Making a sentence

All of my 5-old year students made the same mistake. Soon after I asked them the question, " What time do you eat lunch?", they found what was wrong with this sentence. Smart kiddos!

Reading aloud

Ai is now 5 years old and is in an international kindergarten. She learns content subjects in English. She now can read and write English sight words. Since most of her friends are Japanese, she may speak Japanese more often but has about the same levels of literacy in Japanese and English.

Happy mother's day

In my nursery/K1 class, we did something different yesterday. My students were very happy to be messy and the flowers made the classroom so beautiful.

I'm sure these flowers will make moms happy!

Language Development 7: 35 months old

Ai was singing the English song she had learned at school.

Language Development 6: 34 months old

Ai was singing a Japanese song. Her fluency of Japanese was about the same as her English fluency

Language Development 5: 33 months old

Ai started school in the same month. She seemed to  like singing BINGO in English.

Lesson plan 3: a lesson plan with Krashen’s hypotheses of second language acquisition and Dr. Virginia Collier’s prism model

Grade Level: Grade 3	Content Area 1: Language Arts Content Area 2: Science	Theme: What is solar energy?
Summary	Questions to Guide Lesson Planning	Strategy/Activity Ideas
Krashen’s Acquisition vs. Learning Hypothesis: Language acquisition and language learning are two different ways to develop language skills. Language acquisition is a subconscious process like the way children “pick up” a language (Krashen, 2013) and leads to oral fluency, whereas language learning is based on conscious knowledge of a language and may not enable a learner to communicate orally (Dam, 2017).	How can students effectively interact with each other communicating in English?	Field work: Small group investigation on the differences of outside temperature. Summarization of their findings: Small group activity to summarize their discoveries drawing pictures or creating graphs.
Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis: Teachers should present information in the way students can understand: ESL teachers need to use the second language at the students’ level of comprehension in the first language (Dam, 2017).	What types of teaching materials are useful to enhance students’ understandings?	Read a picture book to introduce vocabulary and solar energy and then use flash cards to review the important words in the book. Repetitive questioning of the entire class, with variation (Park, 2014). Demonstrate reflection of sunlight using a mirror.
Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis: Motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety affect language acquisition. A welcoming and accepting classroom environment benefits students’ language acquisition.	What types of activities should be included to increase students’ motivation and self-confidence and to lower their anxiety levels? How should students’ mistakes be corrected?	Use a cartoon character to introduce solar energy. Make pairs to exchange opinions and share ideas. Correct mistakes indirectly.
Collier’s Prism Model – Language Development: It includes the acquisition of the oral and written systems of the student’s first and second languages across all language domains (Thomas & Collier, 1997). Students’ native language proficiency leads to an effective acquisition of their second language.	How can students’ native language and English be incorporated to promote their acquisition of both languages?	Often ask students, “What do you say this in your language?” Have students make a word list using both students’ native language and English. Story rewriting in both students’ native language and English.
Collier’s Prism Model – Cognitive Development: It is a natural subconscious process that occurs developmentally from birth to the end of schooling and beyond (Thomas & Collier, 1997). Children who reach full cognitive development in two languages enjoy cognitive advantages over monolinguals (Thomas & Collier, 1997).	How can I foster students’ cognitive development? How can I encourage students’ family interactions?	Assign homework to have students explain their learnings to their family in their native language and obtain comments from their parents.
Collier’s Prism Model – Academic Development: It includes all school work in language arts, mathematics, the sciences, and social studies for each grade level (Thomas & Collier, 1997). Academic knowledge and conceptual development transfer from the first language to the second language (Thomas & Collier, 1997).	How can I effectively increase students’ knowledge on the theme? What resources are available to promote students’ academic development in their native language? How can I stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity	Provide reading assignment in their native language. Have students do Internet research on solar energy in their language. Include experiments to encourage conceptual understandings of solar energy.
Collier’s Prism Model – Social and Cultural Process: The process includes all the students’ social and cultural backgrounds and experiences. It relates to students’ affective factors, which can negatively affect students’ second language acquisition without a supportive environment.	How can I get to know more about each student and his or her needs in the classroom? How can a supportive environment be created?	Have students fill out a questionnaire about their needs. Include an ice breaker game as the introduction of the unit. Respond to student-initiated interactions (Park, 2014)