training

Festival of Languages Tips and Training for Teachers

Students

Classrooms

Materials

Students

General Public
Age five to ninety-five
Target: those new to language

The Festival is intended for the general public. You may expect a wide range of students from children in grade school coming with their parents, to high school and university students, to workers, to retired people. You will therefore want to make your classes interesting in a general way.

You may find that some students who come to your class already have taken a course or two in the language. Sometimes, you may even find that teachers of your language come to your class out of curiosity! No matter how many "advanced" students come, however, always keep in mind that the lesson is for beginners. The Festival is advertised as an event for an event for the neophytes. Please remember this as you teach.

Classrooms

Different Sizes (10 to 40 capacity)
Rooms assigned just before Festival start
Come at least 30 minutes early for room assignment
For multiple presentations, not same room
Schedules widely distributed at Festival Site

If the classrooms were all the same size, scheduling would be no problem. In fact, as soon as you sign up to teach a class, we could tell you what room you would be in. Classrooms are not the same size, however, and this means that the actual room that you will be using will not be assigned until the last possible moment, perhaps the day before. Please be patient.

Come early, at least 30 minutes prior to your lesson, the day of the Festival to find out what room you will be in. One key to having a good Festival is having clear room assignments, so that both you and the students know where the languages are to be taught. On the day of the Festival, all rooms will be marked, hour by hour, with the languages taught there. Relatively large schedule signs will be outside of each of the rooms.

If you will be giving multiple presentations of your , for example, at 10, 12, 3, and 6, you will probably not have the same room for each lesson. You will want to carry all language of your materials with you when you finish each lesson.

Additional schedules will be posted behind the main LinguaFest table. There the public will be able to see a grid which lists all languages to be taught hour by hour, and room by room. Also, if we can, we will make photocopies of the master schedule to hand out. The internet, at the address www.linguafest.org, will include the classroom schedule at least 24 hours before the event.

Classroom Materials

Chalk and writing board
All other items, your responsibility
Souvenirs toward end of class

The classrooms are provided with a writing board and chalk. You do not need to bring anything else to the classroom. In general, I do not recommend that you use equipment such as overhead projectors, videos, and the like. You may want to, however, decorate part of your teaching area with posters, maps, and so on.

If you should wish to use other equipment during your lesson, please remember, for security reasons, to take it with you when you leave.

You are welcome to pass out anything as souvenirs: postcards, pictures, coins (of small value), stamps, things to eat, pages of a newspaper, a one-page grammar summary, etc., etc.

Bring temporary decorations if you wish
Maps, travel posters, newspapers, pictures, etc
Your language on one wall
General decorations on other three walls

You will be using your classroom for a total of 40 minutes. Before your class starts, you may want to put up some decorations such as maps, travel posters, newspapers, pictures, etc on one of the walls. The best place for these temporary decorations is on the one of the four walls where you will be teaching. This wall will usually be one that contains the blackboard or whiteboard. By decorating the "writing" wall, you will be colorfully framed by the decorations that relate to your language.

Decorations are not obligatory, but a little bit of color can go a long way. One easy way to decorate is to take the front page of a newspaper, open it up, and tape it to the wall. If you tape one front page on one side of the board, and a second front page on the other, you will have gone a long way to enhancing the atmosphere of your lesson.

The other three walls may be covered by more general decorations that will stay up for the duration of the Festival day.

Timing

Start punctually on the hour: 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 1:00, etc.
Finish punctually at 40 minutes past: 10:40, 11:40, 12:40, 1:40, etc.
International music starts at 40 minutes past
Let students out on time to enjoy the international music, visit tables, and choose next lesson

Classes start at every hour on the hour, and end at 40 minutes after the hour. Thus, if your class starts at 11:00, you should finish up by 11:40. Please do not go beyond this time because the international musical entertainment starts at 40 minutes past the hour and runs only 10 minutes. If you are late, you students will miss part of the music. In addition, students time to visit the international booths and tables, and they need time to find their next lesson. Finally, the following teacher will need time to set up the room for his or her course. Starting and stopping your lesson on time will greatly contribute to the overall success of the Festival.

