Foreign Languages the Charlotte Mason Way

My friends and I hosted a Charlotte Mason Question and Answer Day on August 28th to help advise new-to CM and new-to-Ambleside Online moms who are new to or just beginning teaching with a CM philosophy in their homeschools. I got to help with some basic things like spelling, studied dictation, nature study, high school transcripts, and my favorite, Foreign Language the CM way.


CM mentions several wonderful suggestions in her volumes (1 and 3 especially) and in PR aricles, which I had mentioned and linked to back in May 2010 while prepping for a talk I was going to be giving. During the span of her teaching, writing, and lecturing career, we find that she was settling more and more on the methods of Francois Gouin (also a late 19th century educator). She gives examples of lesson plans and objectives, plus students' samples in the back of her book School Education, Volume 3 for "A Gouin Series," along with other sample grammar lessons and narration examples.


A Gouin Series is:

1. a sequence of logical steps or actions (always about 5-8) in a process.
2. 1st pronoun in each sentence of the series needs to be the same.
3. Pronoun used determines the verb conjugation(s) which is easier, because it is presented in context.
4. Simple, short so not overwhelming even in advanced tenses.
5. Given orally first.
6. Includes gestures to show/demonstrate meaning
7. Students repeat and gesture what you, the teacher, demonstrated.

It is helpful to have pictures that match the series as well, but not always practical. In this case, you can draw the students in to do drawings for the class.

This is an example of a Gouin series set of action statements:

Yo voy a la escuela.
Yo vengo a la clase de español.
Yo tengo mis materiales en mi mochila.
Yo saco mi libro, mi cuarderno, y mi bolígrafo.
Yo saco una hoja de papel, también.
Yo escucho a la profesora.
Yo escribo muchas notas en mi cuarderno.

Translated means: I go to school. I come to Spanish class. I have my supplies in my backback. I take out my book, notebook (workbook), and my pen. I take out a piece of paper, as well. I listen to the teacher. I take many notes in my notebook. After teaching activities/actions with a Gouin series approach, you then add in some (short) storytelling. This is another good site, called TPR World, which is doing a lot of proofing and research, provides resources to keep reforming FL teaching in public and private schools using the writings and work(s) of Francois Gouin, Stephen Krashen, James Asher, and Blaine Ray. Some free printouts are available on these sites, as well.

We find this 19th Century educator, who realized the importance (in his own life, first!) of teaching/learning language in a logical, practical series emphasizing most commonly used verbs. Over the past few years, I've also discovered these modern researchers, teachers, and supporters, all of whom promote the storytelling developments added to the Gouin series and gesturing during lessons, (aka the work of Blaine Ray and others) in the TPR Storytelling movement. Also see Blaine Ray's web site: http://www.blaineraytprs.com/.


Curriculum helps:

I tend to use multiples resources, as many Liberal Arts Education moms do, though I pull from one specific book as a spine, then multiple resources to be more well-rounded and more CM. This also jibes quite a bit, if you know how to tweak it, with the TPR Storytelling enthusiasts, so I get a lot of my ideas/novels in the target language, music, etc., from them. If you are interested in knowing more about High School, feel free to ask me offline. Some TPR supplements to these curriculae are better than others.

I like the "Hola Niños package for the elementary years. This is what I'd buy if I had young elementary students. For upper elementary, Cuéntatme. There is a French version of both of those curriculum packages. Pricelist for these is here. These are what I would use with your children if I organized a Spanish class for the younger years. I am adding high school Spanish 3 this year and also will be teaching American Lit to high school students. That's two preps that I haven't done in a long time, for a total of four classes with outside students.

*** Two things about those programs that you may want to be prepared for. *All of the lessons are meant to be humorous and taken lightly. Some of the lessons may have very silly stories, perhaps elephants falling in love with people or other boyfriend/girlfriend themes that are not something you'd want to use in your family, so there could be some wasted lessons, or lessons that you'll have to tweak.

