Teaching a Second Language if You Don't Already Have One Yourself

I have not blogged our work in Spanish lately, and this week's Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival topic is a great time to do so!

Before I share what I believe was Mason's thinking near the end of her life, I would like to share what you should try first: get a head start in learning a second language before beginning lessons with your children. Knowing a year's worth of language develops confidence, prevents mistakes, and helps you become a better guide. Spend six months developing your ear for that language. What helped me was (1) listening to children's audio books in Spanish that I have featured in earlier posts, (2) the Learnables Level 1, (3) Spanish nursery songs and rhymes, and (4) stories written and recorded by my husband who is bilingual (you could hire a tutor to do this for you).

After six months, find more complicated audio books and songs and try the dull, but useful Basic Structures Level 1. Another very frustrating, but helpful, approach you can try AFTER you have worked on your ear for six months is duolingo. This free, online-course will show you why the ear-first approach is superior for you will quickly see how taxing a non-developmental system can be: learning to hear, speak, read, and type in Spanish is exhausting, and I do not recommend it for your students! I repeat duolingo could easily kill any spark of interest in learning a second language! While I do not care for the software's style of teaching, the price is right (free) and you can grind away at grammar, albeit unpleasantly.

People new to Mason tend to latch onto Gouin's work because she raved about his method in her first volume. While I am thankful Cherrydale Press has published audio and written files that apply his approach in our modern world, I do not believe their offering stands alone. Why? First, Mason did not mention Gouin in her last volume (pages 211-212):

Children in Form IIB have easy French Lessons with pictures which they describe, but in IIA while still engaged on the Primary French Course children begin to use the method which is as full of promise in the teaching of languages as in English, that is, they are expected to narrate the sentence or paragraph which has been read to them. Young children find little difficulty in using French vocables, but at this stage the teacher should with the children's help translate the little passage which is to be narrated, them re-read it in French and require the children to narrate it. This they do after a time surprisingly well, and the act of narrating gives them some command of French phrases as far as they go, much more so than if they learnt the little passage off by heart. They learn French songs in both divisions and act French Fables (by Violet Partington) in Form IIA. This method of closely attentive reading of the text followed by narration is continued in each of the Forms.

Mason does not even mention what she is doing for the early forms! Moreover, the Primary French Course by Otto Siepmann and French Fables in Action by Violet Partington are not based on Gouin's work. All is not lost! While the six volumes present Mason's theories, Parents' Review articles and programmes reveal what she did in practice. To find out what she did in Forms IB and IA (first through third grades), check out the programme for that form in 1922. To glean insight on what might have informed her change in direction, read Violet Partington's article on teaching French.

Did Mason recommend Gouin for the earliest grade (Form IB)? She used Hachette's Illustrated French Primer, which does not contain any series. Mason recommended to teach words orally based upon pictures from the book. In Form IA, students were ready to see words in print. Teachers read aloud and students narrated passages from Le Livre Rouge by Effie Magee and French Fables in Action.

So, what about Gouin? I believe that Mason gleaned two important ideas from him: (1) build the ear first and then apply Mason's developmental method for language arts to learning a second language and (2) find a context where the words live to foster meaning: songs, rhymes, stories, plays, games, and even series.

I have turned to Partington's article for ideas in teaching Spanish at Harvest Community School. Every morning, I spend ten to fifteen minutes on an interactive, conversational lesson with teachers and students. I have not found the need to spark interest because after the first few lessons everyone warmed up to Spanish. They enjoy learning new words. One of their favorite lessons was when Señor Glaser came to school, and they got to ask him to say whatever word they suggested in Spanish! I decided not to drill phonetics because Spanish is not as difficult as French or German. Two children can roll their r's, and I will encourage them to show their friends how!

Partington wrote,

What better way could there be of teaching a child a living language than by letting it live that language for the time being? Therefore, find out what are the children's favorite games and favorite amusements, and as far as possible, turn these into French, and above all let the children themselves help you do it.

The students have learned how to play "Duck, Duck, Goose" ("Pato, pato, ganso") and "Red Light, Green Light" (Luz roja, luz verde") at recess. I plan to teach them all the words in Word Bingo in Spanish to build vocabulary for common objects.

Partington wrote,

Memorizing of little pieces of poetry, nursery rhymes, riddles, etc., all these are helpful, too, in swelling the stock of everyday phrases and expressions which will come in so useful in the little "play building" lessons. And if the teacher is at all musical, what a delightful resource there is in the teaching of French songs and singing games.

Everyone loves "El chocolate" by José-Luis Orozco, and they are now learning his "Diez deditos." Both songs foster counting to ten. I plan to continue teaching songs and rhymes from his albums "Diez deditos" and "De colores" this year.

Partington wrote,

At Queens' College School, Harley Street, London, we started last year a French games and conversation class, which is held twice a week, and which is conducted entirely on the lines suggested above. The results have been most gratifying and encouraging.

Right now, our class has a conversational tone. We are working on greetings, simple conversations, counting, colors, etc. I am building their vocabulary with an eye toward being able to understand "Oso pardo, oso pardo, qué ves ahí?" by Bill Martin, Jr., available as a board book and audio CD. We might even learn lines to act out the story, "La gallinita roja" ("The Little Red Hen").

At the end of the article, Partington discusses spelling. If a teacher or child wants to know how to spell a word, I will show them. So far, none have asked. Once they can follow and understand the audio version of the two stories above, I will make the texts available for anyone to read.

I think the first thirteen lessons have gone well, but the real assessment of what they are learning will come during the term finale when we will find out what individual children can understand and say.

"¡Tan! ¡Tan!" "¿Quién es?" "¡Soy yo!"

Lo siento. I am way overdue for an update on our journey in español. Even though my husband is fluent, this language was beyond Pamela and me érase una vez. Everyone seemed to speak it too quickly for our thick orejas. Delving into Charlotte Mason's ideas about teaching Spanish encouraged me to try. I learned from the mistake of letting Pamela see words in memorizing our first nursery song. She still pronounces pollitos (chicks) in that song−with an l sound rather than y. Sigh. Because we quickly changed course and focused on learning by ear only, she pronounces words like silla (chair), calle (street), and cuchillo (knife) correctly, even when she reads as you can see in the following video.



