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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?

Series Directory

Teaching Foreign Languages K-12: A Library of Classroom Practices

Credits

Teaching Foreign Languages K–12: Teaching Arabic © 2016 Annenberg Learner and Qatar Foundation International. All rights reserved.
  • Closed Captioning
  • ISBN: 1-57680-731-2

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