Language Adventure Makes Foreign Language Teaching Possible at Maloney School.
By Pam Giffin-Brees, Maloney School, Grade 2, Fremont, CA.

I feel as though I have four new creatures in my classroom – Pico, Om, Una, and the Professor. The students who are involved in the Language Adventure program bring these four characters back to the classroom on the days they are in the lab. (One has even named his silkworm Pico.)

Most of the students who were chosen to participate were and are excited, enthusiastic and engaged in learning! I have watched and listened in amazement at the amount of vocabulary they have acquired in the short time we have had this program. For the motivated student, the recall is terrific!

The students liked the graphics, the activities, and especially the microphone! Hearing their own voice repeating the words was a strong incentive for learning and improvement. Other students working on other programs in the lab would chime in too – we have discovered 2 who have an ear for language and hope to include them in some part of the program later.

As the teacher, l especially like the support materials. The manual is clear and concise and has supplemental materials for use out of the lab. The program was fairly easy to use and to teach the kids to use, but I was glad I had a parent helper who was good at troubleshooting. She was in attendance at all sessions, and taught and coached the students through the early stages. Her suggestions (for a lab situation )include no more than 6-7 students per adult, and that the students be introduced to the program and mechanics one at a time. Once a student has been introduced to the "how to" part, they can continue independently. We also discovered that having the teacher listen to previous lessons on record is a good way to keep students on task. It is also helpful to have two students on the same language so they can share and talk together, especially if it is a language the teacher is not fluent in.

I really like this program! If you have questions or want to discuss it with me, you can e-mail me at: langadv@yahoo.com.