While in the Montréal airport on the way home from Martinique, I found this awesome little children’s book titled Pourquoi J’aime le Québec. This gave me the idea of making my own book called Pourquoi J’aime la Martinique. Then I started thinking… why not have the kids make books about Pourquoi J’aime Seattle or Pourquoi J’aime Alderwood Middle School or basically pourquoi j’aime anything. If you can come up with a list of about 10 reasons why you like something, you can turn it into a book.
I recorded myself reading the book and uploaded it to Youtube.com as an example.
So I made a slide show to tell my students about my summer trip to Martinique. I’m going to turn it into a book and add it to my class library.
Core Practice #5: Design and carry out interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks using authentic cultural texts of various kinds with appropriate scaffolding and follow-up tasks that promote interpretation.
Interpretive communication is receptive communication where clarification of meaning is not possible. The creator of the communication is absent. It is reading, listening, and viewing. It includes literal and inferential comprehension. Inferencing is a thinking process that involves reasoning beyond the text using generalization, synthethis, and/or explanation. Readers interact with text and their background knowledge. Ask questions like what do you think will happen next? What kind of person do you think character X is?
Why authentic texts? Authentic texts present real language. They integrate authentic culture. Authentic texts stimulate interest in language learning. I agree with Dr. Eileen Glisan in the ACTFL Core Practices webinar, that students are motivated to interpret texts their counterparts are reading, viewing, or listening to in the target culture. Interpretive tasks should be motivated by a reason to use the language in the real world. Provide students with a scenario. For example, you are vacationing with your family in Paris. What is the best way to go sight seeing? Search the internet for transportation options and decide how you will get around Paris and what landmarks you will see. Use information from the text to respond.
Commercials from the target culture are authentic resources and a great way to practice inferencing and predicting. I saw this in a workshop with Donna Tatum-Johns this summer in Denver at iFLT and loved it!
Do you think that Emma likes her husband’s reminders to use the iPad? What makes you think that? Here is a Movie Talk script and cultural comparison activity to go with this commercial in French, Spanish, and English. The only word in this commercial is “Emma” so it can be used with any language. Stop the video along the way and point out the wife’s facial expressions and have students make inferences about how she is feeling. Have them support their answers with evidence from the video. Use props and speech/thought bubbles and have students act out the commercial.
Have the students watch the commercial again and notice the things they are doing and the things in the background. What do you notice that is similar to our culture. Do you notice any differences from our culture?
A few last tips. Let students collaborate to interpret a text or video. At the novice level some collaborating will be in English and sometimes comprehension questions can be in English. Teach students to activate their background knowledge, skim the text for the main idea, and then re-read and scan the text for important details. Edit the task not the text for novices.
Here is a link to a former post on Core practice Number Five and some reading activities and resources. There are inferencing resources like task cards and graphic organizers at Teacherspayteachers in French and Spanish for additional practice.
One of the things I love most about Children’s Literature is the pattern stories. Books that follow a repetitive pattern sneak in lots of practice of key structures while limiting vocabulary for novices. This book would obviously work around the theme of fear, or Halloween. If you did not want to go scary, it is a good way to introduce rooms in a house, and would also work in a collection of black cat and/or mouse stories.
I start out with the question “What are you afraid of?” Then I do a whip around with the most common fears listed on the board in the target language, and I have a student tally the answers. Props of spiders, snakes, bees, mice, and pictures of heights, public speaking, and other fears help to stay in the target language.
Here is a copy of the story in French. Here is a copy of the story in Spanish. I like this copy because you can cut it apart and have the students race to put it in order.
The video I like to use for French is not working here but you can copy and paste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPwOVyicdrM&feature=youtu.be
Here is a copy in English, you can mute the volume and tell the story in any language.
End with a game of Atchi Patchi: List things people are afraid of, or items or words from the story, Or popcorn down trying to retell story. What would be in the box for you? Change the ending of the story to reflect a personal fear.
Children’s books allow you to practice key structures and get in the repetitions necessary for acquisition. For example, in the Spanish version of this book, there are lots of reps of tenía que, it has a lot of preterite and imperfect. The French version is in present tense with lots of first person verbs: je dois, je remplis, je decends. It doesn’t matter, because I can take the basic story and work with it in whatever tense or with whatever structures I need to practice. I “Movie Talk” it or read it like you would naturally read to little kids, pointing to things in the picture and asking questions about what’s going to happen, prediction.
I also love all the ready made authentic resources available on the internet around children’s literature. Here are some activities a French teacher made for his French students in the south of France. Note the lines for the students to practice cursive writing. This is another awesome authentic resource for French.
I think this book is perfect to connect to a discussion on fears or child hood fears? What were you afraid of? What was under your Bed? What are you afraid of now? How do you conquer your fears and solve your problems like the boy in this story did?
But what I really like about this book is the problem solving. He had a problem, an alligator under his bed, and he solved it by leaving a trail of food to trap the alligator in the garage. What is a problem that you have resolved on your own? What steps did you take to solve the problem? What happened the next morning when dad went to work? How does the story really end? Prediction!
M is for March and Monarch! Start with the Hungry Caterpillar and lead into the migration of the Monarch Butterfly. Students receive comprehensible input, connections to science, and community service.
