1. by Tim Schneider Peace Corps Volunteer English Education Ialoveni, Moldova ETRC Spring School March 6-8, 2014

2. What is an absolute beginner? learners who have had no contact with English at all often come from developing nations often have had very little education often more challenging to teach as the teacher can not expect learners to understand even a minimal amount of English The question, 'How are you? will not be understood. The teacher must begin at the very beginning, usually with no common language with which to explain the basics. 3. Improve the learning with: Technology - keep it interesting for 21st Century pupils Words Simple and direct. Dont get confusing. Pictures Bright and colorful. Symbolic. Movement Get the students to move. Interpersonal Have the students share what they learn. Intrapersonal Have the students reflect on what they know. Nature Use nature however possible. 4. Have concrete goals We will learn the 4 seasons and 4 adjectives to describe them. We will learn the 12 months of the year. We will combine the months with their correct seasons. 5. Las Estaciones y los Meses del Ao 6. Las Estaciones invierno primavera verano otoo 7. Vocabulary Memorization Repetition 1967 study found that 7 times resulted in an 80% recall of 216 L1/L2 word pairs. Use of an actual dictionary appears to speed retention of vocabulary. e-dictionaries increase the use of the dictionary, but dont increase retention like a book can. Optimal number of words to learn is between 18-300, but with harder words, fewer is preferred. What is practical for your classroom? 8. invierno fro El invierno es fro. 9. Word association invierno and iarna both start with i fro is close to frig in Romanian or frigid in English. notice the color choice for the adjectives; how can you use color to help with association? 10. primavera clida La primavera es clida. 11. caliente verano El verano es caliente. 12. otoo fresco El otoo es fresco. 13. Assessment Fill in the missing letters. _ nv_ _ rn _, pr _ m _ v _ r _ Mix the letters. - tooo, ovaner Show a picture without the word. Give the adjective - fro Complete the sentence El ______ es caliente. 14. invierno enero 15. invierno febrero 16. primavera 17. primavera marzo 18. primavera abril 19. primavera mayo 20. verano 21. verano junio 22. verano julio 23. verano agosto 24. otoo 25. otoo septiembre 26. otoo octubre 27. otoo noviembre 28. invierno 29. invierno diciembre 30. Homework Poem Tammy White Spring is wet The flowers grow It rains a lot And melts the snow Summer is hot It's full of sun There is no school It's lots of fun Fall is cool The leaves fall down The colors change All over town Winter is cold The snowflakes fall We skate and ski And make snowballs 31. Color and label 32. Where there is a desire to learn, anything is possible. 33. Have fun! 34. Bibliography Vocabulary Learning in a Second Language: Person, Task, Context and Strategies September 2003 Volume 7, Number 2 http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume7/ej26/ej26a4/ HOW TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE - http://www.umich.edu/~lsastudy/foreignlang.html Learn the months of the year in Spanish - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8h5d242-M http://www.coloring-pages-kids.com/ http://voices.yahoo.com/childrens-poem-four-seasons- 2132129.html?cat=25