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Supporting Our Students

Welcome to the November electronic newsletter of the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center! Teachers, like pilots, are expected to prepare flight plans that will allow them to safely transport students in an airplane (otherwise known as a classroom) to a variety of destinations (including communicative proficiency, cultural competence, and career preparation). However, have you ever felt as though you were expected to be the pilot, stewardess, air marshal, airline mechanic, engineer, and tour guide simultaneously . . . as you attempted to convey students through a Bermuda triangle of language and culture . . . in a plane experiencing significant mechanical failures?!?! Have you ever had someone ask you the equivalent of the question, "How hard can it be? I mean, you get them all seated, serve them some pretzels, pass out a few blankets and pillows for the sleepy ones, pop in a movie, then thank them for flying with you when you get to the end of the flight!"

Many people think of teaching as a set of predictable, relatively concrete behaviors that occurs inside our classrooms on a routine basis. Unfortunately, when we experience failure in our classrooms, we have a tendency to blame it on the concrete elements that we can see—inadequate facilities, poorly-designed materials, uncooperative colleagues, neglectful parents, unsupportive administrators, or unmotivated, inept students. The problem with this product-based perspective is that the frame it uses to view and define teaching excludes the complex dynamics of the other powerful, yet often invisible, forces that are also at work on the plane—forces that directly impact the quality of the flight (from both inside and outside the plane).

In this issue, we encourage you to take time to identify some of the more invisible layers of teaching that frequently contribute to breakdowns in student learning, and suggest practical classroom resources to help you and your students soar!

Cherice Montgomery, Newsletter Editor
Marcia Rosenbusch, NFLRC Director

SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS THROUGH CLASSROOM CULTURE

“. . . ‘culture’ can be conceived of as a medium for growing things” (Elliot Eisner, pp. 157-158).

How can I foster a classroom culture that better supports student learning?

These include a climate of trust, opportunities to explore meaningful content that matters to students, clear, explicit processes, routines and procedures for accomplishing tasks, and assignments and activities that support a diversity of students and learning styles. How do we develop such a culture?

Like all cultures, the culture of our classrooms arises out of the frequently invisible, and often complex interactions between products (including student work and student behavior), practices (including routines, procedures, and instructional strategies), and perspectives (including the teacher's philosophies on teaching, beliefs about learning, and expectations for students; students' perceptions of school, the relevance of the content, and their relationship to it; students' beliefs about their ability to succeed; and students' expectations for the teacher).

In other words, a positive classroom climate is frequently a matter of perception. Thus, addressing breakdowns in classroom climate is very often a matter of identifying how your perceptions differ from those of your students, and then working to align them. What does your classroom look like, feel like, and sound like . . . to you? What do you think it looks like, feels like, and sounds like . . . to your students? Use this graphic organizer [1] to help your students answer those same questions! If their answers surprise you, check out the resources below and be sure not to miss this coming January's NFLRC newsletter on Establishing a Climate for Learning!

How can I create a climate of trust?

One of the intangible forces that strongly influences the culture of the classroom is the level of trust that exists among everyone who spends time there. Ice breakers are useful tools for helping students feel more comfortable working together and sharing ideas with one another. The Ice Breaker: Warming Up the Classroom Climate will give you some ideas for games that can easily be conducted in the target language to help students get to know one another. Click on this link for icebreaker that can be used in the target language for a number of communicative purposes.

How can I ensure that my content is meaningful and relevant to students?

When students feel valued and have the opportunity to work on tasks they find meaningful and relevant, the affective climate of the classroom changes dramatically. We sometimes forget, however, that cultural heritage, the culture of the community, and the culture of the family play a significant role in determining what students value. Do the materials your students use and the activities in which they participate affirm that their values are understood and respected in your classroom? This online classroom culture quiz will give you an opportunity to reflect on your own intercultural competence, and might offer your students some interesting perspectives on how the study of world languages and cultures impacts the world of international business.

How can I establish an infrastructure that will support my classroom culture?

When student learning breaks down in the classroom, it is often a result of unclear expectations, poorly defined processes, or insufficient routines and procedures for accomplishing tasks. How many of these proactive behavior management strategies do you have in place to support student learning?

How can I encourage a feeling of inclusiveness in my classroom?

Another force that affects classroom culture is inclusiveness. Do your students feel as though there is space and a meaningful place for them in your classroom? Do they feel that you see them through their strengths, or through their weaknesses? This series of classroom climate checklists will help you to determine how well the culture of your classroom supports the multiple intelligences of your students.

SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS THROUGH PURPOSEFUL CONTEXTUALIZATION

“After all, information in itself is neither interesting nor uninteresting; it is the context which gives it significance” (Mike Torbe & Peter Medway, p. 35).

How can I better contextualize the learning tasks that I assign to students?

Contextualizing language learning in real world events is one important way that we can add sense, meaning, and relevance to the things that we ask students to do. Broadcast Live is a well-designed, searchable site that gives you instant access to all kinds of culturally authentic materials that will help you to do just that! Listen to streaming broadcasts of music, news, radio, sports, and television programs in the language of your choice (including many less commonly taught languages) or take a look at online newspapers from a wide variety of cities throughout the world.