Notice that Pamela is READING in the video. How many reading lessons did we have before she could read Spanish? Zip, cero, nada. I applied the same method that my husband used to learn to speak, read, and write in English without formal education. First, Pamela and I spent several years hearing Spanish, which I intend to recap today. I can now testify that getting a second language in the ear prevents difficulties down the road.

Spanish and English have a similar alphabet, except for a couple of letters (accented letters like é, double l ll, and ñ, so I did not see a strong need to teach phonics. Because Pamela has already stored the sounds of all the words on the reading lesson, her mind searches her audio memory for a word that is a good enough fit for what she sees on the page. As shown in the video, she easily reads obvious words: el, la, está, and casa. Words like silla, sobre, and señora are so familiar to her that they come to her readily. Even though plato looks like plate, she has heard this word so often that saying plato with a long a would sound ridiculous. If she lacked long-term audio memory of calle, she might be tempted to start off like the English word call. Again, her mental ears would tell her eyes that no such word existed in her memory of Spanish. The long pause over the word cuchillo (knife) probably has more to do with its similarity to cuchara (spoon) than sounding out the word with English phonetics.

At first, Gouin's method of teaching a second language captured my attention as it did Mason. With the help of Steve, I created series for Pamela and me to learn. Since we were also learning Spanish rhymes such as Cinco pollitos and nursery songs, I tried out audio books of familiar fairy tales. We scrupulously avoided seeing words and concentrated on la oreja solo. When I assessed Pamela's progress in Spanish at the beginning and end of 2011, I began to realize that hearing words in context was the real beauty of Gouin's ideas. I believe that Mason came to a similar conclusion because her programmes offered a wider variety of contexts for French than the Gouin series. [Mason geeks may want to read Parents' Review articles on second languages for even more startling stuff if you think Gouin is the be-all, end-all.]

Because of Pamela's aphasia in English and my block-headedness in Spanish, I decided we needed to combine a more structured approach with the literary approach. I ordered the Spanish version of the Learnables Level 1 last year. Although they offer it for the computer, I ordered the book and four CDs. I preferred an activity we did together. We spent a whole year going through all five pages of all ten lessons. Words and sentences are spoken by a native speaker, and, as we followed along the pictures in the book, we enlarged our vocabulary of nouns (household objects, food, clothing, and family), simple prepositions, pronouns, and present tense verbs. Apparently, the computer version offers games and still photos. Although the material seems dull and repetitive, we only spent five minutes a day on it. In spite of her aphasia, she had no problems with the five quizzes spread throughout the book, and I overcame my dim-wittedness.

We continued the literary way of hearing and memorizing nursery rhymes and songs on albums by José-Luis Orozco: De Colores and Diez Deditos. We also listened to audio books of familiar literature (namely, Buenas noches, luna and four Bill Martin bear books recorded in English and Spanish on CD: Oso pardo, Oso polar, Oso panda, and Oso bebe).

Since our terms are eleven weeks, I divide a book (or series of books) into eleven parts. We cover the first eleventh during week one, add the next eleventh to week one for week two, and, so on, until the last week, in which we hear the entire book in one sitting. To ensure Pamela did not see words in the books we were hearing, I scanned and printed out pictures and put them in a folder. If a section contained a lot of new words, I printed pictures of them to review individually before hearing.

Then, I made an audio file using some free software called Audacity—did I say it is free? Since native speakers of Spanish often blend the final vowel sound of a word with the beginning vowel sound of the next word, I often turned to free online resources for audio such as SPAN¡SHD!CT. It gets a little tricky because sometimes I have to record a video clip in Audacity because I haven't quite figured out how to strip audio from a video on my Mac. The end result is that Pamela and I listened to audio of individual words and pointed to pictures as we heard them. After that, we listened to the audio book, pausing at the end of the next eleventh of the book.

I know. It's complicated but worth the effort. Pamela and I have learned a lot of Spanish that way.

The following video shows Pamela's "term finale" of narrating pictures de el libro, Buenos noches, luna, en español. She has no words on the pages in her folder—only pictures. Every word she speaks is from her audio memory. My two favorite parts is when she makes up the word for lamp in Spanish. She is clearly searching for the right word (notice the eye movement), and she knows lampara sounds like lamp. So, she says, "Lampia"—a very clever thing to do. She also turns the phrase—un ratón que corretea—into a unique sentence that she learned from our work on series—Un ratón corre.



What are our weaknesses? What are we doing this year? See my next post!

Making Memories in the Midwest

Pamela and I popped into Kansas and spent a lovely week with our menfolk. Steve and I were discussing how differently Pamela turned out from the dire stories in the few books about autism that existed back in 1991. Even though she is not completely independent and self-sufficient, the joy she gives us makes our hard work worth while.

This post is a hodge-podge of memories stored in my heart from this trip. One afternoon, while I was doing a Wii Fit routine, Pamela popped onto Steve's laptop and recorded this recitation of Cinco Pollitos. In case you don't understand Spanish, Pamela said, "Cinco pollitos tiene mi tia. Uno le canta, otro le pia, y tres le tocan la symphonia." It means, "My aunt has five chicks: one sings, the other peeps, and three play a symphony."

Life with Pamela also takes you to places you never expected to go. On the way to Kansas, she begged me to eat dinner at the "Dinosaur Cafe". After careful investigation, I figured out that she loves watching the PBS television show Dinosaur Train when we stay with Steve, who has an HD digital antennae at our place. Somehow, she became aware of a restaurant in Kansas City, KS called T-Rex Cafe (there are only *two* in the whole world). Steve, David, and I were a bit leery about eating dinner at a "kiddie" place, but the food was surprisingly good. Or, maybe the hour-long wait for a table sharpened our appetites. The enormous portions offered another meal the next day. You can see Pamela's extreme joy in the few dark, blurry pictures I managed to take.

Watching Pamela interact with people she has not seen in a long time helps us see how far she has come. Because David has spent the summer working in Kansas, Pamela has not spent much time with him. Sitting in the back seat of the car on the way to dinner was the first opportunity to bond. Pamela said a single word to him and waited for him to reply. She did this so often that it became clear she was initiating conversation with him. After each prompt, David commented on the word, leading to a brief exchange. Then, she came up with another single word, which began another round.

