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In This Issue:
• Feature Article: 10 Ways to Use Bilingual Books with Children
• Language Lizard Update: New Blog!
• Book Review: The Giant Turnip
• Lizard Recommends: Multilingual Living
• *Subscriber Special Offer*: 10% discount on The Giant Turnip book and audio CD
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Dear Reader:
I am very excited to tell you about the launch of our new BLOG (http://blog.LanguageLizard.com)!
We want this blog to be a key resource for YOU - educators, librarians and families who are trying to teach children about language and culture; those of you who support children with diverse language needs.
Some of our blog posts will review broad topics, such as how to involve bilingual families in the classroom or a review of new research on bilingualism. Other topics will be quite specific. For example, we will post lessons that teach about specific countries or holidays, or we may suggest materials to use when teaching a multicultural classroom about counting/numbers. Many of our posts will answer some of the frequently asked questions we have received over the years from teachers and parents.
We are including one of our posts, "10 Ways to Use Bilingual Books with Children", as the feature article of this newsletter. We hope this stimulates ideas as to how to use these materials to support language and culture learning at school and at home.
I would like to thank Corey Heller who has provided us with invaluable insight and expertise as we develop our blog. Founder of Multilingual Living website and magazine, and a bilingual parent herself, Corey has worked for years with families raising bilingual children as well as with experts in the field of bilingualism. We look forward to her continued contributions as we make our blog into a premier resource for supporting dual-language learning and multicultural education.
We hope you will visit our blog regularly and review the new information we have available for you. If you have any comments about this blog, or suggestions as to how we can continue to support you, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Happy Reading!
Anneke Forzani
President and Founder
Language Lizard, LLC
P.S. Our website is now set up for easy viewing and searching on your mobile smartphone! Search by language, title or level. If you prefer to see the full site, simply click the link on the bottom of the mobile version of the site. And don't forget to visit us on Twitter and Facebook too! |
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Book Review: The Giant Turnip
Adapted by Henriette Barkow
Illustrated by Richard Johnson
Ages: 3-8 Paperback
Dimensions: 10.9w x 9.2h inches
Review by Maureen Pugh
The Giant Turnip is an adaptation of the humorous Russian folk tale, which tells of a grandfather who plants a turnip, which grows and grows, until it is gigantic. He then needs to call everyone from “grandmother” to a cat and mouse to help him pull it out of the ground. In this equally downright silly iteration, it is a teacher and her class who plant the turnip (along with other vegetables) in their class garden. Like in the original story, it takes a cooperative effort to get this mammoth turnip out of the ground.
While this folktale teaches a lesson in teamwork, the story also incorporates a great deal of vocabulary. It has all sorts of words from the lexicon of gardening, including vegetable names, and words like “planting, “frost,” and “seeds,” etc. It also manages to incorporate some fun words like “crane,” “bulldozer,” and “helicopter” as the children imagine varied ways to harvest their gigantic turnip. This use of rich language is particularly helpful in a bilingual book, where learning interesting vocabulary is part of the goal.
Award-winning illustrator Richard Johnson (who also illustrated other Language Lizard titles The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Don’t Cry Sly) uses highly stylized images to illustrate the story. These colorful and engaging drawings depict not only beautiful vegetables (and other aspects of the storyline), but also beautiful and diverse-looking children. Available in English with: Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Czech, Farsi, French, German, Gujarati, Italian, Panjabi, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Yoruba
The text of this popular story is also available in audio CD in English with Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese), French, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. All these languages are on one CD. Book sold separately. To access lessons and activities that use this book, see our "Building Community in the Classroom" lesson plans at the following link: http://www.languagelizard.com/lessonplans.htm
For a poster that complements this book, see "Growing a Sunflower Poster" (Product Code FRSUNFL) (great for thematic units).
*Special Subscriber Offer*: 10% Discount on The Giant Turnip book and Audio CD.
Through June 17th, 2011 , we are offering a 10% Discount on The Giant Turnip book as well as the Audio CD (see book review above for more information). Simply apply Coupon Code CCS-TURNIP upon checkout to receive the discount. NOTE: the book and audio CD are sold separately.
To see the difficulty level of these and other Language Lizard books, please visit our “Book Suggestions” page at http://www.languagelizard.com/images/Childrens_Bilingual_Books.pdf |
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Feature Article:
10 Ways to Use Bilingual Books with Children
Research continues to show that support for the home language is an essential element in supporting children's academic skills. Parents who engage with their children in their home language through discussion, reading books out loud and in everyday activities help children to do better in school, even if the school language is different from the home language. This is in contrast to research many decades ago that encouraged parents to speak the community language at home with their children, believing this would strengthen their children's academic language skills. We now know that this past research was flawed and that, in fact, the opposite is true.
