Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Chinese, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Most of our teaching focuses on academic language to meet the content standards of our grade-level. However, social language is as important to our students as academic language. This lesson shows a project in a 4th grade Chinese immersion class in which students share their personal interests and adventures (holidays/cooking/travels) in Chinese through video. Students begin by choosing a topic, planning for any new vocabulary, and imagining the scenes they plan to shot. After some practice, they ask their parents/friends to help them record the video. The videos are then shared with their classmates. The videos are designed to build their speaking proficiency in an informal and fun way that also helps us build community in the classroom. All students are highly motivated and develop their social language through this successful project.