At Sonrisas Spanish Schoolwe talk a lot about creating rich, fun, and engaging contexts for children learning language. It is one of the reasons we are advocates for using authentic children’s Spanish literature which so naturally does the job of giving students a rich and engaging language-learning experience. It is also why we have always […]
The Importance of Early Language Education This is an excellent article by Kathleen M. Marcos from The ERIC Review, 6(1), 2-5. It reaffirms the importance of the work we are doing teaching preschool and elementary Spanish to young children. Second Language Learning: Everyone Can Benefit Kathleen M. Marcos* The 1990s have been a decade of […]
What is shared reading? At Sonrisas Spanish School, when we read stories during our preschool and elementary Spanish classes, we use a form of storytelling that is commonly called “shared reading” in the educational world. In her book Invitations, Regie Routman defines shared reading as “any rewarding reading situation in which a learner—or group of […]
For the greater part of the twentieth century, most psychologists and educators believed that a student’s intelligence could be measured in a standard test known as the Intelligence Quotient, or IQ test. This test consists of taking individuals out of their natural learning environment, asking them to do isolated tasks that they have never done […]
A third methodology that has informed the Sonrisas curriculum has perhaps made the strongest impact on us as teachers and on our students who are acquiring language. Unlike TPR or NA, the Waldorf foreign language approach is not an ESL technique. It is a carefully designed approach to foreign language instruction and acquisition. Rudolf Steiner […]
The Natural Approach (NA), the second ESL methodology we adopted and modified for our Sonrisas Spanish School curricula, was developed by a pair of applied linguists, Dr. Stephen Krashen and Spanish teacher Tracy Terrell. NA is based on the premise that the study of foreign language can be taught and learned in two distinct ways: […]
Illustrating the Importance and Benefits of Learning a Second Language at an Early Age. The following is an excerpt from the introduction to the Sonrisas Spanish School curriculum. It illustrates the importance and benefits of learning a second language at an early age. Development of the Cortex In November of 1965, the respected Canadian neurologist […]
Try this game to reinforce the phrase “yo tengo.” Write this phrase on the board: Estoy viajando a México y en mi maleta yo tengo… Go around the class and have each student add an item to the suitcase. The last student will have to remember each item in the correct order. If you are […]
Now that it’s summer and I am on vacation from teaching Spanish, I have some time to reflect on my students and their language learning. I taught a group of 1st and 2nd graders last year for nine months, and I feel pretty strongly that they received their most effective learning through the songs and […]
