Diana Marcela Pedraza, Elementary Teacher, Collinswood Language Academy
(Unit PDF)
Abstract
Content-based instruction and immersion programs offer numerous advantages for second language learners. Since the target language is used as a means of communication during the instruction of other subject matters, students are exposed to real language with valuable meaning. Besides strengthening listening and reading comprehension skills in the second language, immersion students develop high levels of fluency in their oral production, increase their vocabulary and are usually highly motivated in these settings. In spite of the many advantages offered by these programs, content-based language students often demonstrate a lack of accuracy in the grammatical structure of their discourse. This phenomenon is due, most of the times, to the fact that they do not recognize errors in their interlanguage.
There rises a need to implement activities where immersion students can be provided with formal grammar instruction within the content-based programs. This curriculum unit intends to address some specific grammatical topics of Spanish in a dual language immersion school in Charlotte, NC. In order to create a more relaxing way of teaching grammar, to a group of fourth graders, two songs will be used as the basis of the activities in the unit. The activities will focus on vocabulary, pronunciation and two main grammar features: the present indicative for the first and second singular person (I and you), and noun-adjective agreement in gender and number.
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