Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids

Most teachers, parents, and grandparents understand the importance of learning a second language in our globally connected world. The problem is that it is difficult to find good programs that facilitate the learning experience for kids. At FL4K, Foreign Languages FOR Kids, this is our mission. 

We have gathered a team of teachers with over 100 years of combined experience in the classroom to help us develop a state-of-the-art program that truly helps kids learn Spanish. With a long-range goal of having our single digital platform available in many languages, we have started by developing an innovative way for kids to learn Spanish. 

We know that kids love interactive learning with games, images, audio, and instant feedback, as well as the opportunity to record themselves. We have considered that learning vocabulary and grammar in a language vacuum can be a very boring and ineffective way for many kids to learn Spanish. In order to captivate the interest of kids while at the same time helping them to learn Spanish, we created a culture program that includes eight different Hispanic cultures. 

Each unit features more than 50 social media-like posts with gorgeous images, thought-provoking questions, and real-time interest polls about the geography and climate, people, sites of interest, nature, foods, indigenous groups, and global challenges of each culture. Language structures have been scaffolded in a way that naturally builds language proficiency through repetition, much like true language acquisition. 

With FL4K, kids learn Spanish at their own rate, reading and listening about all the fascinating points of interculturality designed and developed by a team of teachers. They learn ser, estar, tener, querer, poder, and me gusta while at the same time learning about the fascinating blue whale of Chile and the pink dolphin and hairless dog of Perú. 

The most effective way for you to witness the exciting features of our program which include a built-in language lab experience and games developed specifically to help kids learn Spanish is to go to our website and watch some of the demonstration videos. 

Share what you find with your students and family members! Help them to discover a brand new way to learn Spanish for kids!

Teacher Tooltip Tuesday: While you are taking a break this summer, try a new Spanish for kids app to offer you a break throughout the school year, too!

It’s summer, and you are on vacation by now, hopefully! Time to take a break! A break is exactly what I invite you to consider in your curriculum planning for next year! Take a look at the features of a state-of-the-art Spanish for kids app called FL4K, to ease your workload and engage your students in learning Spanish in a challenging, engaging, and extremely innovative way.

Why choose FL4K?

There is no program that will supplant the importance of the teacher that reinforces the concepts taught online with hands-on activities, projects, pair activities, etc. Students always need a variety of activities to practice the real-world language skills that they will be learning with this Spanish for kids app.

Nevertheless, FL4K, a Spanish for kids app, includes Spanish games specifically designed to build language proficiency, dialogues with built-in language lab features, practice questions with images, audio, and instant feedback to delight kids and reinforce learning!

Cultural Activities

This Spanish for kids app also includes a culture program that teaches students about eight different Hispanic cultures using carefully scaffolded language structures that build language proficiency.

The app allows students to progress at their own rate, reading and listening about all the fascinating points of interculturality designed and developed by a team of teachers with over 100 years of combined experience in the classroom.

Students will discover interesting facts about the geography and climate, people, sites of interest, native animals, foods, indigenous groups, global challenges, etc. of each culture.

Culture and Language Learning Together

While they are learning about Hispanic culture, they are being challenged to build their language proficiency skills. Instead of learning Spanish in a vacuum, students are learning about cultures and language at the same time. The language learning is so subtle and natural that the students aren’t even aware of how successfully they are building language proficiency.

Three levels into the program, most of the language is in the target language because of how practical language is so carefully and repetitively embedded in the program.

We are a dedicated group of teachers and techies working to provide you with a Spanish program that has done all the hard work for you: we put all the resources that you and your students need into a single platform at your fingertips, plan lessons so you won’t have to, and provide the flexibility to teach however works best for you!

We want you and your students to be excited to start Spanish class in the fall with renewed ideas for how to make learning fun and much easier on you! Take a look and let us know what you think!

Whether you are teaching children or adults, vocabulary needs to be taught according to a communicative hierarchy and in a context. In other words, you need to teach chunks of language that lend themselves to helping students be successful at speaking Spanish in the real world. 

Outdated textbooks provide long lists of isolated vocabulary and grammatical structures, NOT functional language. In addition, teachers (sadly) aren’t trained in building proficiency skills that will serve their students in actually using the target language to communicate. 

Haven’t you heard many language students complain about how they studied a language for years and can’t say a word? This is the result that we want to avoid in teaching a world language! 

So, how do you determine what structures and easy Spanish vocabulary words to teach kids for practical use? 

Think about chunks of language that students need to function like:  Where is it? (¿Dónde está?), I like that (Me gusta); I am thirsty/hungry/tired/hot/cold (Tengo sed/hambre/sueño/calor/frío); I want… (Quiero); I have…(Tengo). 

