pictures. A miniaturestory can be produced by sequencing the lines carefully!.

HUNGRY TIGER,HOT LION,SLEEPING RABBIT.

The pictures can be placed on the board or drawn in a childrens book in the same

sequence, so that they serve as a memory prompt.

Use numbers to structure the poemOne lion walking tall

Two rabbits crouching small Three birds in the treeSing out loud dont eat me!.

The animals could be chosen at random first and put in sequence, and then therest of the line added to make a drama or story.

13


14/22

Acrostic These poems need to be written for the full impact. They work with just oneanimal, with the letters of the name arranged vertically downwards,And a sentence or phrase made up that begins with each letter. Just the name canbe written on the board, with the phrases held in memory

Terrible animalI n the jungleGoes gentlyEarly in the morningRoaring!

Tongue twisters:

Pupils and teacher make up phrases or sentences about the animals, with eachword beginning with the same sound, and try to say them as quickly as possible

Ten terrible tigersBig beautiful blue budgies bite biscuits with their beaks.

Dialogues and discourse:

It is very common to find dialogues in childrens foreign language course books.At first sight, it may seem that dialogues are exactly what we need to givechildren practice in discourse-level talk. However, a closer look suggests that thecourse book dialogue is a rather strange invention. Here is an example fromCambridge English for Schools, Book One (Littlejohn and Hicks 1996: 52):

ANNE: Gosh! How beautiful!PAT : Yes, it is.ANNE: Where do they live?PAT : In trees of course.ANNE: I know that. I mean where in the world do they live?PAT : Oh, sorry. Well, they live in North America and South America. Countries

like Mxico and Brazil.ANNE: How do they fly like that?PAT : Well, they move their wings very fast. They drink nectar from flowers.ANNE: Oh. Youre Clever. How do you know all this?

PAT : Ive got this magazine at home.ANNE: Oh!

Dialogues are an historical legacy to childrens foreign language teaching thathave been bequeathed to us from, the adult language learning.

More Ideas

14


15/22

TPR:Commands involving the entire body, large-motor skillsa) Point to your ear.b) Put your left hand on your head and turn around three times.c) Walk backwards to the front of the class and shake the teachers hand.d) Clap your hands for Mary. She did a good job.

Commands involving interaction with concrete materials and manipulatives,beginning with classroom objects.

a) Take the red circle and place in the wastebasket.b) Pick up your green crayon and lay it under your chair.c) Walk to the chalkboard, take a piece of yellow chalk, and draw a picture of the

sun.Commands relating to pictures, maps numbers, and other indirect materialsa) Go to the map and trace the outline of Alajuelab) Go to the picture of the bathroom and (pretend) to brush your teeth.c) Go to the wall chart and point to a food from the fruit and vegetables group.

Strategies for Essential Classroom Language:One popular and effective approach for teaching essential classroom language is

the use of passwords and language ladders. Passwords are phrases suchas

Please, may I sharpen my pencil? which are taught directly and then postedwith some identifying visual to assist students in recalling the meaningconnection.

Passwords are frequently taught at a rate of one each day, and students are thenrequired to produce the password before leaving the class for some

desired activity such as lunch, recess, passing to another class, or goinghome for the day.One good strategy for choosing passwords to teach is to listen to students

conversations and note which expressions they use frequently but alwaysin English. Passwords will be most effective if they are learned because of a real need to communicate the information involved. Language laddersare similar to passwords in that they are also phrases taught one per day.

They usually represent a series of different ways to express a similar ideaor a similar need, often in different registers, degrees of politeness, orsocial context.

Mime stories:

In a mime story the teacher tells the story and the pupils and the teacher do theactions: It again provides physical movement and gives the teacher a chanceto play with the students.

Heres a very simple example of a mime story:

Were sitting in a boat, a small rowing boat. Lets row. We row and row.

15


16/22

Now whats that? A bird. A big bird flying over the water. Now its gone. We keeprowing. Can we see the bird? No, no bird. This is hard work. Row, row. Weretired. We row slowly. Theres the shore. Lets go home now. Were so tired weredragging our feet. Were tired. We want to go to sleep. We lie down on our beds.We close our eyes, and .... shhhh....were asleep.

