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Parent Involvement in Teaching Elementary-Level Chinese,Japanese, and KoreanThomas C. Cooper a & Valerie Miller Maloof aa The University of GeorgiaPublished online: 01 Apr 2010.

To cite this article: Thomas C. Cooper & Valerie Miller Maloof (1999) Parent Involvement in Teaching Elementary-Level Chinese,Japanese, and Korean, The Journal of Educational Research, 92:3, 176-183, DOI: 10.1080/00220679909597593

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Parent Involvement in Teaching Elementary-Level Chinese, Japanese, and Korean THOMAS C. COOPER VALERIE MILLER MALOOF The University of Georgia

Parents in Schools ABSTRACT A year-long, federally funded curriculum project between an elementary school and a state university is described in which international parents from the community were trained as instructors of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. In Phase 1 of the project, classes of selected students from Grades 1,2,3, and 4 were formed and taught by foreign-lan- guage education graduate students who were native speakers of the 3 Asian languages. In Phase 2, after the language class- es were well established, videotapes were made to help train 3 selected native-speaking parents who, in Phase 3, took over instruction of the classes. Qualitative data that were collected by interviews and observations indicated that students were very positive and benefited greatly from this parent-involve- ment model, which can be used easily by other schools to establish programs to teach these critical, but less commonly taught languages.

ecause an increasing number of people from other B countries are moving to the United States, schools are being challenged to meet the needs of diverse populations of students. International students are invaluable resources for the school community, for within multicultural school populations, students can learn from one another and engage in intercultural relationships. Yet, although educa- tors have recognized the benefits of a multicultural com- munity, they have not tapped into a potent community and educational resource-the international parent. Those par- ents often do not get involved in their children’s schools because of language barriers or different cultural percep- tions about the nature of parent involvement. One way to bridge this gap is to engage parents as foreign-language teachers in schools. The benefits of that approach are three- fold: (a) Students gain first-hand linguistic and cultural knowledge from a native speaker, (b) the intercultural com- munication and relationships built in the schools expand inevitably into the community at large, and (c) by teaching their native languages, the international parent-teachers have the opportunity to make significant contributions to their new society.

Parent involvement usually has meant parents volunteer- ing their time to participate in school activities and taking an active part in their children’s learning. The Conrad Pub- lic School System in Montana, for example, created a model in which parents and teachers were trained to work as collaborators, with complementary sets of responsibili- ties. In that setting, parents became advisors, learners, and teacher aids (Conrad Public School System, 1989).

Other home-school partnership programs have focused on child development in the years before children enter school (Ehlers & Ruffin, 1990; Hausman, 1989; Rayborn, 1993). Such programs are designed to exploit children’s ability to learn more during their first few years than at any other time and parents’ role as the first teachers. In addition to scheduled developmental screening tests that focus on language, cognitive, social, and motor-skill development, home-school programs include home visits and group meetings for parents.

Because of the ever-increasing number of immigrant families, home-school partnerships designed specifically for international parents are becoming a necessity. School districts and state education departments have created pro- grams aimed at involving international parents in the schools. The California State Department of Education, for example, has developed parent-training programs to help international parents understand the school system and par- ticipate in their children’s learning (Ramirez & Douglas, 1989). Parents are taught tutoring skills and given home learning activities. In addition, educators are trained to be prepared to collaborate with international parents in home- school partnerships. In Chicago, the project FLAME (Fam- ily literacy: aprendiendo, mejorando, educando [learning,

Addre.ts correspondence to Thomus C. Coopec Department of‘ Lunguage Education, Aderhold Hall R. 125, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. (E-mail: tcooper@coe.uga.edu or tcooper@ uthens.net)

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bettering, educating]) was designed to provide adult litera- cy training for parents (Shanahan, Mulhern, & Rodriguez- Brown, 1995). By educating parents and building confi- dence in their reading and writing skills, the project promotes more supportive home-learning environments for children.

One dynamic way to build a home-school relationship with international parents is to use their competence as native speakers of a foreign language by inviting them to teach their own language. However, few projects have involved parents as official language teachers. The Madison School District in Phoenix, Arizona is one of the few school systems that have developed a program in which parent vol- unteers teach their native language-in this case. Spanish, (Acquafredda, 1993). Although parents in the community strongly supported foreign-language study, financial con- straints allowed for only a small program in each school. District officials, however, recruited promising parent vol- unteers who were prepared in the rudiments of foreign-lan- guage teaching to become instructors in the Phoenix school system.