This morning, she showed David how much she cares about him. She walked to the door of his bedroom, where David stood with his cup of java. She looked him in the eye and said, "I'll miss you." He smiled and said, "Let me put down my coffee." Then, he gave her a bear hug and Pamela leaned into her big brother. Friends and family know how much this simple act means. One wrote on Facebook, "That is such a huge statement." My sister commented, "That is amazing, and you know she understands and feels what she is saying."

During our stay, we headed over to Iowa to see my youngest sister and her family. Her only child is about fifteen months old. Pamela longed to engage with him but did not know exactly how. While I was holding him, she came up to us and put out her arm, expecting him to play tickle games with her. I tried guiding her to tickle him, but she didn't quite grasp what she needed to do. I guided her to a seat to let her hold him. She gave him a hug and kissed the top of his head.

As I watched Pamela and the tot, a wonderful thought hit me. Our Charlotte Mason study group is planning to have an enrichment day once a week this year. One of the mothers in our group is due any day now. I am seriously considering skipping the science lesson to hang out in the nursery and show Pamela how to interact with babies. Pamela could mature in her ability to connect to babies and the wee one matures.

On the way back from Iowa, we stopped in a town of population 422. My parents, who are camping not far from where my sister lives, saw a segment about the man behind the mural on Independence Day. The reporter at the Des Moines Register quoted my mother, "We saw it on the 'Today' show and just had to come." The story is about a man named Todd Spaur, who flipped his car and landed in some underbrush where he lay for sixteen hours, unable to move or call for help. Doctors predicted he would never walk, but, after a extended recovery, he can get around with his cane. The people of Bussey helped raise his children and supported his family. Between the pain and difficulty walking, he is not well off financially, so he took some art classes with funding from the town and painted their portraits in the mural as a thank you. Todd even enlisted the help of local children for the final touch-ups. This human interest story reminds me of the importance of relationships in the lives of differently abled people. Bussey, IA showcases what makes our country great!



Pamela loves music. On the road, she brightened when she connected the lyrics of "Mockingbird" by James Taylor and Carly Simon to the folk song we learned awhile back. She's also fallen in love with the "Symphony Hall" channel on Sirius (a relief from listening to videos she has recorded on her iPod which are accessible to the car audio system thanks to bluetooth). The other day, we heard some unfamiliar music after I started the car. Then, it shifted to speaking parts. We looked at each other as if to say, "That's odd." So, I changed the display from navigation to the music band we saw the title A Midsummer's Night Dream by Mendelssohn. A huge smile of recognition hit her face because (a) she adores Shakespeare and (b) she enjoys Puck's adventures in Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. Yesterday, after a couple of bars of music, Pamela turned to me and said, "Bach!" Since I knew it was one of her favorites I asked, "Do you know which one?" She flashed a smile and said, "Brandenburg!"

Driving through Missouri, Pamela knowingly made a play on words and called the state "Misery." we stopped for breakfast in a fascinating town called Bolivar. The city was named for Simon Bolivar, the hero who led South American countries in their quest for independence. The first thing that caught our attention was the YMCA's aquatic center which brought Prince Albert's Crystal Palace to mind—we read about it in Tappan's In the Days of Queen Victoria this year. Pamela looked at me and said, "Is it future?" While I was dwelling on the past, she was focusing in the other direction of time.

After we ordered breakfast, I saw more evidence of Pamela's progress. Because of the extensive reading aloud we do together (half and half), her articulation has improved greatly. Since the restaurant wasn't too busy, I let her go back to ask the fast-food employee for forgotten items. Pamela managed to get her fork, mayonnaise, and mustard without any help from me.

101 Plus One for Good Luck

Around this time last year, I shared Pamela narrating a fairy tale in Spanish (Ricitos de Oro y los tres osos). We spent the fall listening to another fairy tale (Caperucita Roja). New readers to my blog may wonder why Pamela is learning Spanish when she is still working on English as a first language. My husband was born and raised in Latin America. Half of our extended family is fluent in English and Spanish, and we occasionally travel to El Salvador to visit them. More importantly, Pamela enjoys learning her father's language.

Back in 2010, I shared our plan to build an ear for Spanish. We teach Spanish completely orally through audio books while we study and point to pictures and sing folk songs. Last year's blog post explains our rationale, so I will not repeat it here. Because Steve is in Kansas, we found it hard to record series, so we are testing out a program for CLUSA that meets the criteria of focusing on audio and pictures in the early stages of picking up a second language. The two of us are making progress in hearing Spanish and speaking it a bit.

While we are focusing on receptive language, her expressive language is coming along, too. I assessed how her Spanish is coming along in several ways. I said words in Spanish and she pointed to pictures and I said words in Spanish and she told me what they meant in English. Pamela sang two folk songs that she learned this year ("El Coqui" and "Al Tambor"). She also narrated "Little Red Riding Hood" in Spanish while looking at pictures scanned and printed from the storybook (which I keep hidden to prevent her from seeing written words). Pamela correctly identified 102 words or phrases covered this term. She knows even more words from last year, so her understanding of Spanish is improving. She is doing so well, I think she will be ready for copywork and reading next year!

Vocabulary Words: la abuela, la abuelita, adiós, adónde, allí, amarillo, el amigo, el árbol, el autobús, el automóvil, auxilio, el avión, bebiendo, el bocado, bonita, el bosque, la cama, caminaba, la camisa, el camisón, cansado, cantar, la carne, la casa, cerró, comerte, comiendo, comió, el coqui, corría, la cuchara, la cuchillo, de, de bajo, despacio, el día, el diente, dijo, donde, dormido, en, enferma, enorme, está , la flor, fuera, las gafas, el gorro, grande, guapo, la hacha, hasta la vista, el huevo, el lápiz, la leche, el leñador, el lobo, malo, la mamá, la mano, la mantequilla, la manzana, el médico, la mesa, morado, muy bien, el nariz, la niña, el niño, nunca, el ojo, olerte, la oreja, el pan, pasa, pequeño, la piedra, el plato, el pollo, por favor, la puerta, qué asco, quién es, rico, rojo, la señora, la silla, sobre, socorro, soy yo, el tambor, la taza, el tazón, el tenedor, tengo hambre, tengo sueño, el vaso, a ver, verte, vivan, y, la zanahoria

Spanish Folk Songs


When you watch the video of Pamela, you might think she is reading. She is not. She is looking at pictures of the story and narrating what she recalls. I love how Pamela references me by turning to look at me face-to-face when she needs help with a word. She did this three times for orejas, nariz, and leñador. Her narration is a combination of memorized script but also her original wording. Many times in her narration, she uses different words not originally in the book.

