French: Mapping Planet Earth

Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES)
This elementary school model organizes instruction around a scope and sequence taught by a qualified foreign language teacher. Its goals include developing language proficiency with an emphasis on oral skills, as well as providing a gradual introduction to literacy, building cultural knowledge, and tying language learning to the content of the early grades’ curriculum. FLES programs vary, especially in the number of meetings per week or minutes per session. See also Foreign Language Exploratory Program (FLEX).

Total Physical Response (TPR)
Developed by Asher, Kusudo, and de la Torre (1974), TPR is an approach for teaching vocabulary that appeals to learners’ kinesthetic-sensory system. First, the teacher introduces new vocabulary words and establishes their meaning through corresponding actions and gestures. Students mimic the teacher’s actions as they learn the words, and eventually demonstrate comprehension through the actions and gestures. Ultimately, the language is extended to written forms, and students begin to respond verbally. Research evidence attests to the effectiveness of TPR for learning and retaining vocabulary. See also Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS).

Reflect on Your Practice
As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group.

• What techniques do you use to help you stay in the target language with your students?
• How do you identify and then teach vocabulary for topics that interest your students?
• When students are unable to answer open-ended questions, how do you help them formulate an answer?
• For teachers of higher grades, how might you adapt some of the activities that Ms. Appel uses?

Watch Other Videos
Watch other videos in the Teaching Foreign Languages K–12 library for more examples of teaching methodologies like those you’ve just seen. Note: All videos in this series are subtitled in English.

• Vegetables We Like (Arabic) shows students making connections to art.
• Food Facts and Stories (Spanish) shows older students making connections to science.
• Holidays and Seasons (German) illustrates connections to other content areas and features a teacher without a permanent classroom.

Put It Into Practice
Try these ideas in your classroom. Where it’s not already evident, reflect on how to adapt an idea that targets one performance range for application to other performance ranges.

• When teaching thematic vocabulary, use visuals to convey meaning and to help students remember words. Incorporate the visuals into multiple activities; repetition in different contexts helps set words in students’ memory. Ms. Appel used a wall map, manipulatives of the continents, a poster of the planets, and actual soil and water samples to reinforce vocabulary. She used these materials in several activities, including full-class and pairs practices, to give students different opportunities to use the words. Illustrated children’s books, Web sites, magazines, or even your own creations can provide good visuals. When traveling abroad, plan ahead to collect authentic materials that you can use in class.
• Develop students’ language comprehension by directing discussion. When introducing a new topic, let your end of the conversation initially dominate the class. Students can concentrate on absorbing and understanding the material; gradually, their language output will increase. Along the way, create opportunities to check for student comprehension. For example, Ms. Appel used simple, but extended, conversation during her class. When asking questions, she elaborated and paraphrased to provide students with rich input. Students were then allowed to respond with words and short phrases that demonstrated their understanding of the content and the language.
• Introduce and practice vocabulary learning using gestures and facial expressions that connect with the meaning of the words or phrases. Ms. Appel used gestures with students to practice the vocabulary and to assess their understanding of it. Students of all ages can be encouraged to associate gestures with certain words, and can be expected to understand new vocabulary with the help of gestures and facial expressions.

World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages
The World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages create a roadmap to guide learners to develop competence to communicate effectively and interact with cultural understanding. This lesson correlates to the following Standards:

Lesson Materials
Am Stram Gram (PDF, 12 K)
Lyrics to a traditional French rhyme used in the lesson

Curriculum References
New Jersey World Languages Curriculum Framework