Exploring Language Through Fun and Interactive Learning

 By Heather Paff, Latin Teacher and World Language Department Chair

According to the renowned linguist Dr. Stephen Krashen, “We best acquire language, when we understand what we hear, what we read, and we are absorbed in the message (Second Language Acquisition, 2013).” 

At Harbor Day School, the teachers in the world language department take this to heart. We support our students’ acquisition of a second language by creating and implementing fun and compelling lessons that students can comprehend and stretch their abilities in a supportive environment. Students need to know 90% of the words in a whole group reading in order to comprehend the text. By using gestures, images, and a variety of activities, our world language teachers make sure students understand and are engaged. Students need a great deal of exposure to their world language to communicate on their own and replicate the vocabulary and syntactical patterns. Thus, language teachers must keep materials fresh so repetition does not become tedious.

 TPR  (Total Physical Response) - Mandarin

TPR is a go-to strategy for teaching new vocabulary in a world language classroom. Students absorb the vocabulary and store it in their long-term memory by saying the word, doing an action, seeing the word on the board, and hearing the word aloud.

In her Mandarin classes, Wang Lăoshī takes the art of TPR to a new level. She has students use TPR to learn vocabulary words orally and also to learn how to write characters. Wang Lăoshī created special dice for the students to practice action verbs. First, students roll the action die. Then they read, say, or perform the action that was rolled. Finally, students use the die to write creative stories, which they type out and add pictures to help make their stories comprehensible to their peers.

Comic Strips - Lower School Spanish 

This activity is a wonderful way for the students to engage with a story multiple times in a variety of ways so that it always feels fresh and novel. After listening and reading the story together, students illustrate sentences from the story. Once they finish their comics, they take turns reading their stories and showing their comics to their peers in Spanish. 

Señorita Buth modifies this activity for different grade levels. For instance, in 3rd grade, students receive sentences to draw out. In 4th grade, students choose their own sentences from their novella Capibara con Botas for their comic.

Picture Talk - Middle School Spanish 

Using visuals is a common strategy to make a story comprehensible to students. During a picture talk, teachers use visuals to tell a story to students while writing new vocabulary on the side and asking questions in the target language to make sure that they understand.

Señor Alferez is masterful at using Picture Talks with his students. He guides the students through TPR and action verbs, moves on to places, and then character descriptions. After being exposed to the material and images, students can make their own observations in the target language. Students then apply the language skills gained through this activity to other images.

Story Listening 2.0  - Latin

Story listening is a great way for language teachers to introduce students to a new story that they are about to read. Students can visualize what happens in the story and gain comfort with new vocabulary or grammatical structures.

In this activity, students listen to a teacher tell a story in the target language while drawing and labeling pictures on the whiteboard. The story is a simplified version of a story that the class will read together later. Students listen to the story and draw their own version. The story is made more comprehensible due to the pictures, gestures, and questions asked during the activity. Drawing also helps the teacher slow down the story to make sure that everyone can follow along. Students pay attention to the story since they also draw the pictures. They are listening to the story, seeing the story, and writing it down for themselves. Later, students can use their drawings to retell the story to one of their peers.

This video shows Magistra Paff using Story Listening 2.0 to introduce a chapter from a Latin novella Cloelia in Latin 8. In the video she describes a character, Lucretia, as “mulier optima (an excellent married woman).” Then she stops to check in with the students and review who this character is in the story. One of the students responds, “amica matris [the friend of (Cloelia’s) mom].”

These examples are just a small sampling of activities that the world language teachers at HDS use to make sure that they are making the material comprehensible and fun for their students. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.