"Little Red Riding Hood"

Caperucita Roja: Su mamá. She’s so bonita. Un día su mamá Caperucita Roja, “Capericita Roja, abuelita enferma. Por favor, llévale cesta.” “Muy bien, mamá,” dijo Caperucito. Caperucita Roja, cuando de repente salió un lobo detrás árbol. “¿Caperucita Roja, adónde vas?” “Mi abuelita, alli.” “Adiós, Caperucita Roja. Hasta la vista.” “Adiós, Señor Lobo.” Caperucita Roja caminaba despacio, muy despacio bosque. “Una flor bonita. ¡Flor, qué bonita!” Y el lobo corría y corría. Caperucita Roja caminaba despacio, muy despacio. “Bonita flor. ¡Qué bonita!” Y el lobo corría, corría. Caperucita Roja caminaba despacio. Esta bien bosque. “Bonita. ¡Qué bonita!” Wolf corría, corría. El lobo tan, tan. “¿Quién es?” dijo abuelita. “Soy yo, Caperucita Roja.” “Pasa, pasa, querida.” Lobo comió se. Y lobo. “¡Yuck! No me gustó abuelita. Tengo hambre... Caperucita Roja.” Lobo camisón, gorro, gafas. “¡Qué guapo!” Caperucita Roja despacio. “Flor enorme. ¡Qué bonita!” Caperucita Roja tan, tan. “¿Quién es?” dijo lobo. “Soy yo, Caperucita Roja,” dijo Caperucita. “¡Abuelita, qué ojos!” Dijo lobo. “Abuelita, abuelita ¡qué tienes más!”—What’s nose?“ Nariz, nariz más grande. Abuelita, abuelita ¡qué tienes más!”—What’s ears means? “Orejas. Abuelita, abuelita dientes los.” Y el lobo comió Caperucita. “¡Muy rica! ¡Una cestita! ¡Leche! No me gusta leche. ¡Fuera! A ver... ¡mantequilla! No me gusta mantequilla. El pan.” Lobo. Caperucita Roja. “¡Qué sueño tengo! ¡Lleno estoy!” Dormido. Poco después lobo—Woodcutter means? Y leñador see lobo. “¡Auxilio! ¡Socorro!” Un leñador say, “Crash!” Un leñador, Caperucita Roja y abuelita. Caperucita Roja y abuelita más y más. El lobo is done. !Ohhhhhh! And lobo nunca más volvió. Caperucita Roja dijo y abuela, “¡Muy rica!”

Little Red Riding Hood: Her mother is so pretty. One day, her mother to Little Red Riding Home. One day, her mother Little Red Riding Hood, “Little Red Riding Hood, grandmother sick. Please take basket.” “Yes, Mom,” said Little Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood, when suddenly came a bad wolf from behind a tree. “Little Red Riding Hood, where are you going?” “My grandmother, over there.” “Good-bye, Little Red Riding Hood. See you soon.” “Good-bye, Mr. Wolf.” Little Red Riding Hood walked slowly, very slowly woods. “A pretty flower. Flower, how pretty!” And the wolf ran and ran. Little Red Riding Hood walked slowly, very slowly. “Pretty flower. How pretty!” And the wolf ran, ran. Little Red Riding Hood walked slowly. It is good woods. “Pretty. How pretty!” Wolf ran, ran. The lobo knock, knock. “Who is it?” said grandmother. “It’s Little Red Riding Hood.” “Come in, come in, dear.” Wolf eats her. And wolf. “Yuck! I don’t like grandmother. I’m hungry... Little Red Riding Hood.” Wolf nightgown, cap, glasses. Little Red Riding Hood slowly. “Large flower. How pretty!” Little Red Riding Hood knock, knock. “Who is it?” said wolf. “It’s Little Red Riding Hood,” said Little Riding Hood. Said wolf. “Grandma, grandma, what you have big!”—What’s nose? “Nose, very big nose. Grandma, grandma what you have big!”—What’s ears means? “Ears. Grandma, grandma the teeth.” And the wolf ate Little Riding Hood. “Very tasty! A little basket! Milk! I don’t like milk. Get out! Let’s see... butter! I don’t like butter! The bread.” Wolf. Little Red Riding Hood. “I’m sleepy! I’m full.” He slept. A little later wolf—Woodcutter means? And woodcutter see wolf. “Help! Help!” A woodcutter say, “Crash!” A woodcutter, Little Red Riding Hood, and grandma. LIttle Red Riding Hood and grandma more and more. The wolf is done. “!Ohhhhhh!” And wolf never came back. Little Red Riding Hood said and Grandma, “¡Very tasty!”


Our First Exam Week: Spotlight on Recitation and Music

In an effort to be authentic and transparent, I'm going to reveal the shocking truth about exam week in the Glaser homeschool. We never did it. You thought all Charlotte Mason homeschoolers did them. Well, I never got the hang of it. At least, I never lied to you and said I did. That would be hypocrisy.

Because I always felt like we were behind (behind what, I wonder), I hated to lose even more time doing exams. It didn't kill David who ironically just exempted all of his exams for first semester of his senior year at high school (does God have a sense of humor, or what?). It was extremely difficult to assess Pamela because of her major stumbling block: aphasia! Five years ago, the oral language she is doing today didn't exist. I was still suffering from Enlightenment Thinking, so I would have either felt defeated when my children didn't seem to know what I thought they should know and I would have made the next term miserable for all of us.

Now that I am a recovering Enlightenment Thinker, I think it is safe to try exam week with Pamela. What is Enlightenment Thinking?

