Teaching Foreign Languages K-12: A Library of Classroom Practices
View & Analyze the Video
As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group.
Before You Watch
Respond to the following questions:
- When teaching vocabulary, how do you sequence and vary activities to promote student learning?
- What are some different ways that technology can be used to provide students with a wide range of authentic cultural materials?
- How many different ways do you reinforce meaning? How do you help students adopt numerous strategies to get their meaning across?
Watch the Video
As you watch “A Place I Call Home,” take notes on Ms. Mayalah’s instructional strategies, particularly how she sequences activities, how they relate to the objectives for the day, and what techniques she uses to remain in the target language. Write down what you find interesting, surprising, or especially important about the teaching and learning in this lesson.
Reflect on the Video
Review your notes, and then respond to the following questions:
- What were some of the strategies Ms. Mayalah used to make her language comprehensible to the students?
- What did you observe about how the students interacted during group work? What did Ms. Mayalah do to establish an environment in which the students communicate solely in the target language?
- How did Ms. Mayalah vary activities to provide students with different types of practice for the same core content?
Take a Second Look
Watch the video again, but this time, focus on the following teaching practices: scaffolding and visual support for learning.
Practice: Scaffolding
Ms. Mayalah carefully sequences activities to build student competencies.
- How did Ms. Mayalah sequence activities to take students smoothly from guided practice to independent language production?
- What was the purpose of the matching activity? How did it lay the groundwork for the writing activity?
Practice: Visual Support for Learning
Ms. Mayalah uses visual elements to promote cultural learning and teach new vocabulary while staying in the target language.
- How did the visuals used in the lesson promote cultural knowledge of homes in the Arab world?
- How did the visuals aid in vocabulary acquisition and retention?