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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:

  • What are some ways to expand and enrich a lesson around a limited set of vocabulary terms, such as the names of different fruits?
  • What are some learning strategies that you can use with beginning students?

Watch the Video

As you watch “Fruits of the Americas,” take notes on Ms. Rodriguez’s instructional strategies, particularly how she structures activities. 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:

  • Which activities about fruits were designed to appeal to students’ senses?
  • Which activities were designed as curricular connections?
  • How does Ms. Rodriguez let the core vocabulary for fruits lead to related vocabulary terms?

Look Closer

Take a second look at Ms. Rodriguez’s class to focus on specific teaching strategies. Use the video images below to locate where to begin viewing.


Video Segment: Guessing by Touch

You’ll find this segment approximately 6 minutes and 30 seconds after the video starts. Watch for about 4 minutes.

Students try to identify different fruits solely through their sense of touch, then write the fruit names in Spanish on a chart.

  • What vocabulary learning occurs in this activity?
  • What benefit comes from having wrong guesses?
  • How does the activity lead students from oral to written language?
  • What observations can you make about student engagement in the activity?

Video Segment: Tasting New Fruits

You’ll find this segment approximately 16 minutes and 30 seconds after the video starts. Watch for about 6 minutes.

Students taste the new fruits whose names they have learned, then discuss whether the fruits are sweet or sour and whether they like the taste.

  • How does Ms. Rodriguez incorporate science into the tasting experience?
  • How receptive are the students to tasting new fruits? How do they react to the taste of the unfamiliar fruits? What did you think their reactions would be?
  • What is the purpose of the worksheet?
  • What is the effect of this activity compared to others during the class period?

Series Directory

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

Credits

Produced by WGBH Educational Foundation with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. 2003. 2016.
  • Closed Captioning
  • ISBN: 1-57680-731-2

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