Less Common1.v Taught Languages

Our project dovetails with the Madison School District Project because we also wanted to train parents to teach their native languages. However, instead of choosing one of the traditional foreign languages such as Spanish, French, or German, we selected three Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

According to Walton (1992), one of the significant trends in foreign-language instruction in the United States during the last decade has been an increase in the teaching of the less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) at all levels of instruction. The LCTLs generally include those languages other than French, German, and Spanish that are politically and economically important to the United States. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean belong to that group because they are spoken in countries with whom we have crucial political and economic ties. At least 2 of the languages--Chinese and Japanese-are major world languages; they are includ- ed in the top 10 most frequently spoken languages (World Almanac and Rook of Facts, 1997). All 3 languages are important to the United States for another reason: they are spoken by influential minority groups living within our bor- ders. According to the 1990 U.S. Census (Bialystok & Hakuta, 1994, pp. 190-191), 14% of the total population speak languages other than English at home. Included in this group are 1,319,462 speakers of Chinese, 427,657 speakers of Japanese, and 626,478 speakers of Korean. (The figures are, undoubtedly, much higher now.)

Method

There is a trend to expand instruction in the LCTCs, but finding qualified instructors is a major challenge because of

the few foreign-language education programs that provide teaching certification in the Asian languages (Brecht & Walton, 1993). The aim of our project, which was funded by a grant from the US. Department of Education, was to offer a viable solution to the problem of staffing LCTC courses in our schools by training carefully chosen interna- tional parents to teach Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in an elementary school.

We formulated the following three-step plan that was implemented over one school year: (a) Under the direction of the two project directors, native speakers who were graduate students in foreign-language education at a local university established and taught Chinese, Japanese, and Korean class- es in an elementary school; (b) video technicians recorded the language classes for 2 weeks so the tapes could be used to train selected native-speaking parents; and (c) the parents attended special seminars in foreign-language pedagogy.

To evaluate the project, we addressed the following questions:

1 . What teaching techniques and activities were effective in promoting the learning of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean?

2. What were the students’ attitudes toward learning a for- eign language and the culture of the related country?

3. Did the involvement of the international parent in an American school setting change the parent’s attitudes toward American students and schools?

4. How did being a parent affect her or his performance as a language teacher?

Participants

The project was conducted in an elementary school that included prekindergarten through Grade 5 . The school is situated in a southern college town with a population of approximately 89,000. The ethnic composition of the stu- dents in the school was 41 % African American, 29% Euro- pean American, 15% Asian, 13% Hispanic, and 2% of other ethnic origins. Seventy-nine percent of the students re- ceived free and reduced-priced school lunches, a reflection of the educational and employment backgrounds of the par- ents. Sixteen percent of those parents had graduated from or had attended college and were professionals such as teach- ers or business managers; 28% were high school graduates and were employed as clerks, sales persons, or skilled blue collar workers; and 56% had not graduated from high school and worked as unskilled laborers.

A large state university is within walking distance of the school, and the composition of the elementary school pop- ulation was truly multicultural; 13 languages were spoken by the 382 students. Spanish-speaking students constituted the largest language minority, followed by speakers of Chi- nese, Korean, and Japanese. The latter fact contributed to the decision to offer instruction in Asian languages.

Forty-seven students from Grades 1-4 participated in the new foreign-language program; there was a fairly equal dis-

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tribution of boys and girls (see Table I ) . Each student stud- ied one foreign language. The homeroom teachers who par- ticipated in the project chose the students by determining whether written parent permission had been received and by the availability of free time in the student’s class schedule. The foreign-language classes could not take precedence over required classes such as language arts and mathemat- ics. The teachers confirmed that the students selected repre- sented a typical cross-section of the school population in terms of academic ability, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background.

Procedure

Phase I : Starting the Foreign-Language Classes. Table 2 reports the schedule of classes that were offered. Two Kore- an classes were scheduled for 30 min, 3 days a week for 5 first graders and 10 third graders. Two Japanese classes were offered for 30 min each, three times a week for 9 sec- ond graders and 13 fourth graders. One class in Mandarin Chinese was scheduled for 30 min daily for 10 first graders. The classes were held in a room especially arranged for for- eign-language instruction. The room contained tape re- corders, an overhead projector, and a VCR with a monitor; it was decorated with pictures and realia from the target lan- guage cultures.

