THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 10, 1995 TAG: 9504100023
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Nancy Pyle and Linda Bouchard like to get physical with their students, but they're not P.E. teachers. They teach French and Spanish, respectively.
Their middle school students don't spend a lot of time in their seats.
When Pyle tells them, ``Fermez la porte,'' they actually get up from their seats and close the door to the classroom. The students, in turn, keep Pyle and Bouchard hopping.
The teachers will follow any command they're given in a foreign tongue. ``They have asked us to stand in the trash can or climb up on the table,'' Bouchard said. ``Once I had to find a way to touch the ceiling.''
It's all part of an innovative method of teaching languages called ``total physical response.'' The idea is that you don't learn by routinely conjugating verbs or repeating scripted dialogues. You learn by doing.
``I believe that everything they do they will learn better if they have to do it physically,'' Bouchard said.
Pyle added: ``The easiest way to learn a second language is the way you learned your first language. Your mother didn't say, `Conjugate this verb.' She said, `Pick up your toys.' ''
Like traveling minstrels, Pyle and Bouchard shuttle among the city's three middle schools daily.
They're flexible with lesson plans.
``I know what I want my students to have learned at the end of the year, but I believe in the teachable moment,'' Bouchard said.
``I am a very spontaneous type of teacher.''
In an eighth-grade class at John F. Kennedy Middle School last week, students were buzzing, trying to craft their own dialogues from a few English directions. In pairs, they then tried them out in front of their peers. Nothing fancy, just a few lines.
Bouchard waited until the end to correct them. ``I only help them after they present it,'' she said. ``That way, they can work out some of their problems.''
Students say the physical approach works.
``It makes it a whole lot easier because of the games we play and the skits, like Simon Says,'' Jessica Quesinberry said. ``By acting, I know what to do.''
Shameike Pruden likes Bouchard's version of Bingo, which tests students' knowledge of their numeros.
``I won a dollar,'' she said, ``because I knew my numbers.'' MEMO: [For a related story, see page B1 of The Virginian-Pilot for this
date.]
ILLUSTRATION: BILL TIERNAN
Staff
Amanda Slingerland, 13, laughs at an answer given in Linda
Bouchard's Spanish class at John F. Kennedy Middle School, in
Suffolk. Students are asked questions about a poster in Spanish and
must answer in Spanish - part of the ``total physical response''
method of learning.
KEYWORDS: FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION by CNB