When I encounter these in resources that I buy for my classes, I either tweak or skip them. If I tweak them, then I've got to make my own pictures to match the new characters or actions.

***The other thing is that these programs assume you have had some Spanish and have a comfortable working knowledge of grammar, pronunciation, etc. Otherwise, you may end up getting frustrated. Take your time to explore these links. You may come away with some neat lessons for your own students/children if you do, or it may bring up more questions for you. Ask away!!

For more information on what Gouin teachers are doing today ~ http://gouinseries.com/. There are some neat lesson links and a few free resources available through more links found on this site.

A third affordable recommendation that I love is for Visual Link Spanish, which helps with sentence building in chunks...Noun, verb, + prepositional phrase. You can get the first 11 or 12 lessons for free. Sign up for their e-mail list and wait for them to send you special pricing (it usually happens within a week!) on the disks. Since it is computer-based, students might be apt to fall into boredom after a month or two.

Visit Mamalisa.com for nursery rhymes and folk songs.

Don't forget that you can do Bible verse copywork, or even reading practice in any language by using the free resource of Biblegateway.net! If you prefer side-by-side translations, look at Biblios.com.

Hymns are available online for free as well at cyberhymnal.com or here. Hope your school terms have started well!


Javamom

Spanish practice through music

While trying to find a Spanish song to use in my Spanish classes this week, I found a site called Actualidades: a learning blog, that has a fantastic collection of music/songs to listen to. The site owner has gone to a lot of effort and also posted activity sheets that go along with each song (there are almost 50 in the collection!), including a vocab list that you can present before you play the song. They are not translated into English, for the most part, so you are forewarned that you will have to do this part yourself.

These have excellent sound quality, as well, and I'm looking forward to giving some of these a try.


Enjoy!

Javamom



Preview for any topics you personally might want to avoid with younger ages (i.e. love or dating relationships).

Spanish Word Wall and Charts

While communicating or telling stories in Spanish with my classes, it is helpful to have posters and charts that I can point to on the wall. When I taught summer school sessions at a private school, this was what my wall looked like. Winston Grammar was created at this school, so you see the English grammar charts on the bulletin board to the right. I mimicked these charts with my self-created charts in Spanish.

This is how I "translated" my word wall to my hs co-op classroom, where I had to carry everything, literally every resource, in and out for different-aged classes and different classrooms. I am also able to use this at home. These are the same mini-posters from the whiteboard above (where I posted them with magnets...but my whiteboard in co-op was not magnetized, so I had to get creative).


I've added this large presentation board to my home class, since I don't really have room for a large white board. I am able to fold this up and put it behind the couch after my Wednesday home classes are over. The mini-charts can be removed or moved around, since I have sticky-backed Velcro tabs on each mini-poster. These visuals are a big help. Another idea would be to include pictures when possible.


I hope that some of you will find this helpful!


Con cariño,


Señora Javamom

Spanish language fun

This is a "Mini-story" that I pre-wrote as a skeleton story, but it became more impromptu as we went along in my Spanish class a couple of weeks ago. I asked for a volunteer, whom I named "Guillermo." Leave me a comment if you have any questions, and feel free to use this as an example for your own Spanish homeschool class or other classroom setting.

This dialogue worked because we had just begun learning greetings and telling age, using the verb "tener" (to have or to be x years old), and any extra words used in context that had not yet been introduced were posted on my "word wall" for easy reference, without stopping during the story.

It went like this:

Profesora: "Hay un chico que se llama Guillermo." (I pointed to Guillermo and said)

"Éste es mi amigo, Guillermo. Clase, diga 'hola' a Guillermo ... "

Clase: "¡Hola!"

¿Cómo estás, Guillermo? ¿Bien? ¿no? Estás mal?

Guillermo: "Si, Estoy muy mal."

la clase dice...."Oh, no!"

Profe: "Soy tu profesora y estoy bastante bien. Clase, ¿quién está mal, Guillermo o la profesora?

