Program Background
Barbieri Program Features
Program Model: Differentiated. In Grades K-3, students are separated by language for part of the day and receive instruction in their native language. After Grade 3, students are integrated all day and follow a 50/50 model.
Languages: Spanish and English
Language of Initial Literacy Instruction: All students are taught in their native language.
Student Background Within the Dual Language Program
Linguistic Profile: 64% of students are native Spanish speakers, and 36% are native English speakers.
Ethnic Profile: Most students (about 71%) are of Hispanic origin. Fourteen percent are white, and about 14% are from other backgrounds.
Percent of students in the program qualifying for free/reduced price lunch: Approximately 50%.
Unit Plan
Standards to Be Addressed
Framingham Public School (FPS) Language Arts Curriculum:
- Learning Standard #3: Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.
- Learning Standard #4: Students will identify the meaning of common idioms and figurative phrases.
- Learning Standard #8: Students will analyze sensory details and figurative language.
- Learning Standard #15: Students will analyze and explain the use of figurative language as it appeals to the senses, creates imagery, suggests mood, and sets tone.
Guiding Questions
- What is a proverb?
- What information is needed to understand a proverb?
- What is the difference between literal meaning and figurative meaning?
Background/Prior Knowledge to be Activated in the Unit
- Students’ personal experiences using proverbs outside of school
- Students’ experience with figurative language in studying metaphors and similes in poetry
- Note: At the same time as this unit is taught, a parallel unit will be taught during English language arts instruction to allow for cross-linguistic comparisons and connections.
Big Ideas
- A proverb uses figurative language to express a feeling or idea.
- Figurative language occurs in poetry and other types of creative writing.
- Understanding figurative language and being familiar with proverbs can promote communication.
- Proverbs convey cultural beliefs
Assessment
Day 1: Read response journals in which students reflect on the meaning of the proverb as inferred from the fable.
Day 2: Assess students’ presentations in terms of how well they convey both the figurative and literal meanings of their proverbs.
Day 3: Observe students perform matching task, which provides an overall assessment of comprehension of all proverbs studied and presented by all groups.
Objectives
Content Area Skills and Concepts
- Using context to infer the meaning of figurative language
- Understanding figurative language
- Understanding common proverbs
Language Skills
- Using figurative language appropriately
- Making an oral presentation
Teaching/Learning Activities
Day 1: The teacher introduces the concept of a proverb by reading a fable that ends with a proverb and having the children infer the meaning of the proverb from the text. Students then work in small groups to read additional fables and to extract the meaning of the proverb that ends each fable.
Day 2: Students work in small groups. The teacher provides each group with a proverb they don’t know and asks each group to predict the figurative meaning of that proverb. The teacher then provides a short story with the proverb embedded in it and asks the students to read the story and revise their prediction as needed. Teachers then provide the figurative meaning of the proverb so that students can confirm their prediction. Students work in their groups to create posters that convey pictures with the literal meaning of their proverb and to restate the figurative meaning in their own words. Finally, each group shares their poster and presents the literal and figurative meaning of it.
Day 3: Students continue to work with their selected proverb in their small groups. Each group writes a skit that shows the appropriate usage of the proverb and acts out the skit for the class. As a culminating activity, students work on a matching activity developed by the teacher in which they are required to match each proverb that was presented by the groups to a situation where the use of that proverb would be appropriate.
Materials/Resources
- Books on fables, such as those by Aesop and Samaniego
- Books on proverbs: My First Book of Proverbs/Mi primer libro de dichos by Ralfka Gonzalez and Ana Ruiz, and 125 refranes infantiles by J. Ignacio Herrera and Ma Luisa Torcida.
- Chart paper
- Markers
- Crayons
Websites on proverbs in English and Spanish:
Lesson Plan
Standards to Be Addressed
Framingham Public School (FPS) Language Arts Curriculum:
- Learning Standard #3: Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.
- Learning Standard #4: Students will identify the meaning of common idioms and figurative phrases.
- Learning Standard #8: Students will analyze sensory details and figurative language.
- Learning Standard #15: Students will analyze and explain the use of figurative language as it appeals to the senses, creates imagery, suggests mood, and sets tone.
Guiding Questions
- What information is needed to understand a proverb?
- What is the difference between literal meaning and figurative meaning?