Bilingual books are wonderful tools to help create a bridge between languages. They give teachers the opportunity to educate children in the school language, while at the same time they foster an appreciation for the home language. Bilingual books encourage parents to continue using their home language, knowing that it will benefit, not detract from, their children's school language learning.
Below are 10 tips on how teachers and parents can use bilingual books in the classroom and at home to help children excel in language skills as well as to encourage cultural appreciation.
1) Teachers read a bilingual book out loud in the school language while parents read the same book out loud at home in their language. Did you know that parents who read to their children in a home language can actually help strengthen their children's academic skills? It is true! This is in addition to many other benefits, such as strengthening the parent-child bond through shared language and culture.
2) Teachers read bilingual books in the school language and show the words written in the other language. Teachers can use bilingual books not only to introduce students to languages that use the Roman alphabet, but also to those languages such as Arabic and Chinese that use different symbols and characters. Seeing that languages can be written using a variety of letters and scripts helps children understand that sounds and words can be represented in diverse ways. As the teacher reads the bilingual book aloud, she can point out the different words or symbols in the second language.
3) Read bilingual books that highlight different cultures. When teachers select bilingual books that focus on different cultures, traditions and customs, they are helping children feel comfortable with cultural diversity. It is a gentle way for teachers to cultivate multicultural awareness and appreciation in their students.
4) While reading the story in the school language, pick out a few key words in the other language. The idea here is to stimulate curiosity and interest in language, not to confuse the students, so keep it to a minimum. By periodically using words from other languages, the teacher shows the students that an effort is being made to understand their languages. When we make this kind of effort, it indicates that our students' languages are of value and worth learning.
5) Parents or volunteers read a bilingual book to the class in one language. Have parents of the students volunteer to read bilingual books in their languages out loud to the class. Afterward, the teacher can read the same book out loud in the school language. This strengthens an appreciation of family and community in the classroom, and provides parents the opportunity to offer something in which they are experts: their language. If parents are unwilling or cannot volunteer, find other teachers who know the language and can read the book out loud.
6) Encourage students to write their own bilingual books. After reading a number of bilingual books out loud, work with students to help them create their own bilingual books. They will feel empowered by the fact that they can speak more than one language. Even if they can't read or write yet, teachers and parents can work together with the students to write down the words in each language while the child provides the pictures for each page.
7) Allow children to pick out bilingual books from the school or public library. Having the option to choose our own books is very empowering. Teachers and parents should contact their school and local libraries to find out if they have bilingual books available to borrow. Teachers can also develop classroom "lending libraries" with bilingual books. The benefit of having children pick out bilingual books is that both family members and teachers can engage with children using the same books.
8) Ask questions and encourage discussion in both languages. Bilingual books provide the opportunity for discussion on the same topic in more than one language. Teachers can promote discussion in the school language while parents can encourage it in their language. Teachers can send home a list of discussion topics for parents to utilize at home if they wish. Meanwhile, parents should feel encouraged to share conversations from home about the target bilingual books with their child’s teacher.
9) Encourage children to read bilingual books in both languages. If children can read in both languages, then they should be encouraged to do so, even if one language is stronger than the other. In fact, understanding the story in the stronger language can promote comprehension in the weaker language. Teachers and parents can help this language transfer by encouraging students to read the stories out loud to them as much as possible in each language.
10) Bilingual books provide an opportunity to have fun with language. Having fun with our languages is the most important part of language learning and utilization. Bilingual books provide a springboard for this on many different levels. Discussing the various topics, the words, the different written scripts, and the funny letters in a language's alphabet are just a few ways teachers can make languages fun and exciting for their students. Parents can help their children learn about the school language by asking questions about words, pronunciation and more in the bilingual books that their children bring home. In our effort to reach language mastery, we often forget that enjoyment is the most important ingredient for language success.
These are just a few ideas on how to use bilingual books with children in the classroom and at home. The goal is to help our children embrace all of their languages so that as they grow they will be able to use these languages with confidence and pleasure in the many multilingual and multicultural situations in which they may find themselves. Reading and enjoying bilingual books is one great way to help our children achieve this goal.
Photo Credit: cleverCl@i®ê
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A Favorite Quote
"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."
- Dr. Carl Sagan, American astronomer, writer, and scientist, 1934-1996.
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Lizard Recommends
If you are not already a regular visitor of the Multilingual Living site, we highly recommend you check it out for great support and information on raising bilingual children. While you are there, you can also sign up for a weekly newsletter with research, tips and giveaways!
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About Language Lizard
Language Lizard, LLC aims to enrich children's lives with language and culture. The Company believes that children will be inspired to learn languages and connect with other cultures if they are exposed to fun and creative learning materials early in their lives.
Language Lizard currently offers award-winning dual-language children's products in over 40 languages. To find out more about our company and products, or to sign up for this FREE e-newsletter, please visit www.LanguageLizard.com.
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