Sí, Guillermo está mal. Pobre cito. Pobre Guillermo."

clase: "Ohhhhhh, pobre Guillermo."

Profe: "Guillermo, ¿cuántos años tienes?"

G: "Tengo veinticinco años."

P: "¿Es verdad, Guillermo??? Clase, ¿tiene Guillermo veinticinco años or tiene quince años?"

Clase: "¡Tiene quince años!"

P: "Clase, ¡es obvio! Yo creo que Guillermo tiene quince años.
¿Es correcto, Guillermo? Sí...yo creo que sí. Claro." (as I nod, "yes.")

G: "Sí, es correcto. Yo tengo quince años."

P: "Clase, Guillermo tiene un problema. Tiene un problema con tus animales."

P: "Guillermo, ¿hay animales en tu casa?"

G: "Do sisters count? "

P: "Guillermo, en español, por favor. No pregunto '¿hay hermanas?' pero '¿Hay animales en tu casa?' ¿Entiendes?"

G: "Sí, tengo animales en mi casa."

P: "¿Cuántos (and I point to the question words on my 'word wall') animales hay en tu casa?"

G: "¡Hay dos animales!"

P: "Clase, hay dos hermanas o dos animales en la casa de Guillermo?"

Clase: "¡Hay dos animales!"

P: "Correcto, clase. Hay dos animales.
Guillermo, ¿Qué tipo de animales hay en tu casa?"

G: ??

(Profe writes 'tipo' on the whiteboard and defines it as "type" or "kind")

Profe: (clarifying) "Hay elefantes en tu casa?"

G: "¡Sí!"

P: "Clase, tiene Guillermo gatos en su casa, o tiene elefantes en su casa?"

Clase: "Tiene elefantes en su casa."

P: "Es correcto, clase. Es un problema, ¿no? Guillermo tiene elefantes en su casa."

P: "Guillermo, ¿Cuántos elefantes hay?"

G: "Dos elefantes."

P: "Tú tienes dos elefantes. Dos gigantes elefantes y es un problema, ¿no?"

G and clase: "¡Sí!"

P: "Y ¿Cómo se llaman los dos elefantes?"

G: "Un elefante se llama Diego Alejandro Juan Pablo Gutierrez Juarez." (and I changed the name slightly to protect the innocent, LOL!)

P: "¡Qué bueno! Y ¿Cómo se llama el otro elefante?"

G: "El otro elefante se llama 'Paco.'"

P: "¿Solamente se llama 'Paco?' Hahahaha! Guillermo, ¡Tú eres muy divertido!
Gracias, Guillermo. Tengo que irme. Hasta luego. ¡Chao, clase!"

Clase: "¡Chao!"


And that is an example of TPR Storytelling. I didn't "circle" as much as some teachers who use this method do. Also, I decided to save going into the real problem of having two elephants as pets for another day. It's not the perfect story, but this is the first year I have really had class time to execute these silly but effective interactive stories. This one went off really well! You would have thought that I prepped this student with a script beforehand, but I did not! I literally penciled in the age of "25" and that is exactly the age the student chose to respond! Crazy!


Looking forward to more adventures like this one,

Javamom

Lovely Evening

All week I've been on this computer, working up my lesson plans, making copies, and gathering resources for teaching at home and at our hs co-op. I will be teaching a group of elementary kids, Jr. High and High School Spanish I again. I am looking forward to it! I like to see all my plans on paper first, though :-). And this calm before it all begins is a little too quiet. Well, maybe that's just because our youngest, busy boy is out of state with a friend!

Tonight I was blessed to take a break! I got to go to one of my best friend's homes to meet with some old-time hs board/member moms from our hs group. Three or four of us there were founding moms...from 12 years ago! The other ladies joined within a few years of those small and simple beginning years. Our group has well over 240 families participating, now, and with growth has naturally come much change.

It was such a boon to our relationships to make this time to be together, laugh together, share insights, pain, trials, praises, even tear up and pray together.

Everyone should have a core group of friends such as these. They really are special.

Javamom