Motivation (10 minutes)
Whole Group Activity
The teacher asks the students to recall the definition of a proverb and some examples discussed the previous day while reading the fables. The teacher also references the fact that they are learning about proverbs in English as well, and asks them to keep in mind any similarities between proverbs that they learn today in Spanish and proverbs that they either already know or are learning about in English.
Assessment
The teacher assesses the presentations with a rubric that focuses on two areas: the students’ ability to convey both figurative and literal meanings of their proverb and the quality of the posters and presentation. Part of the assessment rubric should address the students’ use of correct vocabulary and their ability to orally present information that they have gathered (using correct grammar, appropriate speech style, etc.).
Extension
For homework, students compare a list of Spanish proverbs discussed during Spanish language arts and English proverbs discussed during English language arts. They determine which have direct translations, which have similar equivalents in meaning but are stated differently in each language, and which are unique to each language.
Objectives
Content Area Skills and Concepts
- Understanding the intended meaning of proverbs and the difference between figurative and literal language
Language Skills
- Vocabulary: proverbio (proverb), moraleja (moral), dicho (saying), sentido figurative (figurative meaning), sentido literal (literal meaning), contexto (context)
- Giving an oral presentation
Thinking/Study Skills
- Representing ideas in speech, writing, and illustration
Materials/Resources
- Chart paper
- Markers and crayons
Teaching/Learning Activities (50 minutes)
Small Group Activity
The teacher divides the class into cooperative groups and provides each group with a sentence strip that has an unknown proverb written on it. The teacher asks each group to predict the figurative meaning of that proverb and to write the predictions on a piece of paper.
The teacher provides each group with a short story that has the target proverb embedded in it, and asks the students to read the story and revise the prediction as needed.
The teacher gives each group the figurative meaning of their proverb so that students can confirm their predictions. Students then work in their groups to create posters that state the proverb, depict pictures with the literal meaning of their proverb, and include the figurative meaning of the proverb (as restated in the students’ own words).
Whole Group Activity
Each group presents its proverb to the rest of the class by sharing its poster and discussing the literal and figurative meaning of the proverb.
Teaching the Lesson
This lesson requires high-level cognitive and linguistic skills and is therefore appropriate for dual language students in the upper elementary grades. A unique and important feature of this unit is that it is taught in a parallel way in both languages, thus promoting not only a deep understanding of figurative and literal meanings in each language, but also the development of cross-linguistic connections. The concurrent English lessons should not be direct translations of the lessons in Spanish; however, similar themes of figurative and literal language should be explored using English vocabulary, and connections should be drawn between language and culture, just as with the Spanish proverbs.
Because this unit demands high-level skills in both cognitive and linguistic domains, it is important that the cooperative groups be heterogeneous with respect to language proficiency and academic ability. This will help ensure that all groups will be able to complete the task successfully, and that all individuals within each group will participate and understand what they have done.
In addition, because of the high-level demands of this task, it is essential that the teacher provide a number of supports for student work. For example, beginning the unit by reading fables and deriving the meaning of proverbs from those fables helps students develop an awareness that the meaning of proverbs cannot be inferred from the words in the proverb alone, but rather must be derived from context. This understanding then translates to the activities in the lesson described here, as each group is given a short story that provides the context for each proverb. Similarly, because each group is required to create a poster that includes both an illustration and an explanation of its proverb and then to present this poster to the class, students in the class are able to base their understanding of each proverb on a combination of pictorial, text, and oral information.
Finally, as a way to promote cross-linguistic connections and to allow children to use their first language to solidify learning in the second language, students are provided with a homework activity that requires them to integrate the knowledge acquired in each language by matching across languages in order to determine which are stated similarly, which are stated differently, and which only exist in one language or the other. Students then classify the proverbs into these three categories and write some ideas about why certain proverbs might be more universal and be stated similarly in both languages, while others might be language or culture specific, and either be stated differently in each language or only exist in one language or the other. Opportunities such as these for students to make explicit cross-linguistic connections are essential in TWI programs.
Supplementary Materials
Guiding Questions and Objectives
This must be posted in a visible place in the classroom:
Preguntas para guiar la discusión
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre el sentido literal y el sentido figurativo de un proverbio, una moraleja o un refrán?
¿Qué tipo de información se necesita para inferir el significado de los proverbios, dichos, refranes, adagios o moralejas?
Nuestros objetivos de aprendizaje
Al concluir nuestra serie de lecciones:
Nosotros sabremos cuál es el significado de algunos refranes y los aplicaremos a situaciones diarias.