• Viewing Pamela as a performer.
• Having a list of things she ought to know.
• Correcting her mistakes and adding them to the list of things to fix.
• Viewing her efforts as purely solo.
• Trying to measure and collect data to prove to the world homeschooling is working.
• Feeling bad about things that she missed because she did it correctly last week.
• Measuring her against other people with autism who are her age.

I am doing several things to inoculate myself from this destructive form of thinking. I am trying to view exams with an eye toward Pamela, the person, and her relationships by considering the following questions:

• Is Pamela's world larger because of this book or activity?
• Do I see her recalling or exploring ideas outside of our formal day?
• Is her known in this area expanding?
• Is this book or activity worth her time?
• If not, is she ready for this level of thinking? Could I find a better resource?
• Is she reaching any new developmental milestones?
• Were there times when her face filled with joy?
• Did she share any knew connections she made?

Spanish

Pamela's narration of Ricitos de Oro in Spanish stunned me, and Steve couldn't get over it. We have come a long way in Spanish since August. She has this story, the nursery songs, and all the audio stories Steve narrated loaded up on her i-Pod Touch. She loves listening to them in her free time. The other day, I caught her watching I even catch her watching The Fox and the Hound in Spanish. Pamela sometimes speaks Spanish in context such as saying "Tengo mucha hambre" before lunch or "No hay más!" after finishing a bowl of food. Once I sang, "Food, glorious, food" while David was feeding the fish and Pamela said, "La comida" (the food in Spanish). Pamela spoke what Spanish she could on our trip to El Salvador and even communicated with Rosa, who spoke no English, through Spanish and gestures. Starting to acquire a second language spoken by half of her family is a major developmental milestone.

I plan to keep using all our resources although the songs are in a challenging key for us. Pamela and I keep switching octaves to sing with the singer on our recordings who must be a baritone. We will press on. I might try a free two-week trial of Speekee, an online program recommended by friends Penny and Queen Mum. It is geared for younger children and might suit her well. If she likes it, we might subscribe and have her work through the ten programs instead of the homemade stories when my schedule gets too full.

Recitation

Pamela loves recitation. She enjoys reciting what she learned last term. Sometimes, she will recite "The Lord's Prayer" and Tennyson's "The Eagle" for fun. She smiles during "The Lord's Prayer" at church. On two different occasions, Pamela spoke Tennyson's lines: while looking at live eagles in Awendaw and at a stuffed eagle at a wildlife refuge visitor's center. It reminded me of a Jane Austen novel when a character quotes a beloved poet. I can tell by her unusually crisp annunciations of the hard c sounds in the first two lines of the poem that Pamela can hear the alliteration and finds it pleasant. I can tell in the pace of her delivery that she feels the poem's rhythm.

Were her recitations absolutely perfect? No! But I loved how Pamela put her own twist on "The Lord's Prayer" by blending the two different versions:

And - our - forgive our debts.
And we forgive our debtors.
And we forgive those who trespass against us.

She got stuck on the fifth line of "The Eagle" and turned to me, "What? What?" She knew it was on the tip of her tongue. She even tried to give me her only clue, "Thunder," because she knew it was in the closing line. Rather than look at it as a failure, I took the opportunity to show her two strategies. First, I repeated the fourth line. I was stuck, too! Then, I started the whole thing over and, as soon as I said, "He watches from," Pamela echoed from and flew solo until the end. It reminded me of what happened to Elizabeth Hughes at the Norfolk Admirals Game--how forgotten lyrics can quickly blossom into a beautiful moment when surrounded by people filled with heart.

Music
Music is going well. Pamela loved our folk song selections. I picked two songs from South Carolina ("I Got a Letter This Morning" and "When the Train Comes Along") and one familiar one ("Skip to My Lou").


While Pamela may not be a candidate for American Idol, she captured that slightly off-key twang of the songs, which melted my heart. She nailed the lyrics of the first verse perfectly in only one song. In another, she artfully wove lines from several verses to make her own version, which is how these songs were created in the first place. In the final song, she used her own unique words. Her inventiveness captured the essence of what folk music really is when you think about it.

Pamela loved the hymns I chose. She needed help finding a good key with Rejoice the Lord Is King and stayed right with me once she got going. Her version of Open Our Eyes, Lord is absolutely precious because she sings with her heart in that one.


Pamela loves classical music. She has it on her i-Pod Touch and alternates between listening to Bach and Beethoven CDs in the car. She can accurately name composers of familiar music if we hear it piped in the store or on the soundtrack of a movie. Last term, we enjoyed exploring Vivaldi. She was already familiar with The Four Seasons and his mandolin concertos. We added the Magnificat and Gloria to her repertoire. Her favorite piece was Spring from "Four Seasons" and Pamela even hummed a few bars for me!

An Ear for Spanish

Earlier in the year, I blogged our plan for building an ear for Spanish. A week-long trip to El Salvador provided timely reinforcement. Before Christmas, Pamela finished her first audio book in Spanish, Ricitos de Oro. I cannot stress hear enough that we are taking great pains to avoid the written word so we can get Spanish into her ear. Most of us learned our first language in that mode, so it makes sense to do the same for a second language. Try reading the following sentence, "No hay más," and then compare you pronunciation to how a native speaker would do it.

When we listened to this story and homemade stories narrated by Steve, we looked at pictures to go with the words, phrases, and sentences. I built in a short review of new vocabulary and, once Pamela seemed to know it, I rotated it out. It did take up a bit of time editing audio files and finding appropriate pictures. The effort was worth it!

Last week, I assessed how Spanish is going. First, Pamela narrated Goldilocks in Spanish with voices and all! She narrated each picture from the book without seeing any words. Second, I asked her the meaning of words from the book. Third, I asked her to tell me some words she learned from our homemade stories. Finally, she sang songs we learned from De Colores. The one struggle Pamela has with the music is that she ends up having to jump octaves (as I do) for they are not in the best range for us. Oh, well, nothing is perfect!

