Language exchange party for kids

There are a lot of schools which participate with institutions and schools from other countries having the same main objective: the linguistic and cultural enrichment of new generations of speakers.

Students from different countries meet and start exchanging language(s) while they're making new friends, developing their linguistic skills, exchanging knowledge, and of course, they enjoy spending a good time together whilst they enjoy doing activities and speaking with other students.

This kind of activity is based on an interactionist method, students learn and acquire language through oral practise and they can do several and different activities using communication and interaction between equals.

For instance, the following series is an example of activities that could be used:

1st activity - Presentation of every member: Students can start saying their names, what they study, what they do in their spare time, etc. They can do it using their mother language or in English. If they use their mother language, then they will translate what they said in English, so every member understands what he/she said.

2nd activity - Questions and answers time: students should talk about several aspects of whatever they like (familiar context preferred). Also something about their own culture should be added, for example questions/answers/telling some facts about typical dishes, traditions, mores, etc.

3rd activity - Turn, turn, turn game: this game is based on using a dice and assigning a certain number to every student. If they're more than six people, then there can be more than one group. When they start playing, a student will throw the dice, and it depends on the number, he/she will have his/her turn to ask the member of the group that matches with the number the dice shows, how that person would say a certain word in his/her language. For example, the student asks another member the following question: how would you say "dog" in your language? And when the other person answers, he/she will throw the dice so it depends on the number that the dice shows to match with the member of the group that has the same number to repeat the process.

Duolingo, application for learning

One year ago one of my classmate show me a application called Duolingo. He told me that he practise his language skills with the app every day. I dowloaded Duolingo to my phone and since then I have used it for learning spanish, swedish and even little bit france.

Nowdays we have lots of electronical tools for learning and teaching languages. We have websites, applications, learning channels and even online groups for just helping learners with their studings. Duolingo is nowdays one of the most popular application for language learning. But are these applications really useful to kids?

What is Duolingo?

Duolingo demonstration

Duolingo in classroom

Duolingo is free platform that inclues app and website. In 2014 Duolingo was the first learning application to receive an honorable mention from Apple as the application of the year. Now Duolingo has over 100 000 000 users and 68 different language courses across 23 languages.

What Duolingo offers to users?

Every user have their own profile. Students earn poindevelopment.

ts and coins while making listening, writing and speaking exercises. From stores students can bought items to use or new versions of exercises for practising. Students can make their own goals to website and earn coins when they reach them. Before every lesson there will be instruction about important new informations what students need. Learners can also discuss sentences they do not understand with each others and see which words they remember well and which words they remember well. Users who study same languages can make their own "practise-group" where to study. Teachers can also make their own classroom to see their students

There is a link to the classroom I made:

https://www.duolingo.com/o/mccxqz

Many students and teachers have found Duolingo useful way to learn. Goals give motivation to students and app let learners to choose many languages. Students can start to learn for exampel hedrew, japanese or franch in their free time from basic level. Groups can support each others and they can compete and talk with each others.

Why Duolingo is good way to learn?

- Give possibily to indepent learning

- Give possibility to share learning

- Show language learning funny way, give goals and motivation

- Give children possibilities to learn also other languages

But we can also found some week spots in this way of learning. With Duolingo there is translation and learning is based on mistakes and correction with planned sentences. In the app, there is not real communication. Learners are not always able to use language anymore when context change. Even if children learn translate and understand language better, they have might have difficulties to express themself. Learning in Duolingo is also happening with different courses, step by step. You need to learn earlier topics before you can learn new ones. Even if learner would found one topic interesting, he needs to wait until he reach this point. This might affect to motivation. Duolingo is still only one way to learn, and all the task are pretty similar to each others. Person who for example found communication or storytelling interesting might not get into the Duolingo.

What is still missing in Duolingo?

- Real communication

- Context with using languages out of internet

- Different ways of learning

- Freedom to choose topics from own interest

Duolingo and other learning applications are improving themselfs for being better to learners. The development from the first versions are already huge. But as we can see, applications does not give enough to language learning only by themself right now. These kind of applications give a lot a good materials to classroom and it might be great idea to try them, but they also need teachers own work and creativity besides them. Duolingo for example is planning to add possibility to talk with people and have "languagechanging". That would be some communication added to learning.

A game for speaking skills

               As it is indicated many times, games are vital for children. It is the best way for them to acquire a language. That’s the reason why a teacher should learn games as much as he/she can, so let’s look at a game that I played once and really liked it. Its name is “Call My Bluff” before explain how to play this game, I would like to talk about its benefits: Firstly it is a very good way to improve your students' speaking skills, because they have to ask and answer question during the play. Secondly, it is a perfect icebreaker, because the students should work together and know something about their selves as the game needs some secret information. Lastly, this game is appropriate for every age and do not require any materials and any preparation, so it can be played anytime.

                As for playing, I will explain it through the way we played in the classroom: Our teacher told us 3 things about herself which are that 1) she can speak three languages, 2) she has a big dog, 3) she has been to Canada once. After that, she said one thing that she said was a lie. Can you guess which one? She also allowed us to ask some questions that I do not remember. The lie was the first one. She cannot speak three languages. Thanks to that example, we understood how to play that game.

We worked in pair. I told something that everyone does not know about me and my friend did the same.  1) we both have two kidneys, 2) we watched the movie “Lobster” in the cinema yesterday, 3) we both can speak 3 languages.

After asking some question, they failed to find the wrong one. However, one of my close friend who already knew I have one kidney, find the wrong one.

I was at the first grade in university. It means that game can be played with everyone.

How to practise the new structure

 When we give  a grammar explanation, we teach our students the form of the language, we should also teach them the meaning of the new structure and when to use it. More, we should give create a meaningful practising process for them. To practise a new structure there are some kind of drills like repetition, substitution etc.. but I will give an example of a meaningful drill.

  EXAMPLE:
                           Spanish Omelette; Give  instructions for a recipe and ask for instructions for another recipe.

Ingredients; 4 eggs, 4 potatoes ( diced), 1 onion, 3 spoonfuls of oil, salt and pepper.

1) heat the oil in a large frying pan, add onion and fry it gently until soft.

2) put the potatoes into the pan, season with salt and pepper and cook thoroughly.

3) beat the eggs and pour them into the pan.

4) place it under a grill to brown and then turn out onto a flat dish.
                           
You can also use a video of the recipe while directing.