Nanduti Listserv and Staying in the Target Language

Victoria Gilbert, Chair of Foreign Language Department at Saint David's School in New York City, writes the following about easing a classroom into immersion in the target language (I've added examples in Chinese!):

Make it a class goal to use ONLY Spanish for part of the time. They don't believe it can happen b/c they have never seen it. Tie a class tortilla (or 饺子！） party to reward using 50- 75 -90% only Spanish and then, keep upping the ante on them until it is part of your routine.

Also, reward those who maintain language in Spanish only, but still talk at least three times per class... Give them a way to be able to ask "como se dice "X"?" （X 怎么说？） as a valid option...so they can start with whatever they do know. Ask regular questions at the beginning of the period that everyone can answer such as Que hora es （现在几点钟？） / Cual es la fecha (今天星期几？几月几日？） / que tiempo hace （今天天气怎么样？），or based on whatever they learned with previous teacher. Give them a sheet covered in plastic pocket page with these basic questions and typical answers they can memorize. Give extra credit points if they get answers correct... Require "Puedo ir al baño?" or "puedo ir a coger agua, etc." （我上厕所可以吗？） as a minimum!"

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