TimeLine

Enter your classroom well before the start of your lesson to set up
Stay in classroom or at door before class starts to direct and welcome students
Do not leave classroom while students are searching for and selecting their courses
Start on the hour; finish punctually at the 40-minute-past mark
During lesson, "statisticians" arrive to count number of students (Welcome them in your language!)
A few minutes before end of lesson, Festival Organizers will open door saying (perhaps in a foreign language) five minutes to go! (Al vi restas 5 minutoj!)
End lesson promptly at 40-minutes past hour
Clear out of classroom quickly, so next teacher can set up

You may wish to use the following timeline to think about the overall structure of the lesson. This timeline is in common for all classes and all languages. By keeping it in mind before, during, and after your instruction, you will help keep the constant changing of classrooms and languages running smoothly and efficiently.

T - 20	Previous class ends
T- 19	Enter room and set up (decorations, posters, etc).
T- 15	Finish set up
T-14	Go to door to welcome students
T-10	Stay near door to welcome students
T - 5	Continue to welcome students
T	Your class begins, shut door
T+1	Begin lesson
T+2	Present your language
T+15	"Statisticians" open your door to count students.
T+35	Organizers arrive to say, as a courtesy, that your class ends in five minutes.
T+40	End Lesson

TimeLine Details

T-20

At T-20 (20 minutes before your class start), the previous group should start filing out to enjoy the music, visit the booths, and choose their next course.

T-19

At T-19 (19 minutes before your class begins) you may enter the room to start your set up. Do not worry if all of the previous students and instructor have not yet left the room. If the previous teacher talks forgets that the class is over (like I usually do when I teach!), just smile and say "Will you be long?" in your language! We teachers will get the point that our class is over and it is time to move on!

You have little time to set up, and it is important that you get into the room to place posters or decorations, find out if there is enough chalk, get the feel of the room, and so on.

T-15

At T-15 (15 minutes before your class start) you should be finishing your preparations for the class because you will need to start welcoming browsing students very soon. Some students will selecting their classes very early.

T-14

At T-14 (14 minutes or so before you begin your class), go to the door of your class, or just outside near the entrance way. Your job will now be to welcome students, and let them know that indeed the class for Language XYZ is in this or that room.

T-10

At T-10 (10 minutes before the lesson begins), stay visible either just inside the classroom, or at your classroom door, or at the main entrance way. It is important not to leave the classroom area during this time. Why? Because the public will be roving around, looking for this language or that, and if they see that no one in or near the classroom, they may assume that either there is an error on the schedule, or that the teacher is sick or not available, or that the class has been canceled. You will probably need, during this time before the class, to field questions like "Is this Language XYZ?" or "Excuse me, where is the Russian class?"

At T (the top of the hour when all classes begin), shut the classroom door and get ready to begin the lesson. Do not be surprised if many students are indeed late; take latecomings in stride, with good humor and pleasantness. LinguaFest is a festival and not the Swiss Watchmaker's Convention!

T+1, T+2

At T+1 (Just after you close the door), you may begin your lesson. The nature of the course itself and teaching tips is found in the section Teaching.

T+15

At T+15 (15 minutes or so after you start teaching), the "statisticians" will open the door and count the number of students in your group. You may wish to greet the "statisticians" in your language! The counting will allow us to know how many students come in for each language, and how many people take classes at each hour of the day.

T+35

At T+35 (5 minutes or so before your class ends), the Festival Organizers will open your door to give you a courtesy reminder that the lesson ends in just 5 minutes. You may wish to thank this person by saying something in your language!

T+40

At T+40 (40 minutes after the top of the hour), your class ends. Please be prompt at ending because students will want to listen to the musical entertainment which starts at 40 minutes after the hour. Also, the next teacher will need to get into the room and start setting up.

20 Teaching Ideas

Here are some ideas that may help you spice up your 40 minutes of class. You are in no way obligated to use these ideas. If you have some more methods that work during the Festival, please share them with us; I will put them on the training page!

