Teacher Comment; response follows
More reaction to content-based FLES
At the 1999 ACTFL conference, I looked over the sample lesson plans and other material from the FLES program. In it, I perceived a separation between two important components of the content-based curriculum: On the one hand, there is the need for communication. I saw almost none in the materials. There was oral performance, but reciting days of the weeks, months of the year, naming numbers 1-10, etc. is not communication.
On the other hand, there is content. The materials are replete with indications of what students at various levels should accomplish in the areas of math, science and social studies, as well as foreign language. Unfortunately, there is an absence of purpose in the content just as the content of the days of the week, months, etc. have no communicative context or purpose as lists of vocabulary nor in the recitation of them.
A question to ask is this: If you are going to teach "days of the week" (substitute other such lists of vocabulary), what is it about any day of the week that a student should be able to make reference to in some natural context of human interaction? Why, in other words, does a human being make reference to a day of the week? The answer to this question gives us clues as to how to set up the instructional context and activities for dealing with such content.
INSTRUCTIONAL CONTEXT AND ACTIVITY
Brainstorm with the students what activities take place around their
house of in their lives on Saturday. One may have to do this in English,
although pictures of common activities could be used which pupils could
identify by number, for example.
Purpose: You tell the children that you are gathering information to be used later in the course when you want to include personal information in the lesson in order to make it more personal to each of them.
Activity:
Have a calendar handy to which you can point in order to indicate the
day of the week you are concentrating on. Also, have some pictures
of common sorts of activities. Case in point: Washing a dog or automobile.
Point at the calendar and then the picture, and say (anything I use will
have to be modified if the students would not understand. That should
not be too hard to do):
A. -En este dia, Levanten la mano (raise your own hand to model)
los que lavan el perro. (Point to picture.)
-(Count the hands) uno, dos, tres, etc. [State how many
do it]: Bueno, veo que cuatro personas lavan el perro, ?si?
Count again.
B. Extension:
1. -Los que lavan el perro en este dia (don't
say sabado! Point to calendar), es que lavan el perro solo?
OR, call on
an individual who raised his/her hand and ask : Tu lavas el
perro solo o no?
2. -Lavas el perro dentro de la casa, o no?
(Show picture of house.) .. como en el bano, etc.
3. -If not, ?lavas el perro en el garaje,
en el patio, etc?
(Have hands
raised on each time.)
4. -Summarize: Bueno, el sabado (point
to calendar), names of students lavan el perro.
5. -el sabado ([point to calendar) quien lava
el carro/auto? Levanten la mano. (Get the information.)
Now, brainstorm on the other activities that they do el sabado. Write
el sabado on the board for them to copy on a piece of paper, then let them
tell each other, in groups or pairs, what other activities they commonly
do el sabado. This can be in English, but restrict the English to one
word statements:
camping, swimming, tennis, etc.
C. Extension:
Now, with the name of the day well established, use it to ask what
people are doing in terms of other pictures.
Ask: Levanten la mano, Cuantos _activity_? Count and go
on to any similar extensions that were indicated above. KEY:
One wants to avoid going outside of the context of what has been established
in order to push other grammar or vocabulary. Use anything they can say or
write to concentrate on communication
within the context of the single day, el sabado.
Rationale: This activity will contribute to the establishment
of the following elements of communicative context about the days of the
week:
1. Common, meaningful, activities that people talk
about frequently.
2. The particular day when certain activities are
done (and not on other days, perhaps.
This can be explored for
another meaningful extension.)
3. Responsibilities of various people with regard
to the activities.
4. Setting. The context element: place.
5. The plural verb used with names of real people.
6. Counting for meaningful purposes.
Conceptualization: Underneath the activity regarding a single day, is that similar kinds of experiences take place on other days (see context elements already established above 1-6). Therefore, when one wants to extend the control of this aspect of the language to, in this case, the other days of the week, the one new factor will be the few syllables of the other days. I would still not do all of them at once. In addition, the meaningful context that has been established with regard to days of the week is useful for other content in the language, as well as the basis for content integration from other subjects.
Science: Can you wash the dog inside if its raining? Temperature? Habitat conditions of the animals in the house or in the neighborhood (friends' animals, relatives’ animals, etc.). Health aspects: Allergies, diseases. Math: Number of days on average that dog gets a bath, Age of dog in human years (1 X 7), how long one has had the dog, cat, etc., how many animals are owned by all the people in the class, upkeep, etc. Social Studies; Agencies that deal with animals (SPCA, animal shelters, veterinarians, recovery clinics for wild animals, etc.) Geography: Locations in the world where certain animals are kept as pets. Culture of the second language: Cultural orientation to pets in the target culture, attitudes, protection, etc. Personal: Places where one lived (past tense) when they had certain animals as pets; characteristics of pets: size (bigger or smaller) and colors!! (You want colors? There you go!)