Listen and color:Children love coloring pictures and we can easily make this activity into a

listening activity. We can use any picture which the pupils have in theirworkbook. Instead of just letting them color it by themselves, make it into alanguage activity. Here is one which combines numbers and colors:

Script: The girls trousers are brown, and shes wearing a yellow sweater. He little boyhas a white sweater and green trousers. The man reading the newspaper has agray suit on, a blue tie and a black hat.

What color is 6? This example is from Are You Listening? By Wendy Sccott.

Listen and repeat activities:

Listen and repeat exercises are great fun and give the pupils the chance to get afeel for the language: the sounds , the stress and rhythm and the intonation.When done in combination with movements or with objects or pictures, this typeof activity also helps to establish the link between words and meaning.

Rhymes:

All children love rhymes and like to repeat them again and again. Here you canuse either traditional rhymes or modern rhymes, and you really dont have toworry too much about the grading. Rhymes are repetitive, they have naturalrhythm and they have an element of fun, of playing with the language.Children play with language in their mother tongue, so this is a familiar part of their world, and it has an important part to play in their learning process. Howabout these two for a rainy day?

Rain on the green grass, Rain, rain go away

And rain on the tree, Come again another day.Rain on the house-top, Little Johnny wants to play.But not on me.

I love coffee.I love tea.I hate the dentistAnd the dentists hates me. These examples are from Collins English NurseryRhymes for Young Learners.

16


17/22

Dr. Jean Feldman'sOral Language Circle Time Activity

When?Use this story technique to begin circle time, reinforce a concept or book, or to

entertain children if there are a few extra minutes. Why? This group story enhances oral language, imagination, cooperation, andother skills.

What? A ball of yarn.

How? 1. Have the children sit in a circle.

2. Begin a story. (Tell a familiar story or make up your own!)3. Wrap the yarn around your hand one time, then roll the ball of yarn toanother child.

(Demonstrate how to wrap the yarn loosely around the hand.)4. That child adds to the story, then rolls the ball to a friend.5. The story continues with each child adding to the story until you have

created a yarnweb in the middle of the circle.

6. Since children often want to go on and on with this story, the teachermay want to

bring closure to the tale at the end.

Adaptations - Retell the story backwards, rolling up the ball of yarn.

- Make up a new ending to a familiar story; make up a story using thenames of children

in the class, or tie the story in with a theme, season, or holiday.- Use the ball of yarn to tell an "I like my friend because..." story. One by

one the childrentell why they like another child in the class, then they pass the yarn to

that friend whoadds to the story by saying, "I like my friend (another child's name)

because..." Monitorcarefully to be sure all the children are included at some point.- Cut out magazine pictures and glue them to construction paper then let

the children selectone, and start a story about it.

- Tape record stories as the children tell them, then play them back so theycan listen to

themselves.

17


18/22

Songs for Teaching :Music is a powerful tool which can be added to most, if not all, learningsituations. It has a direct physical, emotional, and psychological effect on boththe students and the teacher ( Jensen, 2000) . Properly employed, music cancreate a heightened social learning context, motivate students to engagethemselves more rapidly, and provide a sense of safety that might not otherwise

be possible. Each of these factors adds considerably to the development of apowerful learning environment (Burko & Elliot, 1997, Weinberger, 1998). As far asthis book is concerned, application is everything, so here are some distinct waysin which a teacher might consider adding music to their learning contexts.

Songs can be an ideal way to get children involved and interested in a dailyroutine or help to solidify a new skill through repetition. Pairing directions withfamiliar song melodies adds an element of fun and also provides structure to thedaily schedule. Teachers find that these tunes make classroom transitions almosteffortless!