The truth of the matter is that teachers need to be trained in the basics of how to assess language proficiency according to ACTFL oral proficiency standards. Once a teacher understands the criteria for the levels of development from Novice to Advanced, the process of teaching becomes much more effective. 

If a teacher has a group of beginning Spanish students (Novice Low), he/she needs to be able to assess what students CAN DO at this level and know what they should be able to do in order to move to the next level of proficiency (Novice Mid). 

Once the teacher is adept at identifying the skills required for each level (can do’s), the teacher can begin to teach more intentionally with concrete goals for the students to move them forward on the proficiency continuum. 

Training is the key! 

Easy Spanish vocabulary words to teach kids include putting the easy Spanish words in meaningful contexts that help students to become more communicative. It is a bit of an art to teach this way and totally wreaks havoc with traditional methods. 

The strength of this kind of teaching, however, is that students start developing confidence and skills right away. They no longer memorize long lists of vocabulary, prove their skills with grammar quizzes, and promptly forget everything. No! They practice speaking every day using functional chunks of language. Finally, proficiency is not based on talent, but on practice and hard work, the result of which is a practical skill. 

Language learning is for everyone, not just the gifted and talented.  

As a retired Spanish teacher trained in ACTFL oral proficiency standards, I began working for a company (fl4k.com) that was already doing a great job of teaching easy Spanish vocabulary words to kids within a context through videos, games, and practice questions, with hands-on activities. 

What was missing was the interculturality piece, so a team of teachers who are trained in teaching language according to proficiency standards gathered to inform the company about how to do this best. We have created a culture program that provides fascinating content about nine different Spanish-speaking cultures all presented to kids in a single interactive digital platform that includes dialogues with recording features, practice questions, real-time polling, and features carefully scaffolded language structures and vocabulary in a context. 

Even though the program includes a lot of bells and whistles that appeal to kids of all ages, the best feature of the program is the emphasis on helping students build language proficiency that lasts and actually functions. The easy Spanish vocabulary words to teach kids are all embedded in cultural posts in a social media-like format that is very appealing to the Gen Z student! 

The easy Spanish vocabulary is given context and therefore becomes memorable. Students need to learn to ask questions (Who?/¿Quién?; What?/¿Qué?; Where?/¿Dónde?; When?/¿Cuándo?; Why? /¿Por qué?; How?/¿Cómo?; How much?/¿Cuánto?) and connect sentences (and/y; also/también; however/sin embargo; therefore/por lo tanto; because/porque, etc. 

Sailing through textbooks with complicated grammar formulas and having students memorize long lists of words just are not an effective way to TEACH students to actually speak another language with lasting results. 

Check out what we are doing at FL4K to help you help your students truly learn to speak another language.

Summer is almost here! Downtime is on the way! Refresh, relax, and find ways to enrich your interculturality curriculum! Is this often an afterthought that finally you need to do something about this summer?

Don’t reinvent the wheel

I am part of a teacher team that is creating an interculturality curriculum that can supplement any Spanish language program K-12. Imagine what fun it is after 43 years in the classroom to help write about Hispanic culture in the most appealing way possible for Gen Z students.

That’s right! This is an interactive digital platform with real-time polls, discussion questions, built-in language lab recording features, and social media-like posts that feature super fascinating intercultural information about nature, art, music, local artists and citizens, sites of interest, history, global challenges, adventures, etc., all with Novice-Intermediate language carefully scaffolded using high-frequency language that is repeated and repeated until it is like second nature for kids to use the target language naturally.

How long does the program take to work through?

Each level of study includes 40-50 intercultural social media-like posts that are short paragraphs about high-interest topics for kids of all ages. There are corresponding interactive practice questions and dialogues,  games specifically designed to build language proficiency, hands-on activities, discussion questions, music, recipes, and pertinent videos with each level of study.

Of the eight levels (Hispanic countries) in the program, a teacher could get through 3 to 4 maximum in a year, depending on the number of contact hours/per week in their school’s language program.

A Flex program for lower elementary students, for example, would only be able to tackle 2 to 3 of the cultural units in a year while a Spanish I and II class at the middle or high school level might be able to complete four units of study, two per semester.

The all-in-one tool for your teacher toolkit

The coolest part about our program is that it includes a curriculum guide, is customizable, is ACTFL aligned, and it is not a textbook! It is all in a single digital platform.

At the very least, check it all out at our website: fl4k.com, and see how we are trying to create the program that we have always wanted ourselves with the intention of saving you time – while at the same time ensuring that your curriculum is interculturally rich and engaging for students today!

Don’t reinvent the wheel this summer! Study our website and see what might work best for you! Reach out to us and schedule a demo or sign up for our free summer trial! Check out the perks for signing up now!