During the first phase of the project, which took place during the fall quarter, the graduate students established the classes under the supervision of the project directors. All of the graduate students had worked previously with children in school settings; two of them had taken a methods course on foreign languages in the elementary school as part of

Table 1.-Number of Students Participating in the Study

Grade Boys Girls

I 2 3 4

Total

6 Y 3 6 4 6 7 6

20 21

their doctoral programs. The graduate students created their own instructional materials and supplemented them with authentic cultural materials from their native countries. Communicative language teaching was the instructional ap- proach stressed in the beginning classes (see Curtain & Pesola, 1994). Some of the topics included in the syllabi were greetings, colors, shapes, body parts, daily routines, months and seasons, and animals.

Phase 2: Videotaping and Choosing Parent-Teachers. During the second phase of the project, which took place during 2 weeks in the winter quarter, a professional camera crew videotaped the classes being taught by the graduate students. During this phase, we also conducted a search for three parent-teachers. We first sent the school’s internation- al parents a letter describing the foreign-language project and inviting them to apply if they were interested in becom- ing teachers of their native languages. The remuneration was $1,000 for working with and teaching one to two class- es over a period of 10 weeks. We included a job description flyer outlining the following requisite duties:

Participate in five orientation meetings for teaching chil- dren foreign languages and studying ways to create and maintain classroom discipline. View and discuss the training videotapes of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean lessons. Prepare lesson plans. Be willing to be videotaped.

We received four letters of application per language, and we narrowed that pool of 12 to 2 applicants per lan- guage. We then formed a committee consisting of the proj- ect directors, the graduate students, and several of the reg- ular classroom teachers to interview the most promising candidates. The interviews were conducted in an informal manner with the following requests and questions serving as guidelines:

Tell us about yourself (where you grew up, where you

Tell us about your experiences teaching children. What is the best way to teach a foreign language? Where did you learn English, and what methods did your

attended school, etc.).

teachers use?

Table 2.-Foreign Language Class Schedule

Korean Japanese Chinese Grade 1 Grade 3 Grade 2 Grade 4 Grade 1

Day (n = 5 ) (n = 10) (n = 9) (n = 13) (n = 10)

Monday 12:05-12:35

Wednesday I2:05-12:35 Tuesday I1:00-11:30 I1:35-12:05 12:40-1:10 9:30-10:00 12:05-12:35

Thursday I1:00-1 1:30 I1:35-12:05 12:40-1:10 Y:30-10:00 12:05-12:35 Friday I1:00-1 1130 I1:35-12:05 12:4&1:10 Y:30-10:00 12:05-12:35

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Are you confident that you would be a good disciplinari- an in a class‘? What would you do if you were having trouble with the students’ behavior while teaching a lesson? How com- fortable are you in asking other teachers for help‘? What experience do you have in writing lesson plans? Describe what your classroom would look like if you were teaching.

The candidates’ answers to the questions, their prior teach- ing experience, and the general impression they made helped us to select three international parents whom we thought would be effective teachers for our project.

Phase 3: Training the Parent-Teachers. The third and main phase of the project occurred during the spring quar- ter, during which the international parents were trained to take over the teaching of the language classes. To prepare them, we organized five 2-hr training seminars. In two of the seminars, we discuss the most up-to-date principles underlying foreign-language teaching for children; those principles formed the theoretical basis of our program. The practices that received the greatest emphasis are listed below (Curtain & Pesola, 1994, pp. xiii-xiv):

Children learn languages best when their native language is not used for instruction. Comprehension precedes speaking in the beginning stages. Successful language learning for children is organized in terms of concrete experiences; considerable planning should focus on the use of visuals, props and realia, and hands-on activities involving arts and crafts. Successful language learning activities for children incor- porate opportunities for movement and physical activity. Teachers should use linguistic modifications to make the target language more comprehensible for students in the beginning stages. Some of these are controlled sentence length and complexity, slower speech rate (but not distort- ed), and the use of restatement, expansion, and repetition. The videotapes of the sample lessons served as the basis for discussions about techniques for teaching languages. To provide guidance for viewing the teaching strategies, we gave the parents a checklist (see Appendix A). Two of the training sessions were devoted to discussing ways to establish the optimum climate for successful learning; many of the ideas came from Discipline With Dignit?, (Curwin & Mendler, 1988). The parents also vis- ited the classrooms of teachers who were noted for their success in creating and maintaining an atmosphere con- ducive to learning.