Here are some tips for creating your own Tunes for Tasks, followed bysuggested tunes for various school and home activities:1. Choose the target skill you want the child to accomplish such as lining up for

recess.2. Choose several related phrases that you would give as directions for the skill

such as Line up at the door and Time to go to recess.3. Choose a simple, repetitive melody such as

Farmer and the Dell If You're Happy and You Know it Clementine Are You Sleeping

London Bridge4. Start with one phrase relating to the skill and see if it fits logically within thesong. For example Line up at the door. could be exchanged for Farmer and thedell using the same tune.

5. Adapt the song as needed to fit in each direction you need to give for thedesired skill. For example, when it's time to line up, this song will facilitate thetransition.

Line Up at the DoorTo the tune of Farmer and the Dell Line up at the door,

Line up at the door, Time to go to recess now,Let's line up at the door.

Here are some more of my Tunes for Tasks, sung to familiar melodies:

18
http://www.songsforteaching.com/index.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=literacyvolun-20&path=tg/detail/-/1890460060/qid=1036714397/sr=8-1http://www.songsforteaching.com/index.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=literacyvolun-20&path=tg/detail/-/1890460060/qid=1036714397/sr=8-1


19/22

Bubble SongTo the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel Bubbles, bubbles in the air,We're blowing lots of bubbles,But when you catch one in your hand--POP! goes the bubble.

Way up high and way down low,Floating in the air now,But when you catch one in your hand--POP! goes the bubble.

Calendar SongTo the tune of London Bridge Do you know what day it is,day it is, day it is?Do you know what day it is?

Today is Monday.

Do you know what month it is,month it is, month it is?Do you know what month it is?

The month is August.

ColorsTo the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat Red, orange, yellow, green, ,

blue and purple too; These are the colors that I know,I'll show them all to you.

Goodbye SongTo the tune of Goodnight Ladies Goodbye Carlos,Goodbye John,Goodbye Jenny,It's time to say goodbye.(Repeat until all children's names have been sung)

Nap TimeTo the tune of Are You Sleeping Are you ready, are you ready,For a nap, for a nap?Let's get out our mats now, let's get out our mats now,

Then we'll rest, then we'll rest.

19


20/22

Playdough SongTo the tune of I'm a Little Teapot We can play with Playdough, here we go,Squishing and squashing in the dough.When we're making new shapes, it's so fun,We pound and push until we're done

We can play with Playdough, here we go,Squishing and squashing in the dough. .

Self-Help Skillsto the tune of Mulberry Bush

This is the way we brush our teeth,brush our teeth, brush our teeth.

This is the way we brush our teeth,to get them sparkling clean.

This is the way we tie our shoes,

tie our shoes, tie our shoes. This is the way we tie our shoes,we lace them so they're tight.

Snack TimeTo the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It If your name begins with B then go to snack.If you're wearing something red then go to snack.If you're wearing tennis shoes,Or if you have on something blue,

Then you can stand and go to snack.

Washing HandsTo the tune of Farmer and the Dell It's time to wash our hands,It's time to wash our hands,We'll rub, rub, rub until they're clean,It's time to wash our hands.

Then dry them with a towel, Then dry them with a towel,We'll rub, rub, rub until they're dry,and then our job is done.

Other melodies that easily lend themselves to transitions and the teaching of elementary concepts include: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Mary Had a Little Lamb,

Jingle Bells, The Muffin Man, Ten Little Indians, The Bear Went Over the Mountain,She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, and Did You Ever See a Lassie.

20


21/22

Bibliography

The information included in this compilation was partially copied from thefollowing sources of information:

- Languages and Children Making the Match. Helena Anderson Curtain and CarolAnn Paola.

Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. London 1998.

- Beginning English with Young Children. Opal Dunn. Macmillan Publishers LTD.London 1991

-Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Lynne Cameron. Cambridge UniversityPress. 2002

-Ways with words. Vocabulary Puzzles and Activities. Elaine KirnCBS. CollegePushing. New York

1994.

- www.songs for teaching .com

-www.philsefIsupport . Com

-www.manythings.org.com

- wwwiteslj.org/teaching ideas

21
http://www.songs/http://www.philsefisupport/http://www.songs/http://www.philsefisupport/


22/22

APPENDICES

Documents

Foreign Language Acquisition