Please keep in mind that your class if targeted at the General Public, which may include young children, retired people, and linguists--all at the same time. HAVE FUN with this challenge! Now some teaching ideas:

You can tell your students where the language is spoken, and show a map. Bulgarian, I suppose is spoken in Bulgaria, but there may be other languages spoken there, too. In addition, Bulgarian may be spoken outside the political boundaries of Bulgary. Let your students know about this background information.
You can tell what languages yours is related to. (Example, Spanish is related to French, Portuguese, Italian, etc.)
You can speak for a minute or two, without stopping, in your language, to give students a flavor of its rhythm, sounds and melody. You could do the entire class in your language if you have experience with direct language teaching methods.
You could have a one or two minute conversation with a friend who speaks your language in front of the students. If you have three teachers, or four, or ten, you could do a play!
You should teach everyone how to say I LOVE YOU in your language! This is a fun part of the Festival. It may be much more complicated in your language and culture than in English.
You can teach a variety of points about the grammar of your language. Try taking grammar points that differ from those in English. For example:

You could talk about word order. English usually has Subject plus Verb plus Object. Perhaps your language has a different word order. Maybe sentences in your language end with a verb.
You could mention something about nouns. English nouns are very simple, not changing for case. And yours?
You might say something about definite (the) or indefinite (a, an) articles if that is interesting. If I remember correctly, some African languages have very complicated systems of articles.
You might discuss the verb system. Are the tenses different? Chinese, I think, uses a very simple system.
You could show how adjetives are formed. In Spanish, typical adjectives go behind the noun.
You can avoid concentrating on just one point, and discuss a variety of interesting grammatical items, but remember that 40 minutes for a lesson is very little time, so do no spread yourself too thin.

You could discuss word formation. Are there any interesting, systematic prefixes and suffixes, such as is the case in Esperanto, for example? pluvi (to rain), pluvo (rain), pluvero (raindrop), pluvegi (rain hard), pluveti (drizzle), pluvadi (to rain without stopping), ekpluvi (to start raining) etc.
You could pass out a one-page summary with an example of one of the above items. A one-page handout can make a nice souvenir (also, if you give classes yourself, you are welcome to put contact information down).
You could teach a sound of you language. Some languages have clicks, for example. Can your students hear them? Produce them?
You could point out a thing or two for the writing system. Some Chinese characters are very interesting (tree, forest, etc).
You could teach a song. In fact, if you wanted to, you could dedicate most of your class to songs. If you do so, however, make sure that you have written them out with translations, so that the learning goes more smoothly.
Try teaching YES and NO. Easy, but fun! Then try asking simple YES-NO Questions, with exagerated gestures, to elicit the answers. (You) Est-ce que je m'appele Bill Clinton? (Students) NON! (You) Est-ce que je m'appele Napoleon? (Students) NON! (You) Est-ce que je m'appele Dennis? (Students) OUI! Est-ce que c'est un elephant? NON! Est-ce que c'est une table? OUI! Etc.
You can use a variety of methods. Here are a couple of ideas.

Total Physical Response. If you know how to teach, giving commands, you are welcome to try it! You may with to use this method for five or ten minutes. Students love it, and it will really spice up the Festival.
Inductive Methods Give, to take an example, students examples of the singular and plural in your language. Then ask them if they can tell you the rule for their formation. You can use inductive methods to teach a variety of grammar rules.

Say the alphabet in your language. ABCDEFG. . . No need to dwell on the alphabet; just takes about 15 or 20 seconds--but maybe your learned it with a song like American kids! There are more interesting things in a language.
Do a short poem. Roses are red. Violets are blue. Sugar is sweet. And so are you. ETC.
Show some names in your languages that may be known internationally. In Spanish, for example, EL Paso (Texas), LOS Angeles. LAS Cruces (New Mexico), and LA Jolla (California). This could be used to point out something grammatical, too.
Teach some useful phrases!

Good morning (maybe the day is divided differently in your language, and maybe people greet in very different ways!)
My name is. . .
How are you?
I like. . . AND I do not like. . .
Who, what, when, where, why, how much, how many, etc.
I think this is good. I think that is bad. I think. . .
NOTE: these are just sample ideas. The only phrase we would like everyone to teach is I LOVE YOU. You are welcome to teach, otherwise, anything you want!

I highly recommend that you leave five or ten minutes toward the end of your class for questions. For example, What would you like to say in my language?
Hand out some goodies (stamps, snacks, etc.), but make sure the students say May I have a cookie, please? And, make sure they say Thank You!
The music should start at 40 minutes past the hour. Please end promptly, so that your students can enjoy the music. They are always welcome to come back if you have another session!

ABOVE ALL, HAVE GREAT EDUCATIONAL FUN!

Dennis Keefe last updated March 19, 1999