I ask my students to brainstorm from prior knowledge. I want to see
which direction it takes. Each group is
different when I have worked with adult beginners in the community to five
years olds in the first year of school to twelve years olds at the end of
primary school. This activity allows the scope of learning to be opened up more
than if I was to share new vocabulary at the beginning of a new unit of work or
a new chapter from the textbook. If I
merely, sent around a photocopy of the vocab list and asked “Which words can
you predict? Which words do you know? And which ones do you not have any idea
about?” I would not stimulate the same
discussion in the group of learners. And
one or two at least would be nodding off in the corner.
PRONOUNS
I introduce pronouns as hand gestures. There are six pronoun groups: I, you
(singular), he/she/it, we, you (plural) and they. The first three are all
singular. The last three are all plural. Within the singular groups, I is in the first
person, you is second person and he, she, it and even formal you (for example,
in Italian) are third person.
First
person refers back to the speaker. First
person in the plural is we (referring back to us). Second person it the
listener or person you are speaking to.
Third person is a different person/group from the speaker and the
listener. These ‘others’ are being
spoken about and not directly to.
Beginners in learning a language (be it foreign or
improving their knowledge of their native language) often confuse these terms
and labels. Often initial knowledge up
until a focused lesson on pronouns, is intuitive and is what sounds/feels/looks
right to the speaker/writer. When you
start to learn a foreign language, you don’t have years of experience to lean
on to determine what sounds/feels/looks right to you as the
speaker/writer.
I teach pronouns with hand gestures to simplify some
of these of the beginning language learner. Most of these hand gestures are
obvious, but help the learner to process the context of who is speaking, who is
listening and/or who is being spoken about.
PRONOUN LIST
In the singular, point to the appropriate person.
In the plural, circle in the air to indicate
the group of 2 or more people.
For ‘I’, simply point to the speaker.
For ‘you singular’ point to the listener.
For ‘he/she/it/formal you’ point to who the speaker is
telling the listener about.
For ‘we’ circle in the air to refer to the speaker and
the listener.
For ‘you plural’ circle in the air to refer to both
listeners.
For ‘they’, circle in the air to refer to two or more
other people being spoken about by the speaker to the listener.
CALENDAR
A basic list for learning any language. Note: in Italian days and months, both DO NOT
have capital letters. In English, they
always have capital letters. Just a convention to be aware of.
NATIONALITIES AND LANGUAGES
A surprising list for nationalities and languages. In
Italian, countries and cities have capitals.
However, nationalities and languages DO NOT have capitals.
IDIOMS
It’s always a good idea to occasionally take a break
form the grammatical side of learning a new language to explore some idioms. Here are some of my favourites: Italian olio di gomito
(lit. oil of elbow) is elbow grease. French la grasse matinée (lit. the fat
morning) is a sleep in.
HOLIDAYS
I work with students to brainstorm and research some
common festivals and holidays. Start
with festivities common to both cultures: birthdays, Christmas, Easter, even
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Then,
challenge their knowledge / introduce some cultural holidays to the target
language: national holidays, regional festivals like Carnevale.
THE NEWS
I brainstorm from the news: It is always powerful to
start with common knowledge like world news or famous people. Recent natural disasters, known disasters
even Pompeii in Italy, famous sports people, films stars, singers, tv
personalities. Most people surprise
themselves with their own prior knowledge or even with how much they knew but
didn’t realize was linked to Italy as a country or the Italians as a people.
TIME AND PLACE
This is one of my favourite topics – because you can
take it anywhere to any place and time: list in three column famous people,
famous places, historical events in time. Each group takes this in their own
direction. Sometimes modern people, sometimes more historical. Sometimes recent political events, or recent
natural disasters that made the world news. Some people are more interested in
Italy when it became a Republic or the influence of the Roman Empire. There is something for everyone. Children are often either more interested in
the modern famous people or the gladiator era in to main groups.