Podremos explicar en nuestras propias palabras cuál es la diferencia entre el sentido literal y el sentido figurativo de un refrán.
Books Used for the Proverbs Lesson
Part I of the lesson:
The teacher reads this short story to the class. Then, the teacher reads the Spanish proverb and has the class reflect on literal vs. figurative meaning of the proverb.
1. Valeri, M. Eugenia, El Pez de Oro The story about a poor fisherman who encounters a magic fish. The magic goldfish grants him many wishes, but all is undone by his wife’s greed.
Proverb: “La ambición rompe el saco”
After the class discusses the proverb, the teacher provides several examples where proverbs are used. Each pair of students receives a copy of a fable taken from the following book. Students' task is to infer the figurative meaning of the proverb story based on the fable they read.
2. Lobel, Arnold. Fábulas Ediciones Alfaguara, 1987. This a collection of 20 original fables.
Other useful titles:
Alvarenga, Ciriaco. Refranes, Bombas, Dichos. Impresos Alvarenga, San Salvador, 1996
Bravo-Villasante, Carmen. Fábulas Españolas. Montena, Madrid, 1989
Gonzalez, Ralfka. Mi Primer Libro de Dichos. Children’s Book Press. San Francisco, 1995
Spanish Proverbs
No montes el caballo antes de ensillarlo
Mas vale pájaro en mano que cien volando
Agua que no has de beber, déjala correr
Cuando el río suena, piedras lleva
A caballo regalado no se le mira el diente
Camarón que se duerme, se lo lleva la corriente
Soldado advertido no muere en guerra
Guerra avisada no mata gente
No mates la gallina de los huevos de oro
En boca cerrada, no entran moscas
Content Vocabulary
The content vocabulary for this lesson must be placed in a word wall. The teacher should reference these words during the lesson, and encourage the students to use them.
Moraleja
Proverbio
Dicho
Sentido figurativo
Sentido literal
Contexto
Fables
¿Por qué no me dan algo nuevo?
Durante todo el mes de diciembre Carl les decía a sus papás que quería una bicicleta para Navidad, mientras que su hermano Thomas les decía que él estaría contento con lo que le quisieran regalar. Los padres de los dos niños le decían que no les alcanzaría el dinero para comprar regalos nuevos y que tenían que conformarse.
Cuando llegó el día de Navidad, Carl encontró una bicicleta para él junto al árbol de Navidad, pero..., la bicicleta no era nueva, así que Carl se puso a refunfuñar: “Cómo era posible que él tenía una bici usada?” y la tiró al piso. Mientras tanto, su hermano Thomás estaba feliz con una bolsa llena de libros usados. Cuando los padres de Carl vieron la reacción de Carl, le preguntaron a Thomas si a él le gustaría tener la bicicleta. El inmediatamente respondió “por supuesto” y se montó en ella.
En ese momento Carl decidió que sí quería la bici después de todo, pero ya era muy tarde. Sus padres habían decidido que la bici sería para Thomas.
¿Qué aprendió Carl ese día de Navidad?
A caballo regalado no se le mira el diente
Fortuna Inalcanzable
Escrito por Marleny Perdomo
Mi tío Pepe estuvo en el programa de Don Francisco este verano. Estando allí tuvo la oportunidad de participar en el concurso: “Cuanto atrapas, tanto ganas”. Este es un concurso que consiste en que una persona se mete dentro de una máquina llena de muchos dólares. La máquina empieza a soplar billetes de diferentes denominaciones y la persona tiene un minuto para atrapar todo el dinero que pueda y llevárselo a su casa. Pero cuando la máquina para de soplar, la persona no puede recoger más dinero.
Me cuenta mi tío que cuando encendieron la máquina y el dinero empezó a volar alrededor suyo, él se afanó por atrapar todos los billetes que pudo y llegó a atrapar muchos, especialmente los de $1 dólar. De repente, a mi tío le pareció ver muchos billetes de $100 y soltó los que tenía ya en su mano para atrapar esos, pero en ese momento sonó un timbre indicando que se había terminado su tiempo. Cuando la máquina paró de funcionar, mi tío se miró las manos y quedó perplejo al darse cuenta que se había quedado sin nada.
¿A qué conclusión habrá llegado mi tío Pepe ese día?
Más vale pájaro en mano que cien volando