Narration of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears in Spanish"--She Is NOT Reading


Receptive Understanding of Goldilocks"


Expression of Words and Phrases from Homemade Stories


Spanish Songs

Hablo Español Un Pocito

This is the first time Pamela and I have had blocks of time alone in El Salvador without a translator by our side. This morning Pamela wanted pupusas for breakfast, so she went up to the maid who speaks no English.

Pamela: "I want pupusas!"
Rosa: "¿Quiere dos pupusas?"
Pamela: "Yes! Dos!"

I did not have to do a thing! When we are out and about, I read signs and words we see to Pamela to let her practice her Spanish. She remembers what she has learned from our informal Spanish program at home and occasionally uses words when she speaks.

I am faring pretty well also. My first solo was at customs. The clerk spoke no English. I answered his questions, even the tough one about why I was born in Japan. I said in broken Spanish, "Mi padre es in la marina" ("My father is in the Navy"). When I was paying for the $10 tourist card, I told him that my husband was Salvadoran, "Mi esposo es Salvadoreño." He wanted to clarify that Steve was Pamela's father and, after a little back and forth, he understood that Pamela is also technically Salvadoran. I only had to buy a tourist card for myself because she is a citizen by birth.

While I do not understand everything, I am getting along much better than I did on previous trips. I think our Spanish homeschooling program is helping me to build the ear for Spanish that has been so lacking in years past. Here I am finding opportunities to practice between communicating with the maid, waiters and waitresses, and store clerks.

Today, I met with a friend from Steve's childhood. When he was a wee little boy, there were five girls who lived across the fence. Their parents were naturally protective of them and very strict about their friends. He knew of them, but never really met them. Through the miracle of Facebook, Steve connected with them through mutual friends and we have been Facebook friends with two of them ever since. Today, I finally got to meet Elena in real life. We have a lot in common: two children, one of whom is special needs. She speaks English very well for she lived in Illinois for a few years. We met at Julie's apartment and then went to a new gourmet burger restaurant, GBC for Gourmet Burger Company.

One thing people from the United States may find disconcerting is the number of armed guards carrying around rifles. The first time I visited was before the end of the Civil War in 1990 and it was quite a shock to see so many people in uniform openly carrying weapons. Today, high crime and gangs requires great caution and protection. Elena did not park close enough to the adjacent car in the teeny tiny parking lot that had cars packed like sardines. The guard in pictured here got too close to the car for comfort and Pamela exclaimed, "Don't shoot! Put that away!" She was only mildly worried thankfully and did not have a meltdown.

Even though Elena and I had never met, we have enough in common that we had a delightful conversation and a very good meal. We have been keeping in touch on Facebook for quite some time, but being able to talk face-to-face enabled us to learn more about one another's families, insights as mothers of special needs children, our childhood, and our stories. Her sister had recommended this restaurant and, except for the loud music, everything was well done. I had never eaten a burger with black olives and mushrooms . . . esta muy deliciosa. They cleverly wrapped Pamela's in lettuce, and, of course, she added her usual glop on top.


Today was especially clear so I wanted to share pictures I took of the skyline with volcanoes far off in the distance. I adjusted the contrast and lighting to bring them out even more. El Salvador is a land of volcanoes, responsible for the many earthquakes, that erupt only occasionally. The most interesting story I have is about Izalco, which was once known as the Lighthouse of the Pacific. It emerged in 1770 A.D. and erupted constantly for two hundred years. On one trip Steve's parents took us to the practically abandoned Hotel de la Montaña (Hotel of the Mountain) in Cerro Verde (Green Hill). Businessmen believed that people would find it worth the travel just to stay in a hotel with a spectacular view of Izalco, so they built a hotel. Unfortunately, the paint was hardly dry before Izalco went silent in the mid-1960s. After they were sure Izalco was at peace, Steve and his siblings climbed up some of the ashy spots of Izalco and slid down it for fun, just as I slid down dirt hills near Bremerton, Washington on cardboard boxes and plastic swimming pools.



In case you doubted me, the picture shows the pothole being repaired yesterday. El Salvador has two seasons: the rainy season and the road repair season. During the former season, potholes and sinkholes develop but only the worst of the worst get repaired in the latter season. As I type, winds from the north are whistling through the house and causing the shades to clang against the window, bringing dust into the apartment and kicking up my allergies. The windy season is the transition between the rainy season and the dry season.

Our last stop for today was for coffee and pastries at a Guatemalan restaurant chain called San Martin. The alluring smell of freshly baked bread swept me back to my days in Germany as a teen going with my grandmother to buy bread at the bakery. How could it be Guatemalan? Patty explained that many Germans have settled there and have brought their foods with them. The restaurant is inside a mall, so, while we were there for an hour talking over coffee, Patty had her car washed and vacuumed.

Our Plan for the Year: Spanish

While I was checking my email this morning, I heard a wonderful thing. Pamela was repeating bits of Spanish that she is picking up from our Spanish program. "Ay, ay, ay! Sopa esta muy caliente!" which means, "Ouch! The soup is very hot!" We only spend about fifteen minutes a day doing formal Spanish. We can do this because we are focusing on only two aspects of acquiring language, hearing and speaking. We are trying to model how infants learn a language: they hear us talking and, before long, they start speaking. Reading and writing comes long after the ear has acquired the language.

Pamela really wants to learn Spanish. Her dad is a native speaker as is his side of the family. They are fluent in English and Spanish, and Pamela is very excited that we will be spending a week in El Salvador with them next month. She has tías, tíos, primos, and primas on one side of the family (Steve's) and aunts, uncles, and cousins on the other. To mix it up even more, Steve's parents are Grandpa and Grandma (born in Louisiana and England respectively) and mine are Opa and Oma (born in North Carolina and Germany). One of my sisters spent many years getting advanced degrees in winemaking in Germany, speaks the language fluently, and is a winemaker in Texas.

I do not speak Spanish, but we have found a way around my impediment that is working: (1) Latin American nursery songs, (2) homemade stories narrated by Steve about family, pets, daily activities, etc. and what she is learning in science, and (3) audio books (the printed books are kept away from her sight). Last year, we stumbled upon this plan for teaching Spanish and I will probably spend the next two years building Pamela's ear for Spanish before moving onto a formal curriculum. Last year, I wrote two rather long posts here and here.