Some people they want details when discussing activities or techniques. Well, here are a few anyway! The orientation I try to explain about language learning is that we should try to draw on students' own experiences before we begin to try to teach them something that, we think, will be meaningful. By brainstorming about their lives, even if we have to use English, they give you so much information. This can be brought into later instructional episodes and the only difficulty you will have will be in deciding what not to use!
Some teachers mention being confused when new ideas are presented or many come up in a single workshop session. Sometimes, they cannot specify just what the confusion is about. Perhaps, it is implied when they ask for details concerning these ideas. At any rate, the idea I came up with about days of the week is just one of many such things that grow out the orientation and dedication to think in terms of actual communicative purposes for using the second language (and make this the basis for the context for learning any patterns or vocabulary).
I apply this orientation, as well, to the other subjects in the curriculum: if the activity for instruction does not have a purpose in real life, why don't we look at life and find situation which are familiar in which the content is used, or is essential for survival? In math, for example, I suggest not teaching the concepts, greater than /less than, in the abstract even if you use apples and oranges. There must be some situations that we can simulate that will draw on students’ own experiences in order to bring these to bear on the learning process.
Suppose you were ill. If you were to use the illness to teach parts of the body, what could be more meaningful!! Just don't go on to the foot, knee, etc. Stay with the parts that are the most affected, tell the children your story - with demonstration - and they will remember the times in their lives when they had similar symptoms. Put the word "estomago' under a category of "dolores/enfermedades" and ask them to write the number of days they (1) had the illness, (2) were out of school, (3) had to stay in bed (use visuals), etc. These sorts of questions have meaning. I try to help teachers steer away from questions just to check comprehension. The rule is: Never ask a question to which you already know the answer. There is no communication gap being served. A question asking how many days there are until someone's birthday (when you have collected birthday information previously) becomes a focus on the occasion rather than the content of the language.
As to the bones of the body, there is a dig going on in Florida where they are finding ancient bones. So, there is a current event in the news to which students can connect. They may try to identify bone fragments (playing the archeologist in a Spanish speaking country). Simple language: Es un hueso. Es una pierna (es un pedazo de la pierna.) They may match pieces with actual pictures as the basis for learning the words. I would prefer to try to have the words arise from the experience rather than teach the words as separate items, out of context. I know this is hard when the tradition has been to teach words first. But, I know that the communication process is more effective when the words are taught in context of their use, in real situations.
TEACHER
COMMENT
Today, I finally realized that my greatest fear is the fact that I
don't feel comfortable teaching science because I am not good in science.
The general recommendation for FLES is that we teach the foreign language
through the content-based approach utilizing another discipline.
In my school, it was a choice between math and science. Science seems to
be the one chosen.
The Doctor’s response:
There are two critical lines in your statement (No, not the greatest
fear part!): "...teaching science..." and "...teach the foreign language
through the content-based approach utilizing another discipline."
One needs to ask if someone in the school is teaching science (and, math,
for that matter.) If there are people teaching science, then how
would a foreign language teacher, even very competent in science, be able
to teach science that was appropriate to the same age children??
If the science instruction was good, they would already know the material!
If, instead, the idea is to reinforce what the science teachers are
doing, then one needs
to find this out and do something which, somehow, reviews and extends the
science lessons.
I would hope that no one thinks that something like the concept of volume in water can be taught again just because we are using another language. There is only one concept and one brain. It doesn't matter which language the brain attends to in order to get the idea, and it may not be in language after all. All science teachers use visuals for such concepts! As my article on FLES points out (FLES Bridge), it could be problematic even to do some form of review and extension in the FLES class if the students have not integrated pertinent science concepts into their understanding of science. So, the FLES teacher would be the position of trying to show volumes of water, tea, coffee, soup (or whatever the vocabulary was chosen to illustrate the concept) to some students who would have no idea what the science point was! O-O-K, you say, now what do I do instead? We’ll deal with that question later.
The other line in your statement relates to the popular notion of teaching language through another discipline. One needs to ask the proponents of this approach, where culture is supposed to come in if the other discipline becomes the context for teaching the language? Also, how many teachers of FLES are, indeed, competent enough in these other disciplines to teach them?? One would like to ask the people who espouse content-based FLES those questions. I do so, myself, when I get a chance when I attend content-based presentations at conferences.
As my article on FLES indicates, the natural content of the foreign language class is culture. Can there be any doubt that culture underlies the language, so that teaching the culture provides a rich base on which to build the use of language?? Where, then, does science come in? Well, in every school in the Hispanic world, science is a required subject. What do they teach? The same scientific principles taught in other science classes in the world. What examples do they use? Ah, here is where the culture and language come in. No one in their right mind in Spain would teach volume of water using examples of flooded basements in homes along the Mississippi River when they have their own rivers to talk about! The volume of snow (or, lack thereof) in the ski resorts of the U.S. would be irrelevant in Argentina where they have their own ski resorts!