If you find yourself wondering what to do with the resources once you have them, you might enjoy visiting this site recommended by GlobalEdNews. It contains interesting audio clips from We Declare Interactive Music Projects of international music, as well as public service announcements based on the Declaration of Human Rights that could serve as examples for student projects.

SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS THROUGH STRUCTURED PROCESSES

“To find the core of a [classroom], don’t look at its rulebook or even its mission statement. Look at the way the people in it spend their time—how they relate to each other, how they tangle with ideas. Look for the contradictions between words and practice, with the fewer the better” (Theodore R. Sizer & Nancy Faust Sizer, p. 18).

How can I teach students the processes that I use to structure their work? 

One of the forces that has more of an impact on our classrooms than we sometimes realize are the processes we ask students to use in order to accomplish various tasks. Sometimes, breakdowns in student learning occur because these processes are ill-suited to the tasks we have asked students to accomplish, or because they are directly opposed to other instructions we have given students, or because we have not adequately prepared students to engage in them successfully. This article contains some concrete strategies and activities that one teacher used to make small groups work more effectively in her classroom.

SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS THROUGH CULTURALLY-BASED CONTENT AND MATERIALS

". . . the selection of a material or activity is also the selection of an array of forces that will influence how students will be challenged to think . . . . The curriculum is a mind-altering device" (Elliot Eisner, pp. 13, 72).

How can I use culturally-based content to expand students' thinking? 

When we plan curriculum and select materials, we do not necessarily think of them as powerful forces that change the way students interact with us, with one another, and with the language. However, when selected with that idea in mind, they can provide tremendous support to student learning. Consider the kind of interest and the level of thinking that the following sites could produce! United Nations Cyberschoolbus is an incredible resource that allows students to make different kinds of visual and numeric comparisons regarding the economic, environmental, health, population, and technological characteristics of the regions or individual countries they select.

The MLA Language Map is a tool students can use to investigate the number of people of the age they choose to specify who come from particular countries, who speak specific languages, or who live in certain places within the United States (down to a precise zip code)!

If you would like to help students look at things from a new perspective, take a look at these innovative views of the world, including the What's up? South! World Map and the Population Cartogram.

What cultural materials can I use to support students' learning? 

The "About" section of the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon site provides helpful guidelines for using culturally authentic materials and contains a wonderful collection of culturally authentic, license-free photos from Germany that are organized by topics typically found in a first-year German textbook.

If you are looking for activities, comptines, fables, games, and stories to assist you in teaching topics usually found in beginning French classes, then Coin des Petits is a site you will want to spend some time exploring!

Hoy Siglo XX is a web site in Spanish that contains an alphabetized listing of links to photos and information in Spanish about people who have impacted the 20^th Century in a significant way.

SUPPORTING OUR STUDENTS THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

“Students cannot learn from teachers or technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking” (David H. Jonassen, Kyle L. Peck, & Brent G. Wilson, p. 2).

How can I use technology to support student learning? 

Jump drives (also known as flash drives) are a convenient way to store, transport, and share data quickly and easily. About the size of a stick of gum, they can be carried on a key chain or a lanyard. If you are not familiar with them, you are missing out on a useful solution to many technological problems that slow up student learning. Check out this short article on flash drives for more information!these efforts forward.

QUOTES TO PONDER

"To understand is to grasp meaning . . . To grasp the meaning of a thing, event, or situation is to see it in its relations to other things . . . " – John Dewey in Collison, R. (1980).

"Discendo docebis, docendo disces. (By learning, you will teach; by teaching you will learn.)" – Latin Proverb in Collison, R. (1980).

"Die Gelehrsamkeit kann auch ins Laub treiben, ohne Früchte zu tragen. (Learning can also put forth leaves without bearing fruit.)" – George Christoph Lichtenberg in Collison, R. (1980).

MEMORIES OF IOWA

Have you ever noticed how calm students (of all ages) become when they color with crayons? This month, we give you an opportunity to relieve some stress by remembering your last visit to the NFLRC with this fun coloring page that personifies Iowa. Don't forget to explore the other resources that the Kids Color Pages have to offer! If you decide you would like to color your way around the world, visit this collection of similar coloring pages for countries around the world. These could serve as the basis for numerous oral and written communicative projects and activities!

REFERENCES

Collison, Robert, & Collison, Mary. (1980). Dictionary of foreign quotations. New York: Everest House Publishers.
ISBN 089696-158-3.

Eisner, Elliot W. (2002).The arts and the creation of the mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN 0-300-09523-6.

Jonassen, David H., Kyle L. Peck, & Brent G. Wilson. (1999). Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. ISBN 0-13-271891-X.

Sizer, Theodore R., & Nancy Faust Sizer. (1999). The students are watching: Schools and the moral contract. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-3121-6.

Torbe, Mike, & Peter Medway. (1981). The climate for learning. Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.
ISBN 0-86709-041-3.

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This Newsletter was prepared with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education under Title VI grant #P229A020023. The publication of products and website URLs in this newsletter is provided for informational purposes only and does not imply an endorsement by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center, Iowa State University, or the positions or policies of the U. S. Department of Education.