Our opening routine includes the song of the week. I use a days of the week song because the story, The Hungry Caterpillar, takes place over the course of a week and provides the sequence for the story. You could also start with one of the butterfly songs at the end of this post, but that would be giving away the ending!
For French, I use a Youtube video with second graders reading the story, C’est adorable!
I like this one on Vimeo also.
https://vimeo.com/76615261
I don’t like to reinvent the wheel when I start a unit, so I always look at the Teachers Pay Teachers website to see what is already available. These are awesome resources from Teacherspayteachers.com.
Here is one in French, I like this for the graphics. I laminated them for story retells and group relays.
Included in the French purchase is an alternative story called The Hungry Caterpillar Eats Paris. In this version, the caterpillar eats un croissant, deux crêpes, trois baguettes, quatre quiches and so on. This could be adapted using the foods from any culture. The students could also create stories following the pattern: use any thing, that eats any items, in increasing quantities each day, and then turns into something else!
I attended an awesome ACTFL session on the Monarch Butterfly, at 8:00 am on Saturday morning, but it was worth it! It was presented by Beth McCammon Feldman. Check out her presentation handouts here Beth McCammonFeldman Journey North. For lots of resources in English and Spanish check out the Journey North website. There are videos and booklits you can print out.
Monarch butterflies cross three countries: Canada, The United States, and Mexico. Monarch butterflies need just the right temperature and humidity. Monarchs can’t freeze, they need food and warmth for the winter. There are two mountain tops in Mexico that they like best. They arrive around El Dia de Los Muertos (Nov. 1st), the tourist season is February, and they depart in March. There are lots of videos and rich readings about what life is like in the butterfly sanctuaries, and the people who count and maintain records on the Monarchs at the Journey North website and on Youtube.
Unfortunately, the people who live in the butterfly sanctuaries are cutting down the trees the butterflies need for food and shade. The campesinos need wood for carts, watering troughs, ladders, houses, bathrooms, and heating food. There is a good video in Spanish explaining their point of view, have students list reasons from the video. http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/WoodDomesticGarat_video.html
There are other challenges to the Monarchs. They need 4-5 generations in one season to make the trip back to the US and Canada. The larva only eat milkweed. Milkweed is decreasing for Monarchs to lay eggs on due to growing cities and increased use of herbicides. Weather extremes, like cold in early spring or heavy rain in the fall, hurt the Monarch population. Students can research problems in US and Canada.
What are some possible solutions? Brainstorm with students, how could they get involved? Students could raise money to plant more trees in Mexico. Students could investigate alternative farming techniques. Students can create signs informing tourists of the problems for the sanctuaries, or design brochures for sanctuary guides to distribute. They can make storybooks for kids on butterflies. Students could debate the cost of tourism on the butterfly environment. Students could create infographs in the target language.
Students can volunteer to participate in the count. Report observations, check out Westernmonarchcount.org for materials. Students could create public service announcements in many languages.
Students could plant milkweed and plants that provide nector like asters that bloom in late fall. Limit mowing it allows wild flowers to grow and avoid pesticides.
World Language teachers can connect to science with a study of the life cycle of a butterfly. Draw the life cycle and label in target language. It would be fun to raise butterflies and release them and connect with others to post where they are seen.
Here is a unit template from Laura Terrill wikispaces on the Monarch, Laura Terrill The monarch unit. Here are some additional butterfly songs.
Core practice number #5 is use authentic texts for interpretive tasks. Authentic texts are basically anything made for native speakers by native speakers, and interpretive tasks involve listening and reading. Authentic resources can be commercials, videos, comics, books, magazines, websites, menus, flyers, things we use to call realia.
Magazines are great for novice readers, they provide context clues through pictures and include basic info like biographies, ages, nationalities, activities, dates. Learners can look for cognates, context clues, and make lists of key words. They can read for main ideas, describe details, make inferences, and give opinions which support common core state standards. I really like People en Espanol.
Every year I add children’s books to my classroom library. I get most of my Children’s books from Scholastic.com. It’s worth joining the book club just to get the free book flyers each month filled with high interest and seasonal vocabulary. Look for Club Leo in Spanish at Scholastic.com and Club de Lecture in French at Scholastic.ca.
No time to look for authentic resources? Have learners find newspapers, flyers, menus, and schedules in the target language at local businesses or online. Newspapers have product ads, coupons, and shopping information to make better purchases. Learners can find a job, read the comics, do the crossword puzzle, or check the weather, the game scores, or their horoscope. Separating fact from opinion in letters to the editor and verify reliability of sources also supports CCSS.
You can follow people, topics, and companies in the target cultures on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Movie trailers and other authentic videos are available on YouTube. When searching for resources make sure your query is in the language you teach for best results.
Here are some other generic activities that you can use with any authentic text with very little advance preparation. 5 wordsThis activity can be done before reading to activate background knowledge about a topic or after reading as a summarizing technique. Students list five words that come to mind when they think of a particular topic. Students get into groups and discuss their words. The group selects three words to share and explain to class. five words
Authentic texts embed culture, vocabulary, and grammar. Authentic resources are higher interest to students than most textbooks. How do you design interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks around authentic resources to embed culture and hook students?