During the training sessions the parent-teachers began team teaching with the graduate students, then they as- sumed gradual control of the intact classes for 5 weeks. Al- though the doctoral students remained in the classroom to provide assistance, they relinquished their roles as primary teachers and assisted the parent-teachers as aids.

Data Collection and Analysis

We collected data for project evaluation during the final 5- week phase of the project after the parent-teachers had assumed the role of class instructor. We used four methods of data collection: (a) class observations by the project direc- tors (the authors), (b) student interviews, (c) parent-teacher interviews, and (d) parent-teacher reflection journals.

For the class observations, the co-directors (the authors) visited each class at least once a week. We usually were given a lesson plan to help follow the instruction, and we took field notes on how the class proceeded. The checklist of teaching strategies given in Appendix A focused our observations. To gather students’ input, we developed an open-ended questionnaire and interviewed them in groups of 3 or 4 over a 2-week period at the end of the project (see Appendix B). To collect the parent-teachers’ input, we interviewed them during the final 2 weeks of their teach- ing experience. The questions that were asked during the interviews are given in Appendix B. In addition, the par- ent-teachers recorded their perceptions and thoughts about the project and their teaching experiences in reflec- tion journals.

We analyzed data obtained from the class observations, the student interviews, the parent-teacher interviews, and the parent-teacher reflection journals by identifying, cod- ing, and categorizing the primary patterns that we found (Patton, 1990). Appendix C gives an example of the coding process with the student data from the group interviews. Both project directors took part in the data collection and data analysis. To assure interrater reliability, we met regu- larly to discuss the analysis results we obtained and to re- solve any differences in the interpretation of results.

Findings

The following material describes the principal findings from the data analysis. The quotes that follow the questions are representative of the complete body of data.

1. What teaching techniques and activities were effective in promoting the learning of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean?

The most effective techniques and activities used by the parent-teachers were included under the following four cat- egories: (a) modifying the lesson, (b) using concrete mate- rials, (c) planning playful contexts in which to use the tar- get language, and (d) rewarding students.

Modifying the lesson included such strategies as repeat- ing words or phrases, speaking slowly, using English when necessary, or giving individual assistance. For example, one student stated, “She makes it easier by saying the words very clearly and slowly.” The use of concrete materials also helped the students learn. Concrete materials included realia, props, and visuals such as food and items of clothing, stuffed animals or a globe, and illustrations of seasons and family members. One student emphasized the importance of visuals by stating, “Our teacher will show us the pictures

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of farm animals so we will know what we are looking at and talking about.”

Playful contexts that encouraged students to use the lan- guage were created with songs, rhymes, games, and hands- on activities. “She makes up a song like ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’ so we can learn,” reported one student. Another student said, “When we get to play games, we get to put our hands over our heads, and she puts a card into our fingers, and we have to guess what it is. That’s how we learn the names of things in Japanese.” In addition, the students often stated that rewarding them with stickers, treats, and privileges helped them to stay focused. “If we say the right word, she has a treat for us,” claimed a student.

2. What were the students’ attitudes toward learning a foreign language and the related country’s culture?

Students’ attitudes fell into the following three cate- gories: (a) eagerness to share their knowledge with others, (b) interest in using words and phrases of the foreign lan- guage to interact with native speakers of the language, and (c) appreciation of the opportunity to learn a new language.

Students often mentioned their desire to share their new knowledge with others, particularly with family members. For instance, one student explained, “I really like learning it because I can teach it to my family. I taught my dad how to say ‘good afternoon’ in Korean.” Another student expressed an eagerness to impress friends with the new language: “I say Chinese at my house when my friends come over. In- stead of saying ‘thank you,’ I say ‘xie xie,’ then I tell them what I mean.”

