I was pleasantly surprised today when my youngest student, 12 months old, said her first word, uno!

Many articles published discuss the effects of Early Foreign Language Learning on the child’s native language development and other skills, such as early reading, better test taking skills, math and reasoning skills highly improved and the list goes on and on.

If your goal is to improve or boost one of those areas or just bring  a joyful experience to your child, early foreign language learning is definitely an educational and fun experience I would recommend!

If you wish to read some of the articles on studies published about Early Foreign Language learning and their effects on children’s development, please log on www.easylearnlanguages.com/resources

Saludos!

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations LLC

 

My own son is the topic of this post. I took him to take the kindergarten test last week and I must admit I was more nervous than he was. He has that cute way of saying I’m here, pay attention to me! When the teacher who was testing him asked: Could you please tell me the ABCs? He answered: Would you like to hear it in English, Portuguese or Spanish? She was speechless in a good way! He did the three versions of letters and numbers and passed the test with flying colors! When I heard the report from the teacher,  that he not only did that but that his language skills are way above normal for his age, I suddenly realized something I have been talking about for years! My “AHA” moment came and I was moved to see my son’s skills blossom and amazed by the impact of foreign languages in his life.

I’m extremely proud and happy to give you this report because I have been a strong advocate for early age foreign language teaching and I had only studies and some students to bring the knowledge of the effects of introducing a foreign language at early age. Now I have a much stronger sense of what can be accomplished and I wish to share my experience and expertise to moms all over the world and encourage them to start!

Contact me, if you wish to have some free materials and links to start or give me your e-mail address if you wish to be on our news list. We will be giving away copies of my highly expected Mommy and Me Little Red Riding Hood- ¡Come and have fun using Spanish!

Regards,

Claudia Krusch
CK Translations LLC

I came across this article which tells us about a Foreign Language Event which attracted many students! It would be great to see more world language departments in public schools doing similar events.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/joplin_metro/local_story_120220712.html?keyword=secondarystory

Have you had a similar event in your school? Please let us know.

Saludos!

Claudia Krusch- CK Translations LLC

Director

 

I iPod – Are you already conjugating it?

 

 

Use of Technology in the Classroom

 

Why?

 

Children and Teens live the age of technology, studies show that average child spent hours in front of the tv and computer, exceeds any other regular activity, so the why is answered by using a powerful innovative tool, which will build a bridge between you and your student.

 

How?

 

There are many components involved in using technology in the classroom:

 

1)       Equipment

 

a)       Computer, Laptop

b)      Ipod, MP3 Player

c)       Ispeakers: Idog, Icat, Ipenguin, Transformers, Barbie and Bratz.

d)      Projector

e)       DVD Player

f)        TV

I use my laptop as a vehicle between the internet and my student. I connect to the site and using a cable; I have the website on the screen of my 30 inch plasma TV, so that the whole class can see the website and interact together. You can buy the cable at Best Buy and have the image transfer by adding a second monitor to your screen properties. 

 

I bought a nano ipod and a regular mp3 player, which only takes songs, 2gig I downloaded songs I use in my classes, every class has at least one song related to the theme, but any mp3 player can be used, which is connected to my speakers, idog, transformers, icat, the speakers move, dance and light up when you play the music. I can’t describe how excited the children are, when they see the speakers, it becomes one of the focal points of my class, so besides learning Spanish, they really connect to the song, by enjoying the speakers. I use them in every class with children ages 18m-6 years old.

 

Music used: Original Recording CDs, Boca Beth, Nursery Rhymes in Spanish, Spanish Songs for niños, Spanish Lullabies, Mexican Fiesta and others.  

 

I don’t use the projector but other colleagues use it successfully.

 

The DVD player is used when showing videos and movies. I add that as an extra activity, always connecting the theme to the class. For example, I use Charlotte’s Web 2, the cartoon movie, to teach them about feelings, happy, sad, etc….I have the movie in Spanish. I also use shark tale, nemo, and other movies, which come with the Spanish version of it. The children have seen the movie, which makes it easier to have them enjoy the experience.

 

I have found YouTube videos of Hanna Montana, Corey in the house, Sweet life of Zack and Cody and other series that kids 6-10 love, in Spanish, and we look at the series on the TV I have in my classroom. I used The Sweet Life of Zach and Cody, a 8 min scene, which talks about persuasion. I also added to that class a Wikipedia text which has the character’s description in Spanish, very easy to read, they had to read it and describe themselves and role play as characters, using the vocabulary learned. I added a glossary to it.

 

 

2)       Websites

The websites are used as tools to enrich the classroom experience.

I listed the websites that I most frequently use, but I will be happy to send you others upon request.

http://www.batanga.com/ - for music videos

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/ - for dialogues, many themes

http://www.jvlnet.com/~liliana/1_to_10.html - for numbers, many drills, games

http://www.spanish-teaching.com/ - good blog about teaching, many tips

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/siteindex.php - great site for dialogues, ages 7 and up. I use this site after a theme is worked in class, they have a homework assignment and they watch the videos before doing the assignment. More than 200 dialogues, monologues with vocabulary and grammar points.

http://www.uni.edu/becker/Spanish3.html#verbs- more than 100 websites with information for Spanish Teachers, drills, games, songs and more

http://www.poquoson.org/pes/resource/spanish/5th/studyactivities.html- Spanish Activity for 5th graders

http://members.tripod.com/spanishflashcards/- Free Flashcards. I use three flashcard sites, they love playing with them.

http://www.studyspanish.com/ - for children 10 and older, good verb quizzes, I divide the class in groups and each group answer a quiz, they love the competition!

http://www.lingolex.com/spanish.htm - many games and activities

www.youtube.com – where there are videos of Hanna Montana, Sweet Life of Zach and Cody and Corey in the House in Spanish

www.enchantedlearning.com – printing pages and activities

 

They have online exercises, bingos, worksheets, coloring pages to be printed, coloring books, dictionary, theme of the month in Spanish, verbs and dialogues recorded for pronunciation…..

