Image 1 of 4
Image 2 of 4
Image 3 of 4
Image 4 of 4
Description of Folklore en la cabaña story collection
Folklore en la cabaña began with what is still the core of its being – telling stories out loud to my children in Spanish. I wanted to introduce them to a rich variety of sound features and structural aspects of the Spanish language within the context of stories that captured their imagination. I have always used props such as animal figurines or paper puppets to deepen their experience and enjoyment of the story and to help them use Spanish as we tell a story together. Folkore en la cabaña combines my research and fieldwork as a linguist and over 15 years as a classroom educator with the methods I have been using at home with my own children; singing, storytelling, reading, and creativity have been my most powerful tools for raising children bilingually.
All stories take place in the context of a home and its surroundings providing a rich array of vocabulary that describes the spaces of a home; the garden, living room, forest, farm, or kitchen, etc. The vocabulary is represented by hand drawn paper puppets for the teacher and students to move during story (re)tellings. Additionally, each story guide walks you through the process of going on a Spanish-language nature walk or following a Spanish-language recipe.
Each 12-week guide can be used by home educators with a wide variety of proficiency levels - those with basic to intermediate speaking skills as well as native speakers who are looking for tools to help them use Spanish alongside their children. It can be used individually or with a multi-age group of students, providing tasks for students of different ages and abilities within each term (years 1-8/Forms I-III). While learners of all ages and abilities complete the bulk of the daily activities together, students (in yrs 5-8 = LEVEL 2) have the option of completing additional reading, writing, and speaking tasks on day 3 (student workbook provided).
Folklore en la cabaña is centered around the telling of Spanish-language folktales originally written for a Spanish-speaking audience. I have been given permission by the authors to adapt these stories to make them more accessible to a language-learning audience while maintaining their original authenticity and integrity. Through storytelling and narration of these rich tales, students will develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills as they enjoy a feast of Spanish resources.
Additional resources offer the opportunity to:
learn useful phrases
practice pronunciation
describe the date and weather
interact with print materials displayed in your home
sing folksongs and hymns
recite scripture and poetry
go on Spanish language nature walk
follow a Spanish language recipe
read Spanish language picture books
practice verb meanings and conjugations with movement and gesture
Sequence of learning
The four language skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This is the order we learn them in our native language and Folklore approaches second language learning in the same way. This is also the sequence followed by Charlotte Mason who believed that children should learn a second language orally in the early forms.
Target audience
Folklore was designed for Charlotte Mason home educators, but can serve as a language-learning tool for any family to whom its content and approach is of interest and use.
This guide is written for home educators with a wide variety of proficiency levels - those with beginner/basic to advanced speaking skills as well as bilingual/native speakers living in a majority English context who are looking for tools to help them use and maintain Spanish in the home. It can be used individually or with a multi-age group of students, providing tasks for different ages and abilities within each term (years 1-8/Forms I-III).
In using Folklore, my hope is that your family will feel awakened to the joys of language learning and left with a desire to learn more Spanish or other languages as they move on from this program.
“Those who have used them know what Miss Mason’s Geography Books do for the children, how they present pictures of the sport to the mind’s eye, and treat of those matters which the traveller and reader seek to be instructed upon, leaving a taste and a desire to read more about it all later on.
Foreign languages may be taught in the same way, though here the teacher has even more help in the materials she is using, for she has as her handmaid, the beautiful imagery of the language she is teaching, the joy of the sound and rhythm of the beautiful words. But she, as well as her pupil, must see the fresh horizon that opens out and the new light that plays upon her own language, as it is made more intelligible through the study of a foreign tongue, teacher and taught must be inspired by the sympathy towards those who are strangers to them and whose language has hitherto been but a sound in their ears.”
[PNEU article by E.A. Parish, Imagination as a Powerful Factor in a Well-balanced Mind. Volume 25, no.5, 1914, pp. 379-390.]