Working with other Charlotte Mason educators on a curriculum project inspired this unique approach. Mason based her ideas upon the work of Francois Gouin's The Art of Teaching and Studying Language, which emphasized the importance of hearing and speaking a foreign language before seeing it in print or writing in it. Other parents interested in the ideas of Gouin and Mason are also attempting this approach from French in Montreal to Spanish in Texas. One mom in Texas (ahem, NOT Massachusetts) did a fabulous job of outlining Charlotte Mason's understanding of Gouin and how it matured in the years between her volumes.

We are learning Latin American nursery songs that my husband learned as a child. You may be asking yourself how effective nursery songs are. Well, the other day, I sang, "Food, glorious food," while David was feeding the fish. Pamela walked in and said, "La comida," a word she learned from Los Pollitos.

Charlotte Mason believed in making curricula personal, so Steve and I are developing videos and audio recordings focused on our family, pets, home, and daily activities. Pamela spent three weeks learning how to talk about her brother David and now she is learning about me. Again, you may be wondering how effective this is. Last year, she learned a story about her dad and loved saying, "Maneja a la oficina en un automóvil gris." After Steve wrecked the gray car, he replaced it with un automóvile anaranjado and Pamela easily amended her Spanish. When he replaced the red commuter car with a white one, it became un automóvil blanco. Pamela had no problem learning a new sentence about David driving to school, "Maneja el auto a la escuela." Not only that, last month while driving home from visiting my uncle in North Carolina, we had the following exchange:

Pamela asked, "What is cero?"

I answered, "Cero is zero."

She said, "Corre cero millas."

Do you realize how incredible this is coming from some still learning English as a first language, who has struggled with aphasia all of her life? Pamela adapted from a sentence she learned last year, "Corre cinco millas," to make a joke. She laughed because she was talking about her running habits which are very different from those of her fathers. Here are the two videos we made about David and I.





We also write stories about what Pamela is learning in science. Here are the two videos we made about a butterfly and a pear:





In addition to hearing homemade stories, we also plan to listen to three audio books read by native speakers of Spanish during the school year: Ricitos de Oro y los tres osos, La Caperucita Roja, and Los Zapaticos de Rosa. This takes a bit of work, but it is worth it! I break up the book into eleven weeks (the length of a trimester). I ripped the track from the audio CD and make clips of vocabulary words for the week. Then, I break the reading into clips of phrases. I create an audio file of vocabulary words (with pauses), the story broken up into small phrases with pauses, and then the story itself. Every week, I start on page one and work up to the current week. Next week, we will be covering pages one through twelve. I put the audio file onto the CD with the nursery songs and homemade stories for that week.

Then, I scan in pages from the book to extract images to create several pages to support what we are hearing. I include no Spanish words. While we listen to the audio recording, Pamela points to the proper image. Is it working? Heck yeah! We started this process three weeks ago and, in the past three weeks, Pamela has learned new words effortlessly: oso, plato hondo, grande, mediano, pequeño, sopa, and caliente. Even though the recording is a tad cheesy, she loves it! That sentence she repeated this morning was from the recording.

So what does a Spanish lesson look like? To make things simple, I put all of the Spanish songs and stories for the week on one audio CD so that we can sit on the couch and play it on our CD player, taking advantage of the remote control. When we have to be out and about, Pamela can do her Spanish lesson in the car because we can pack up the CD and folder and "vaminos"!

First, we sing the new song twice and sing an oldie but goodie chosen by Pamela. We sing the songs based upon what we hear without any lyrics in front of us. Then, we listen to one of two things: the homemade series stories (a personal story and a science story) or the professionally done children's story. I have pages to go along with each story, so that we can point to pictures as we are listening to the audio and repeating what we hear. I keep the new and old videos on my desktop in case Pamela wants to watch them in her free time. Occasionally she does.

What do we plan to cover? Nine nursery songs, nine homemade personal stories, nine homemade science stories, and three children's stories.

By the way, Spanish falls under the knowledge of man, which is the final area of knowledge to be covered in our plan. In the right column of my blog, I have put an outline of our curriculum with links to the posts plus a section of hints and tips.

Original Research on the Teaching of Spanish

In her first book, Charlotte Mason discusses the teaching of a child's first foreign language through the ear first!

The child should never see French words in print until he has learned to say them with as much ease and readiness as if they were English. The desire to give printed combinations of letters the sounds they would bear in English words is the real cause of our national difficulty in pronouncing French. Again, the child's vocabulary should increase steadily, say, at the rate of half a dozen words a day. Think of fifteen hundred words in a year! The child who has that number of words, and knows how to apply them, can speak French. (Volume 1, page 302)

Pamela is a visual learner with a history of severe auditory processing issues and aphasia. I was very skeptical about teaching Spanish without the printed word, much less at a rate of a dozen words per day. Last month, I described how I overcame my doubt of ear only methods when Pamela learned new Spanish words without seeing them in print. I alluded to mulling through Phase II of our experiments with Spanish and, today, I will reveal our new plan.

At first, I feared we were reinventing the wheel. Rosetta Stone works like the series mentioned by Gouin. The software shows the printed sentences, which is what I am trying to avoid! Lara, a Texan homeschooler interested in Charlotte Mason's ideas, highly recommends Rosetta Stone, but she too is supplementing with the idea of Gouin's series. I would like to hold off on pricey software until we have gotten Spanish into Pamela's ear (and mine). The Easy Spanish claims to follow Mason and Gouin but relies on the printed word in the first year of learning Spanish.