More important, the students recognized opportunities to interact with native speakers. “I made a new friend from Japan, and now I can communicate with him a little,” ex- claimed one student. Students also realized that their new knowledge could help others: “I like most learning this lan- guage because we get to help other kids that just came to our school with their school work and stuff.”

Given the exclusive nature of the foreign-language pro- gram, students also acknowledged their appreciation for the opportunity to participate. “I feel lucky to be learning Japanese because only fifty students were picked for for- eign language,” declared a student. Another student said “I feel proud of learning a new language.”

3. Did the involvement of the international parent in an American school setting change the parent’s attitudes toward U.S. students and schools?

In their interview responses and journal entries, the three international parent-teachers expressed relief after the ini- tial contact with their students was behind them. They had heard that students in U.S. schools were very active, that they would ask many questions, and that usually they would talk out of turn. However, the parent-teachers were pleas- antly surprised when they discovered that their students did raise their hands when they wanted to talk. Furthermore, they found that their students worked well together in groups. The parent-teachers were surprised by the spirit of cooperation because students in their countries tend to be

much more competitive and do not like to share knowledge. One parent was amazed that Black students and White stu- dents worked harmoniously with each other in class. The parent said, “I guess racial problems come later when chil- dren get older.”

4. How did being a parent affect the parent’s performance as a language teacher?

The parent-teachers believed that being parents played a significant role in their classroom experiences. One parent, for example, felt that she had learned much about U.S. schools from listening to her 7-year-old daughter’s friends who frequently came to her house and talked about books they were reading, games they liked to play, and television programs they had watched. According to the parent, “I felt I was a better teacher because I knew where my students were coming from, what they thought about things, and what they had done before I got them in class.”

Another teacher indicated that as a parent she was always interested in knowing about what her child was doing in school. She therefore tried to keep her students’ parents informed about and involved in the activities in her own classroom. She had learned this lesson earlier when, not yet a mother, she had taught English at a foreign-language school in her native country. If the parents were not satisfied with the English instruction their child received (largely meaning being kept informed about the class), they with- drew her or him from school. So in her class in this country, the teacher sent home notes and lessons with her students. In one instance, she included a song text that also contained the musical notation for the song; one parent was delighted that she could play the song on the piano and help her daughter learn the foreign-language words. The parent- teacher pointed out that she also had a good store of authen- tic children’s songs, games, and finger plays that she had taught her son. As a teacher in the project, she was able to use those activities in her lessons.

According to all three of the international parents, being a parent helped them to develop a higher degree of tolerance toward student behavior. One of the teachers stated: “When I was single and if a child misbehaved, I thought that the child was bad; but now as a mother, my heart is more gen- erous. I try to figure out why students are making mistakes and adjust my approach to the lesson. I also try to be fair, because the unruly student could be my son, and I want my son to be treated fairly.”

Discussion and Implications

The findings of this project underscore the benefits of engaging international parents as foreign-language teach- ers. The findings concerning effective teaching techniques support close adherence to the foreign-language learning practices that were used as a basis for the training seminars. They confirm that activities should be structured to match students’ developmental levels; the modifications made by the parent-teachers to facilitate the students’ language

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learning reflect this key concept. Furthermore, language learning is more successful when lessons are organized around concrete experiences through songs, hands-on activ- ities, and realia. Although the reward strategy is not high- lighted as a key concept of foreign-language learning, edu- cators have always used positive reinforcement as a technique for motivating students.

The following five categories represent what the students had learned: (a) everyday expressions, (b) words grouped around different topics, (c) aspects of the Asian country’s culture, (d) written characters of the target language, and (e) acceptance of others different from themselves. Some everyday phrases included greetings, requests, and expres- sions of gratitude. One student said “I like it because we learn everyday life words like our names, ‘hello.’ ‘good bye,’ and ‘What is this?”’ Students also learned sets of words for different topics such as animals, food items, num- bers, months of the year, and family members: “We learn the fruits and vegetables and different animals.”

The students learned about various cultural aspects of the target-language countries. The parent-teachers brought in native food and clothing; they taught the students native songs, rhymes, and stories; and they engaged the students in cultural activities such as origami, paper cutting, and tea ceremonies. Students also learned how to write their names in the characters of the particular Asian language they were studying.

Being exposed to the written and spoken language and the culture of the countries influenced students’ perceptions of the native speakers. One student’s comment illustrates a greater acceptance of others: “They are just like us on the inside and outside. They just have a different language.”

