Foreign+Language

=** Subject: Foreign Language **=

**Ohio Academic Content Standard: **
Students initiate and sustain spoken, written or signed communication by providing and obtaining information, expressing feelings and emotions, and exchanging opinions in culturally appropriate ways in the target language. Students comprehend the main ideas and significant details in a variety of age-appropriate live, written or recorded messages in the target language. Students understand and interpret authentic texts ranging form children’s literature to classical literary texts to articles in contemporary magazines, newspapers and internet sources. Students present information and ideas on familiar topics to general audiences or readers. Benchmark B: ** Exchange personal information. 2. Exchange information about personal interests (e.g., likes, dislikes, what they are doing, what they are planning to do).
 * Communication: Communicate in languages other than English **
 * Grade 4: **

**Technologies Incorporated in this Lesson:**

 * FunBrain (website) Translator Alligator


 * 123 Teach Me Spanish for Kids (website)

** Classroom and Activity Description: **
This lesson takes place in a regular fourth grade classroom. The students are on various academic levels including below, at, and above grade level.

Students will be assigned a task that will require them to develop statements about their personal interest—likes, dislikes, what they are doing, family, etc. Then, using the 123 Teach Me website, students will look up vocabulary words. The words are organized in an easy-to-find list of categories with pictures. After choosing a word, students can then hear a pronunciation of the word.

Students will practice what they have learned using the Translator Alligator by FunBrain. Students start with the following options: choose a Spanish word for the English word provided, spell a Spanish word for the English word provided, choose the correct English word for a Spanish word, or spell the English word for the Spanish word provided. Students then choose what type of words to work with: basic words, words from school, around the house, traveling, numbers and months, animals, people words, and food words. After the students make their choice, they play a quiz game and receive a score based on how many correct words they chose.

**Tried and True or New and Innovative? **
This is a Tried and True approach to using technology in the classroom. Most students are familiar with the Internet and using website games in the classroom. Many students are also familiar with the FunBrain website, as it is commonly used in classrooms.

Supporting Research:
The article written by Kim MacDonald, //Internet Technology and Second/Foreign Language Education: Activities for the Classroom Teacher//, presents the idea that foreign language education has moved more towards “creative interactive communication situations that empower students to successfully experience and produce authentic and comprehensible target language” (MacDonald, 2003, pg. 455). This new approach can be introduced into a classroom by providing access to specialized programs and websites on the Internet. By using the internet in the classroom, teachers are presenting students with “a communicative, socially constructive and dynamic, student-centered learning environment that allows language learners to build knowledge and to explore language and identities in much deeper ways than grammar rules and vocabulary lists” ( (MacDonald, 2003, pg. 455).

The newer theories of learning a foreign language have moved toward a student centered approach where students engage in meaningful communication with one another and collaborative interaction. The new theories suggest students experience authentic target language use—both experienced and comprehended. Learners fare best when the interactions help “learners comprehend the meaning and linguistic rules of the incoming language and which help learners to improve the change of their own language production being understood” (MacDonald, 2003, pg. 456).

The Internet provides a variety of ways for these needs to be met. It allows students to focus their learning and attention and adapt to the learner's needs. The Internet also allows students to develop social skills through collaborative learning, and also allows students to develop computer skills that can easily be transferred to other areas of learning.

In addition to providing the information above, MacDonald's article also describes two different kinds of activities that can be done via the Internet to teach foreign language skills; Postcards and Talking Heads.

// References //