In the last three weeks I have explored the first three stages of group participation and development: forming, storming, and norming, all essential developmental phases in preparation for the final phase, performing!

Most of us have been doing this throughout our teaching careers in the form of group projects or presentations at the end of a unit to give students the opportunity to show what they CAN DO!!

However, if teachers are not careful, this phase can be wrought with complications. Students need to be shepherded through the stages of getting to know each other (forming), wrestling with different personalities (storming), and learning to accept their differences (norming) in order to maximize their ability to be successful as a team. Once a group of students has figured out how to work together, a teacher can assign group projects and presentations.

Group Participation

The age-old problem will still be ensuring that each member of the group participates equally in completing the work. Inevitably, there are some group members that care more about their grade than others and end up doing all the work while resenting less productive group members. I hope that it will not be discouraging for me to admit that I never mastered this issue after 43 years of teaching! Rather, I hope you will be challenged to find new ways to tackle this inequity.

One idea is to make sure that peer evaluation is an important part of the group grade. Help students hold each other accountable by requiring them to evaluate each other anonymously. Build in time elements that require each group member to speak for a certain number of minutes. Consider as many parameters as possible that ensure participation from all!

Presentation Engagement

Even after you have your groups engaged and performing, there is the additional problem of keeping the rest of the class engaged. I have found that group presentations can kill overall Gen Z student engagement in a heartbeat.

Since an important part of building proficiency in a language is learning to ask questions, I suggest requiring every student not presenting to ask follow-up questions. Keep track of how many they ask and factor this data into their participation grade.

You might have students in their seats fill out information about the presentations to keep them focused and engaged. Questions could be general: Mention 2-3 things that you learned; What was good about the presentation?; How could the presentation be better?, etc.

Group Projects

Here are just a few of my favorite group projects ideas:

1. Have a small group of students plan their version of “El Camino de Santiago,” a well-known pilgrimage that ends in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
   1. Students have to research which route they will take, how long they will walk, describe two people they met on the trail, the food they ate, and 2-3 experiences they had, and present their walk to the class. This can be such a fun project for creative students!
   2. What is sad about Gen Z students is they don’t tap into their creativity. They just want to get this project done and get into reading their next social media posts. Be sure to frame this project as an amazing opportunity to learn about “El Camino” and plan a trip that may very well be a reality for them one day when studying abroad during their college days! ( I take every opportunity to entice them to do this!!!)
2. Create a campaign for a cause and compete for financial support like the TV show “Shark Tank.”
   1. In small groups, students decide on a cause (actual or original) and present the rationale for supporting their cause. Each student has fake money to put toward the cause that interests them most.
   2. This results in a competition for which group is able to promote their cause most successfully.
   3. The project can be adapted to a product that relates to a particular unit. For example, students could be charged with creating a fitness program as a culminating activity for a health unit.
3. Hispanic murals and muralists from different cities around the world.
   1. Each group could present their research with a slideshow that features this amazing form of street art and an explanation of the symbolism.
   2. As a final step, the group has to create their own mural and explain its significance.
   3. This can be a digital creation or a sketch, depending on the artistic talent of the group!
4. Creating stories around famous Hispanic artwork.
   1. I especially liked to do this with Frida Kahlo as a way of introducing a whole study of her life and works.
   2. Small groups choose one of her paintings and without knowing anything about her, they create a story around the images. After learning more, the same students present the real story behind the same work of art. It’s a fun way to stimulate creativity and engage students in art appreciation.
5. Famous Families.
   1. In small groups, students research a famous person’s family to introduce to the class.
   2. There can be a certain amount of intrigue with this since many times we don’t know much about the family of a famous actor, singer, artist, or sports figure.
   3. I like to make sure that students find out about pets, too, if possible.
   4. There are many variations on this project, too. In small groups, students can create their own families and present them to the class.

There are endless project and presentation possibilities that can be designed to promote both interculturality and language proficiency in a way that is fun and engaging for today’s digital natives. Start imagining a few of your own as a culminating activity for a unit that incorporates vocabulary, structures, and cultural knowledge!

And one more bit of advice… be sure to structure the project with specific criteria and expectations. Review exactly how the project will be graded. I like to use rubrics that outline what is entailed in order to get the A, B, C, etc. This is the secret to getting stellar products!

FL4K

If you are interested in an amazing way to supplement your curriculum with rich interculturality, check out FL4K. The toolkit that includes culture posts in an Instagram-like format and proficiency-based games and dialogues serve as a great preparation for discussion, research, and projects or presentations! 

We’ll be back next week with another tool tip. In the meantime, sign up for a free trial with FL4K!