The students’ enthusiasm for learning a new language and culture was evident not only in their expressions of appreciation for having that opportunity but also in their attempts to share their knowledge and interact with native speakers. The students indicated that their lives had been enriched because they had acquired some knowledge of a second language. Sometimes their comments reflected a sense of pride; they wanted to impress friends and family with new words. The students also recognized the concrete benefits of‘ knowing another language; being able to com- municate with foreign-language speakers at school and in their neighborhood was perceived as important, especially when someone needed help.

The main goal of this study was to train international par- ents to teach three of the LCTLs in a particular elementary school. This project was successful because there were par- ent-teachers available who were qualified to teach the stu- dents new material; they built on the foundation that had been laid by the graduate students who developed and taught the classes during the two preceding quarters. The findings must be interpreted in the context of the preceding sentence because the results of the data analysis were af- fected by the graduate students’ work. Thus, the larger ques- tion is whether the concept of parents as teachers-as it was

developed in our research-is generalizable to other schools that do not have access to graduate student assistance, or whether the project was too specific to the setting described here to be applicable elsewhere.

On the basis of how well the parent-teachers were able to take over and teach the established classes, we believe that our concept could be implemented at other schools with international students, if the following conditions are met:

The native-speaking parents who are trained as teach- ers must be selected carefully. Effective screening proce- dures depend on (a) creating a pool of candidates through letter solicitation, (b) forming a selection committee of teachers and staff from the school, and (c) intensively inter- viewing the most promising candidates. It is important to offer remuneration to the parent-teachers for their efforts because that gesture implies that the administration is seri- ous about the school’s foreign-language program.

Training the new teachers is of crucial importance. It is necessary for the school to work with a foreign-language expert during the training process. Such a person could be a supervisor from the central administration, a university pro- fessor, or a foreign-language teacher from the school sys- tem who has experience in teacher training.

A mentor from the teaching staff should be assigned to the parent-teacher so the new teacher has a sense of being a vital member of the school. The mentor can familiarize the new teacher with the school’s policies of operation. To assess the performance of the teacher, the mentor can ob- serve classes and offer suggestions for improvement.

In the last analysis, the school must make a commit- ment to incorporating foreign-language instruction into the curriculum. That condition is important because curricular innovations are undertaken too often without the necessary financial and personnel support. The concept of parents as teachers of the less commonly taught languages, however, offers a promising and efficient way for a school to provide a viable foreign-language learning experience at an afford- able cost.

Conclusion

The use of international parents as teachers of the less commonly taught foreign languages offers many advantages in the classroom. Such parents have a unique perspective on language teaching because they are native speakers and authentic representatives of their culture. They realize that foreign-language study is important for the United States because it affords students the opportunity to develop a respect for other ethnic groups and cultures. If our country is to succeed as a harmonious multicultural society in the 2 1 st century, we must gain respect and tolerance for the views and cultural patterns of minority groups living within our bor- ders. One parent underscored this opinion by stating: “Many Americans are not aware of other countries and traditions. They think America is the center of the world. Learning a foreign-language [should] not become just a piece of memo-

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ry; maybe [this knowledge] will affect students' lives and the way they think about the world as adults."

The parents in this study, who are members of minority groups living in the United States, will probably remain in this country for an extended period of time. The opportuni- ty to perform as a teacher provided them with the means to become significantly involved in what is for them a new society; and because their own children attend U.S. schools, they have a vested interest in contributing to a school's cur- riculum by helping to expand and improve it.

REFERENCES

Acquafredda. M. (1993). A purent volunteer programfi)r the 5th and 6th grcrdes to teuch Spanish: The Phoenix e.rperiment. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 372 596)

Bialystok, E.. & Hakuta, K. (1994). In other words: The science and psy- chology of second-lauguage acquistion. New York: Basic Books.

Brecht, R. D.. & Walton, A. R. (1993). Nmional srrategic planning in the less commonly taught lmguuges. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, The National Foreign Language Center.

