Many secondary schools offer foreign language courses as electives or as graduation requirements, and many universities now require foreign language credits both for admission and for graduation. These requirements pose little challenge for most students; indeed, "For the student unencumbered by a learning disability, foreign language study is...an enriching and rewarding experience. For the learning disabled student, however, it can be an unbelievably stressful and humiliating experience, the opposite of what is intended" (Schwarz, 1997).
A list of resources aimed at understanding and serving these students in the foreign language classroom follows:
The article "Learning Disabilities and Foreign Language Learning" (1997)from LD Online provides information on why students with learning disabilities struggle in the foreign language classroom and gives suggestions on how to help. Retrieve from here.
The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) offers suggestions for the college foreign language classroom which can be adapted to the secondary classroom. Look here.
For a wide array of links related to foreign language and learning disabilities, go to the foreign language teacher's guide to learning disabilities.
Finally, the following article explores differentiating instruction in the foreign language classroom and provides specific examples of differentiated activities.
Sarah
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Literacy Across the Curriculum
To improve literacy as well as cultural knowledge, I plan to have my students write a quarterly book report. Book selections will be based on recipients of the Pura Belpre Award: "The Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, is presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth" (Pura Belpre Award, 2010).
The 2010 winner, Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez, focuses on the relationship between a farmer and his undocumented workers. Look here for a listing of past Pura Belpre winners.
Book reports will integrate the class' year-long theme of "my place in the world" and will ask students to compare/contrast their own places in the world with those of the characters in the books they read.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Getting Started
I'm beginning this blog as a preservice teacher with the intent to continue as I finish coursework and move into teaching. The purpose of the blog is to provide a discussion forum as well as a collection of resources for foreign language teaching, especially Spanish.
I'll use this blog to explore resources from online links to research to teaching models.
For example, this summer I'm trying a modification of the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) with one of my sons to see how it works for foreign language learning at the middle grade level as opposed to beginning-level reading in English. The PWIM has potential to promote both language learning and literacy across-the-curriculum, and the picture can also act as a springboard for cultural exploration.
The PWIM sequence follows,extracted from Joyce, Weil & Calhoun, 2009, and modified for grade/language:
1. Select a picture & post on a larger white background. Google images provides a wide array of choices, like the sample PWIM photo of the Vuelta de Espana bicycle race below.
2. Have students identify what they see in the picture (for beginning Spanish students,start in English)
3. Label the picture parts by drawing a line from the picture to the white background and writing the word(older students can do this themselves, again starting in English)
4. Have students translate the English vocabulary into Spanish and write the Spanish words under the English counterparts
5. Read/review the chart (this is great for pronunciation practice)
6. Have students write Spanish vocabulary on index cards, one word per card
7. Each day before continuing with the model, have students review the cards to check their knowledge of the vocabulary. If they don't remember a word, students look at the chart.
8. Have students classify the words into groups; find concepts to emphasize (for example, masculine/feminine, parts of speech, etc.)
9. Read/review the chart (say/spell/say)
10. Students title the chart
11. Students write sentences and/or paragraphs related to the chart (good way to incorporate verbs/conjugation)
12. Classify sentences; teacher models paragraph construction using sentences (middle grade students may or may not need this modeling)
One thought after starting the process with my son is that the English words could be taken off the chart after students complete Spanish translations so they have to look at the pictures to derive the meanings of the words rather than at the English.
To read more about the PWIM, look here.
Source:
Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2009). Models of Teaching, Eighth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education
I'll use this blog to explore resources from online links to research to teaching models.
For example, this summer I'm trying a modification of the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) with one of my sons to see how it works for foreign language learning at the middle grade level as opposed to beginning-level reading in English. The PWIM has potential to promote both language learning and literacy across-the-curriculum, and the picture can also act as a springboard for cultural exploration.
The PWIM sequence follows,extracted from Joyce, Weil & Calhoun, 2009, and modified for grade/language:
1. Select a picture & post on a larger white background. Google images provides a wide array of choices, like the sample PWIM photo of the Vuelta de Espana bicycle race below.
2. Have students identify what they see in the picture (for beginning Spanish students,start in English)
3. Label the picture parts by drawing a line from the picture to the white background and writing the word(older students can do this themselves, again starting in English)
4. Have students translate the English vocabulary into Spanish and write the Spanish words under the English counterparts
5. Read/review the chart (this is great for pronunciation practice)
6. Have students write Spanish vocabulary on index cards, one word per card
7. Each day before continuing with the model, have students review the cards to check their knowledge of the vocabulary. If they don't remember a word, students look at the chart.
8. Have students classify the words into groups; find concepts to emphasize (for example, masculine/feminine, parts of speech, etc.)
9. Read/review the chart (say/spell/say)
10. Students title the chart
11. Students write sentences and/or paragraphs related to the chart (good way to incorporate verbs/conjugation)
12. Classify sentences; teacher models paragraph construction using sentences (middle grade students may or may not need this modeling)
One thought after starting the process with my son is that the English words could be taken off the chart after students complete Spanish translations so they have to look at the pictures to derive the meanings of the words rather than at the English.
To read more about the PWIM, look here.
Source:
Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2009). Models of Teaching, Eighth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education
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