In Gouin's method, you teach language in a series of sentences about a topic familiar to the child: usually, a process somebody does or a pattern from nature. He called these "the series" which could be everything from the growth of a plant to the grinding of corn in a mill, or making as sandwich as Lara suggests. Charlotte Mason wrote,

You think the thing out in the order of time and natural sequence; you get the right verbs, nouns, and such epithets as are necessary, follow suit, and in amazingly few sentences, very short sentences too, connected by 'and,' you have said all that is essential to the subject. The whole thing is a constant surprise, like the children's game which unearths the most extraordinary and out-of-the-way thing you can think of by means of a dozen or so questions. . . You really learn to think in the new language, because you have no more than vague impressions about these acts or facts in your mother tongue. You order your thoughts in the new language, and, having done so, the words which express these are an inalienable possession. Volume 1 page 303-304

Steve is a native speaker of Spanish, but he is also un hombre de negocios (a businessman). He works long hours and travels often enough to be inconsistent in teaching Pamela Spanish. I brainstormed a way to scaffold him and make the most efficient use of his time. Here is the process:

I wrote a series about Steve in English. I tried to think of words that Pamela would easily recognize: coffee (café), computer (computadora), five miles (cinco millas), pants (pantalones), and gray car (automóvil gris):

Steve is my father. He is a businessman. He gets up early. He drinks coffee. He works on the computer. He runs five miles. He takes a shower. He wears a shirt and pants. He drives to the office in a gray car.

Then, I translated it into butchered Spanish with the help of babelish and cleaned up what I knew to be wrong (too many pronouns which are not needed in the subject of Spanish sentences). I emailed a copy to Steve, which he edited very quickly and emailed back:

Steve es mi papá. Él es un hombre de negocios. Se levanta temprano. Toma el café. Trabaja en la computadora. Corre cinco millas. Se toma una ducha. Usa una camisa y pantalones. Maneja a la oficina en un automóvil gris.

Before Steve left for work one morning, I grabbed the video camera. I filmed us going back and forth through the series. I read a sentence in Spanish to him so he would have the exact script and he repeated it. We went through the entire series in less than five minutes.

I took some pictures and loaded them into Windows Movie Maker (which I use often to edit RDI videos). I pulled the audio from the film of Steve saying the sentences and married Steve's oral sentences (which I edited to repeat twice with a long pause) to the pictures. The following video was our virtual Steve to help us practice 10 minutes a day while he was at work or in Chile or China or upstairs taking a nap!


I put the pictures and written sentences in Excel to help me practice with Pamela and keep track of what we have studied. One side has the pictures only with no written words, while the other side has sentences only. After a few days, I would read a sentence aloud in Spanish and let her pick the picture that went with the sentence. At no time do I have her view or read the printed sentences!




When she was ready, Steve did the same and we have a video of their interaction.


I was pleased at how much Pamela imitated her father in the video. Since my goal is to help get Spanish in our ears, I am not focused on speaking Spanish, which is the next step because we are trying to follow the progression of typical language progression as described in this paper. Any Spanish Pamela speaks right now is gravy and we will postpone any focus on combining words until we have a year of hearing Spanish under our belts.

Los Pollitos y Elefantes

Pamela and I "graduated" from our first nursery song in Spanish, Los Pollitos Dicen. Our goal this year is to build an ear for Spanish without obsessing over grammar, spelling, reading, etc. We watched the video a couple of times and Pamela managed to figure out some vocabulary words on her own: gallina (hen), pollito (chick), hambre (hungry), frío (cold), and pío (peep):

Los pollitos dicen, pío, pío, pío,
cuando tienen hambre
cuando tienen frío.

La gallina busca,
el maíz y el trigo,
les dá la comida,
y les presta abrigo.

Bajo sus dos alas,
acurrucaditos,
duermen los pollitos,
hasta el otro día. Repeat all verses.

Cuando se levantan,
dicen mamacita,
tengo mucha hambre,
dame lombricitas.

I made one HUGE blunder in learning this song! I let Pamela see the words. For some reason, she correctly annunciates gallina (a "y" sound for the double l) but says pollitos incorrectly (an "l" sound for the same double l). I will strive to be more cautious as we start our next song, Los Elefantes.

I shared a story with Pamela about her father and sisters, who aspired to see how many verses they could manage in this counting song in which the number of elephants increases by one with every verse. Conceivably, one could reach infinity, given enough lifespans. Pamela guessed and guessed and even dared to guess a hundred verses. She fell short of guessing their actual achievement: one thousand. It must have been a very long car trip, especially for his parents!

I spent this week assessing the first phase of our language experiment based on the ideas of Francios Gouin (The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages). Charlotte Mason recommended his book, which she called "the most important attempt that has yet been made to bring the study of languages within the sphere of practical education" and went on to write, "Indeed, the great reform in our methods of teaching modern languages owe their origin to this remarkable work" (page 302 of Volume 1).

Gouin spends a good chunk of his book outlining all the false starts he had in acquiring German (which dovetail well with my lackluster efforts at learning Spanish and German). He tried focusing on grammar and irregular verbs, studying roots, listening to haphazard conversations, reading and translating, reading the dictionary, and buying the latest foreign language textbooks--all to no avail. Then, a great revelation hit him: why not try to learn a second language in the same way he learned the first? In light of how Steve taught himself to read and write English, I found the theory appealing.

Most children learn their first language through the ear. I say most because Pamela used the ear, eye, and hand to absorb the grammar and syntax of English due to her aphasia. At the beginning of the schoolyear, I was not completely sold on learning to speak and understand Spanish through the ear only, which is what Gouin recommends in the first phase of any language study, "Address the ear, then, first of all and principally. Afterwards take as auxiliaries the eye and the hand in reading and in writing. The ear is the prime minister of the intelligence" page 139. While Pamela's auditory channel has improved by leaps and bounds thanks to the extensive reading aloud that I did, could she learn new Spanish words this way?

I did hedge a bit about the ear only by using this free resource that combines the ear and eye because I am not a native speaker and at least the words sound proper. We did some review (colors, weeks, months, numbers) and some new words (feelings, pets, and fruits). Plus, I let Pamela see the lyrics of the nursery song (which I vow to avoid in the next song). Yesterday, I assessed Pamela's ear for Spanish reading stories about our pets and simple sentences to see how she would respond to an ear-focused method. She loved it!

The final two videos show this non-native speaker completely butchering the Spanish language. However, off camera, we did an experiment today. We have three fish in our fish tank. Steve described the red-bellied pecos in our fish tank very slowly in Spanish in short, full sentences, and Pamela pointed to the correct fish. He described the goldfish and, again, she nailed it. Steve was very impressed at her ear for understanding.





Phase II of experimenting with Gouin's ideas is rolling around in my brain right now, and I will share it with you if we make any headway.