Conrad Public School System. (1989). A model for rural schools to involve parents in the education nftheir children. Bozeman: The Conrad School System and Montana University. (ERIC Document Reproduction Ser- vice No. ED 329 395)

APPENDIX A Videotape Viewing Checklist

Instructional Techniques and Activities of the Teacher I . Use of the target language 2. Use of visuals, realia. and props to make the lesson concrete 3. Use of craft activities 4. Use of songs and rhymes 5. Incorporating physical activity into the lesson: for example,

total physical response techniques, dances, and games

Management Techniques Used by the Teacher I . To start and end the class 2. To elicit student responses 3. To encourage turn-taking 4. To reinforce and encourage the students 5. To deal with disruptive behavior 6. To keep students on task 7. To clarify or explain if students do not understand

Overall View of the Lesson 1. Was the lesson clear'? 2. Were the students interested'? 3. Did the lesson have a communicative emphasis'?

Curtain, H. A,. & Pescola, C. A. (1994). Lnnguages and children: Making the march. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Curwin, R. L., & Mendler, A. (1988). Discipline with dignity. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Ehlers, V. L., & Ruffin, M. (1990). The Missouri project-Parents as teachers. Fncus on Exceptionul Children, 23, 1 - 14.

Hausman. B. (1989). Parents as teachers: The right fit for Missouri. Edu- cational Horizons, 67. 35-39.

Patton, M. Q. ( 1990). Quulitutive evuluurion and research ntethods. Lon- don: Sage.

Ramirez, J. D., & Douglas, D. ( I 989). Lcmguoge minorit?; ptrrents rind the school: Con home-school purtnerships increuse student .su~~cc.s.s ? Sacra- mento: California State Department of Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 349 349)

Rayborn, K. B. (1993). Literacy 2000: Challenge to parents. Reuding Improvement. 30, 56-58.

Shanahan. T.. Mulhern, M.. & Rodriguez-Brown, E ( 1995). Project FLAME: Lessons learned from a family literacy program for linguistic minority families. The Reuding Teachez 48, 586-593.

Walton, A. R. ( 1992). Expunding the vision nfforeign-language ediccution: Enter the less conintonly taught languugc,.s. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University, The National Foreign Language Center.

World almanac and hook of'f i ict .~. (1998). Mahwah, NJ: World Almanac Books.

APPENDIX B Open-Ended Questionnaire

Sample Student Group Interview Questions 1. What do you like most about learning a foreign language'? 2. What lesson do you enjoy the most. and why? 3. What does your foreign language teacher do to help you

4. What does your foreign language teacher do to make the

5. What could your foreign lauguage teacher do to help you

6. What have you learned in your foreign language class'? 7. What is easy to learn'? 8. What is difficult to learn'? 9. How do you feel about being able to learn a foreign

language?

classroom? If so, how'?

learn the language'?

lesson fun and interesting'?

learn better or to make the class more interesting'?

10. Have you been able to use your new language outside the

Sample Questions Asked the Parent-Teachers

hefore your teaching experience here?

changed'?

parent?

the United States affect your teaching this quarter'?

I , What did you know about American students and schools

2. Have your feelings about American students and schools

3. Did you act differently as a teacher because you are a

4. Did the fact that you are a member of a minority group in

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Category

APPENDIX C Samples of Coding Categories and Student Responses to the Interviews

Sample Responses

Strategy Modifying the lesson

Planning memingful communicative contexts

Concrete materials

Rewarding students

Attitude Appreciation of the opportunity

Willingness to share knowledge with others

Willingness to interact with native speakers

Knowledge Everyday sayings

Classifications

Culture

Written characters

“She first tells us in Chinese then she tells us in English.” “I like it because she acts it out so we really know what she means.”

“The songs are helpful because it has lots of Chinese words in it.”

“I like when we use those cups and those strings and make phones.” “The teacher brings umbrellas and scarves. She says something in Chinese and we pick it up.”

“The teacher gives us some stickers and candy when we are good.”

“I enjoy being in this class and accomplishing everything we have and it helps me learn a lot.”

“I’m real happy taking Korean and teaching other people about it who wants to know.”

“I like learning a new language because I can speak t o other students that go to my school.” “Someday I want to travel to Korea and talk to them and ask them questions.”

“The first thing we learned was his name and how to say ours.”

“I like learning new words such as materials we use in school-things like pencil and eraser.” “We have heen studying about body parts . . . like knees and other parts.”

“I learned we have different cultures than them.” “We get to do a lot of Chinese things.”

“I love to write my name.”

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