So, in FLES (or, any foreign language class) one teaches the culture of the areas of the world where the target language is spoken. In the limited proficiency FLES class, one uses both multitudes of visuals and sounds, plus a minimum of English to get basic content across (the names of the rivers in Spain and their locations, or the names of various winter resorts in South America). From this information can flow any pattern of language for communicative purposes, any that the teacher has planned for the day or week. There is no possibility of teaching something in the culture that cannot be the basis for use of any pattern in the language - language and culture are inseparable. So, expose students to the culture, draw on this exposure for that language content that you planned to teach anyway. Then, draw students' attention to some of the science that naturally applies to people's lives in the regions of Spain of Latin America which are, themselves. cultural aspects! Ergo, content-based FLES with an orientation to science!
Another way to go about this is to select the cultural content, then look into the science curriculum to see what the curriculum contains about life (that's what science is all about, anyway) and find a connection between the culture and the science. You still have to teach the language which they will use to communicate. Now, as in the above example, students could be “traveling” someplace in the Hispanic world where talking about these matters is communicative. If not, they could be doing a cultural report for the local newspaper (it doesn't have to be an actual project, although ideas for doing something like this produce surprising results) in which they are showing how certain aspects of the life of the people and country are similar to those in the U.S. in terms of implications of certain scientific conditions. Look at the floods that just hit France for cultural correlation with the U.S. or other countries (does Venezuela come to mind??)
The part of drawing the language out of the cultural exposure is, I admit, a little difficult to integrate into your thinking and technique. The most important part of it is that it frees you from having to think about how to create some situation appropriate for "teaching" a certain pattern until you have thought how the cultural elements are going to be dealt with. CAUTION: DON’T THINK LANGUAGE CONTENT FIRST AND TRY TO FIND SOME CULTURAL SITUATION TO PUT IT IN!!
Think culture first, and think how people would be acting within certain cultural situations. Then, use some of the language that they already know to work things around - in the cultural context - so that the new language and situation become just extensions of what they already are doing and saying. At that point, you can leave the cultural information alone, not the context, and go on with language proficiency skills. Then, come back to the cultural context for further integration of language and culture. Then, get the science part in, but don't overdo it. When they are in the science class, the two worlds of science and culture will integrate themselves in the children's brains.
Keep the basis aspects in mind, as well as the critical focus of meaningfulness. When it comes to writing the curriculum, the more that you can invite the help of the science teacher to help you understand, not how to teach science, but how he/she uses natural life situations to illustrate his/her points will help you see how these situations reflect the culture of the Hispanic people and will reinforce the approach that I have described.
Next?
This business of content-based FLES is taken care of in my orientation to
teaching culture as the content of the foreign language program as the
basis for both teaching the language and making connections to the other
disciplines. (See FLES
Bridge)
It becomes the best of both worlds, really. It is,
actually, consistent with the ACTFL standards. Anyway, I have another
response that I will, shortly put on this page. Soon, I
will have to organize it so that I can use bullets to highlight specific
questions and responses. Also, I will be putting more of the research
article summaries on the brain into the "Research" page. I hope readers
find these entries useful for their own reflections and in preparation for
FLES classes and demonstrations. Currently;, I am trying to entice my
science education colleague into thinking along some of the lines to which
I have made reference.
In particular, it's a matter of finding life in science. Then, it makes
sense to identify life situations in the culture, talk about them in
language that the students *already know* (it doesn't make sense to me to
expose them to culture and have to teach the vocabulary of the new
exposure in order for them to be able to access it!! The teacher and the
students already have some language with which to deal with any cultural
information. Unfortunately, the more common approach winds up like
something I saw in a workshop on culture: learning a lot of words for
various bakery products in a foreign bakery!!)
Then, use the cultural images and the *known* language as a easy way to
bridge into the new language that you are going to teach, anyway. From
that, you bridge to the science aspects of the cultural situation that you
have selected. The selection is based *not* on the language you are going
to teach (how different is that?), *nor* the science content that you need
to reinforce from the science curriculum (per the interdisciplinary master
curriculum that you have showed off at ACTFL, for example!) No, the
culture is selected in terms of broad perspectives and underlying
motivations of the people who are part of the culture. Over time,
students begin to recognize things in terms of how they are descriptive of
the people. So, content of the other discipline(s) takes care of itself
and the language is logically, and easily, derived from the cultural
focus. Later, one can help the students to find commonalities with their
own culture (NOT differences! These will become perfectly apparent when
they are looking for commonalities. It's what the brain does quite
naturally).
Well, I hope no one is driving a car and downloading messages from the
Internet while reading this! If so, pull over! If not, take a few
moments to reflect on the ideas. Get back to me if I can elaborate on a
point of two. It will be helpful to me to clarify the message I am trying
to get across to FLES and FL language teachers about meaningful uses of
language. The most important part, of course, is real understanding of
culture, versus cultural vignettes and unconnected cultural information
presented in materials for the purpose of making the language more
palatable and connected. It's just the wrong way to go about things! At
least, that's what an outstanding teacher of culture said to me when I
first presented this person with the idea of the focus on culture: "You're
right, David. I never thought about it that way before!"
Next?
Foreign Language Education Page