K-5 SMART Languages and Cultures

Teach Smart and Have Fun!

I grew up in an oil camp, a little piece of heaven on earth, in the middle of the Colombian jungle, where I attended a total immersion English program. The second language I was learning then was the medium as well as the object of instruction. Math, language arts, science and social studies were all taught in English. At home, when I was around my parents, brothers, and grandparents I spoke Spanish, and when I was at school with my teachers and friends I spoke English. It just happened, it was natural. I used the language that I needed to use, when and where I needed to do so. I am a product of a very successful English immersion program. Therefore I am a true believer in early language learning. The lifelong skills acquired during my childhood have given me the opportunity to meet and to communicate with the wonderful people, who in one way or another, have touched my life and inspired me to become the woman I am today. Imagine this, here I am, writing books in my second language, English, while having the privilege of teaching “little ones” my beloved native language, Spanish. What an incredible gift my parents and elementary school teachers gave me! My first teaching assignment was at a public elementary school as a first grade Spanish partial immersion teacher. I planned, designed, implemented and delivered all the math, science and social studies lessons during two years. When I thought that I knew what I was doing I was reassigned to teach third grade. I had to do it all over again. The children who attended these language programs are now bi-lingual. What a joy to know that I made a difference in their lives by sharing with them a gift that was once given to me! Today, I frequently have the opportunity to advocate for early language learning as a board member of the TFLTA and as a presenter at numerous world languages conferences. I always leave these places with the warm feeling of having shared and generated genuine enthusiasm for the teaching of world languages. The idea of writing this book was born somewhere at one of those places. I have had the pleasure of meeting many new teachers, whose questions and comments have challenged me to write about what the children have taught me through their creativity, curiosity, and eagerness to learn. During the last twelve years, my passion has been this wonderful and challenging journey of teaching and learning how to teach Spanish in elementary schools. Every day, I find out that there is so much more to learn.  And frequently, I feel that I haven’t taught my “little ones” enough. I have realized, though, that in a smart elementary world languages program the curriculum needs to be planned, developed, and implemented for young learners in a happy, creative, interesting and stimulating environment while targeting the multiple intelligences. It needs to offer the children the opportunity to discover and understand the popular culture, traditions, and the lifestyle of the countries where the target language is spoken, while following the same sequence as when they learned their native language: first they listen and start to understand the language, then they begin to speak it, and this is followed by pre-reading and pre-writing attempts. The degree of proficiency acquired by the children in these programs is proportional to the quantity and quality of time spent using the new language in meaningful ways. A carefully planned elementary world language program that accommodates a variety of learning styles will eventually lead to a very successful language learning experience in the middle and high schools.  This book is a recollection of smart strategies for making world languages learning comprehensible and meaningful to children who attend elementary programs. It contains a variety of brain-friendly, thematically based lesson plans to help present, review and practice a language, while developing children’s speaking and comprehension skills. These lessons are intended to support individual, partner, small group, and whole class instruction. It is my hope that this book will be practical and useful to world languages teachers, who are looking for fun, ready to use, easy-to-follow lesson plans with ideas, activities and projects to help enrich and promote their programs. I encourage you to value the opportunity of using the target language as a teaching tool to inspire your students to communicate and interact in their new language. Use the information in this book to develop and expand your program, while addressing the multiple intelligences. Adapt these ideas if you need to. Copy, add, modify or just use them as a guideline to create your own lessons or to supplement your curriculum or textbook. All of the tried-and-true classroom activities and projects in this book appeal to different learning styles and can be adapted and implemented in any language.

This book ends with a resource section of my favorite catalogs, books, software programs, music tapes and CD’s, videos, and Internet sites for Spanish teachers. There is also a section on theme-a-month, easy-to-learn traditional Latino songs and rhymes. All the reproducibles are in Spanish. Translate them to the language you teach and you are ready to go. Teach smart and have fun!