I also bought some comic books in Spanish which I use with ages 6-10. The comic books have some parts in English and some in Spanish, which makes it easier for novice students to understand.

 

 3) Use

The use of websites, iPod and other resources need to be carefully planned and tested, in order to ensure that they are part of your class, not disconnected to your weekly/monthly theme or curriculum.

Google has a specific search for pages in Spanish, which usually come from countries where Spanish is the native language, that is also a helpful tool to find teaching materials, articles, magazines, songs and many other materials.

 

After having many adult students come to my office and tell me they spent 4 years in High School, taking Spanish and they didn’t have any recollection of anything seen in classroom, I decided to use the technology as a powerful weapon against boredom, bringing young minds closer to the foreign language.

 

Claudia Krusch

Director of CK Translations in South Jersey and Creator of EasyLearn Programs for Children

Teacher and Translator since 98, holds a BA in Portuguese and ESL Teaching with emphasis in Translation – UNIFACS – Brazil and 4 year Spanish Teaching Training Course – Cabaleros de Santiago – Brazil

Websites: www.cktranslations.com

www.easylearnlanguages.com

 

 

Dear Members,

 I use the Internet as a powerful tool to help make our classes interactive and bring the Brazilian Culture closer to the student.

I use many different links, but those are some of my favorites:

www.youtube.com

For songs, news and soup opera’s episodes

www.terra.com.br

For magazines, news, movies, culture, travel, shopping and more. Great site for teaching teenagers and adults.

www.yahoo.com.br and www.cade.com.br

For more advanced students who can search on Brazilian search engines, a lot more efficient than searching on international search engines.

I also subscribed to dish network which has a Brazilian Channel Globo and my box allows me to record any show and use it in the classroom. $ 29.00 a month + cost of the satellite.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Tchau!

Claudia Krusch

Dear Colleagues,

To speak or not to speak? Or better yet, how and what to speak? A question that is always prevalent in my class-plans, my program creation and my dreams of spreading the foreign language seed around the world, is what is the most effective way to approach children especially in a very early age? Full immersion or what I call fusion when teaching a foreign language. Why fusion? My Fusion method uses some of the sign language techniques combined with commonly known gestures to provoke an immediate response which is immediately followed by the language being taught. When both fail, since my primary goal is to communicate, I use the child’s native language, whatever that may be.

I  know some of my good colleagues will passionately defend the full immersion, leaving no room for negotiation and that is why I have decided to post this article here, to invite them to passionately discuss the topic, while giving other professionals their own view of it and sharing their experience.

I personally, don’t believe in full immersion as an efficient method, at least not taking in consideration my approach, which is to build the bridge, bring the foreign language to a familiar territory, causing the child involved in the process, to have a positive effect beginning with the first class.

I am working on another post, explaining in detail my Fusion method. If you are interested in learning more about it, please join www.mybloglog.com and add me as a contact or join my blog’s community - you’ll receive a notice of my postings here on your bloglog homepage.  (See the brown box in the right column further down this page.) Alternatively you can sign up for the rss feed on my blog (look for the orange-brown squarish thing on your web browser’s toolbar.) I will also share my favorite web links for teaching foreign languages using the Internet. Some of you who had attended my brief presentation at the FLENJ conference had e-mailed me, but due to the lack of time, I have been unable to send you those links. So this is another upcoming post.

Please use this blog as a forum for posting and exchanging new ideas, as it was created for this purpose.

Abraços, (Portuguese word to end a letter to a friend, literally means hugs, but is used in other contexts)

Claudia Krusch
Director-CK Translations LLC

As I began the preparation involved in starting classes in Vineland, one of the largest Hispanic Communities in South Jersey, the information I recently received concerning that population made me think about using a different approach when offering and teaching our “Spanish foreign language classes for children” courses.

The NAHREP (National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals) Conference in Atlantic City this year revealed new data regarding the Hispanic Population which amazed me! The numbers showed that the third generation of Hispanic descendants don’t speak Spanish. I find this devastating because it signals a loss of the pride every Hispanic should carry in speaking their language and keeping their heritage alive. This unique diversity is quite often demonstrated through parties, food and stories handed down from one generation to the next which helps to keep this amazing culture alive!

Being Hispanic and a mother myself, I recognize as well as face the challenges of being a working mother and sharing my culture and language with my own son.

My new classes were born from my desire to share in this challenge with other moms who, Hispanic or not, have the same goal and are aware of how important it is to introduce a foreign language to children at an early age! I’ve made sure the culture, songs and stories so treasured in each language are shown and taught in our classrooms.

I am looking forward to the classes starting on May 22nd in the “Cafe of Life” in Vineland and I hope to see many parents at our open house on May 13th 6:30pm.

If you’d like to share in this vision, or would like more information on early language, foreign language, teaching articles and classes being offered in Vineland, please visit:

http://www.easylearnlanguages.com/

Saludos!

Claudia Krusch
Director - CK Translations LLC