This project was developed to integrate foreign language into existing thematic cross curricular units designed to ensure that my first grade students meet the Maine Learning Results for Modern and Classical Languages. (Our school does not have a foreign language instructor for grades K-5.) Students publish bilingual books in hard copy, and on the web, based on basic Spanish phrases and vocabulary that tie in with the current thematic unit in progress.

Students write, illustrate and publish bilingual books using a variety of technology. Each child, or team of students, is responsible for one page of each book. Each student gets a "published" copy of each book, with individually designed covers, to share with the class, other students and families. Each title then becomes part of a growing collection of resources from which future students can benefit.

Students learn the foreign language content and writing skills in both the classroom and the Lab using a variety of software. Text and illustrations are created both in the classroom and in the Lab depending on the topic and the technology being used to support it. Students are always eager to learn more about technology; and this project allows them to do so in a meaningful way, while learning to speak, read and write basic conversational phrases in a second language.

This project could be easily adapted for all students in grades K-5. It could be used to provide meaningful acquisition of any second language, and allows all students to be successful in a collaborative effort.

Students this age have great enthusiasm for and aptitude for learning languages, and learning about other cultures. Integrating reading and writing and technology skills is a very effective way of allowing students to gain confidence in using these skills, and providing them with the ability to communicate their learning to others in a variety of ways, as well as as well as providing another cognitive link for the subject matter being taught.

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 Created by Tracy Jackson - Wiscasset Primary School. 02/02