foreign language

Foreign Language Activities

Image by crackedmoon via Flickr

Are you a foreign language teacher wanting to add some new creative learning experiences to your lesson plans? When you are teaching a foreign language, it is important to consider the various learning styles of your learners.  The three learning styles include visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  So, the teaching supplies that you should focus on purchasing for your foreign language students should provide a variety of experiences to help meet the needs of your learners.  Here are some suggestions:

Visual – The visual learner needs books, charts, and flash cards to help physically see the concepts being taught.  Students learning another language can use these learning tools as a class, individually, or as a small group.  You can also use props, labels, and pocket charts during instruction time to emphasize concepts that are being taught.  For example, a visual learner may write detailed notes as you are teaching.  The visual learner will benefit from the photographs and illustrations that you provide.

Auditory – The auditory learner needs to be able to hear everything clearly.  When learning a foreign language, audio tapes and partner conversations are great ways to meet the auditory learner’s needs.  While all of your students will be having conversations as part of your routine, the auditory learner may be especially focused in this area.

Kinesthetic – The kinesthetic learner needs to be an active participant in the foreign language activities.  Physical games and acting out vocabulary words and stories are some of the ways kinesthetic learners can learn a foreign language.  Props are a wonderful way to help teach concepts.

There are many great teaching supplies designed to help you have fun and teach all kinds of learners.  As you are planning your lessons this week, think about all of the different learning styles in your classroom and plan several lessons that will help everyone.

Don’t forget to check out www.k12schoolsupplies.net!

EDSITEment – Free K-12 Lesson Plans

An excellent site for free lesson plans for Arts & Culture, Language Arts, Literature, Foreign Language, History, and Social Studies is EDSitement by The National Endowment for the Humanities.    The lesson plans follow standard formats.

• Introduction
• Learning Objectives
• Guiding Questions
• Preparing to Teach this Lesson
• Unit Lesson Plans / Curriculum Units
• Lesson Activities
• Suggested Activities
• Time Required
• Subject Areas
• Key Skills

There are over 10,000 lesson plans that also link to state   These lesson plans can be uses as is, or modified to fit you students needs.  The lesson plan calendar feature organizes lesson plans by key dates in topic areas so your lesson plans are can emphasize the historical date.

Looking for multimedia for your lesson plans  Using the search tab, you can search on audio, interactive, videos, and worksheets. The site is searchable by grade level, subject, and has a quick search capability and source.

EDSITEment – K-12 Lesson Plans