World Language teachers can connect to math and support Common Core State Standards through graphing, surveying, story problems, and activities to develop fluency.

One way world language teachers can connect to math while providing comprehensible input is through graphing.  I ask students to list their 10 favorite things to do.  I pass out graph paper and ask the first student what is the number one activity on their list.  I then ask the class to raise their hands if they have that activity on their top ten lists.  We then count hands and graph the results for that hobby, making connections between students who like the same things, and go on to the next student to learn their favorite thing to do. We bar graph hobbies, favorite colors, birthdays, favorite foods, future professions, and anything else that allows us to use the target language. Another favorite graphing activity is the twenty four hour pie charts on how they spend their day.

I ask students “Who is the most important person in your life and why?”  I write the question on the board and list possible answers.  I do a whip around and have each student give me an answer as a student tallies the responses on the board.  Students can analyze, organize, discuss or find an interesting way to present the data.  What are some good survey questions? What is your favorite anything is usually a good starting point (team, animal, food, color, class, teacher, current issues). Students can start surveying from day one in the target language with the how are you or Comment ça va? activity from foreignlanguagehouse.com.  

There are free online survey tools like SurveyMonkey.com, polleverywhere.com, Emodo.com, and my personal favorite GetKahoot.com.  You can teach students how to design a survey, collect information, analyze data, and draw conclusions on-line or on paper. I like to keep survey blank forms on hand. You can give each student a different food or activity and have them survey their classmates’ opinions ranging from I love, I like, I don’t know, I don’t like, or I hate.

Try a group number lift. Arrange students in teams and give them cards with numbers from 0-9.  Call out a number in the target language and students compete to be the first team to hold up the correct answer.  Increase the complexity of the numbers, add operation symbols and give math equations, or story problems.  Math fact relays or white board races help reinforce math facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division which improves fluency in math, supporting CCSS while practicing the numbers in the target language.

Another way to connect to math is to create story problems in the target language. There are some good examples of story problems for food and clothing on Teacherspayteachers.com in Spanish that could be converted to any language.

Exploring the metric system for food quantities, clothing and shoe sizes, figuring mileage and converting money all connect to CCSS.  We do role plays in café skits and the market.  Students use the target language to acquire goods services or information orally or in writing.  Once each year we take over the courtyard outside my room and stage “Le Marché” and “El Mercado”.  Students bring items to sell from home and set up a store or business.  Fake dollars and Euros from Teacher’s Discovery are used and students exchange currencies and buy and sell their goods or services in the target language.  Students speaking English are fined and goods are confiscated.  Students sell croissants at the boulangerie, doughnuts at the patisserie, coffee at a café or soft drinks at l’épicerie.  Students who do not bring a product take a service job like police, banker, custodian and the mayor (me) pays them for their work.

Every day we chart the weather in Fahrenheit and Celsius.  Students can now make the conversion between Fahrenheit and Celsius easily and compete to see who can say it first. Weather reports of Countries or cities in the target language reinforce presentational skills and connect to geography and science.  Students research the five day forecast for a country in the target language.  They prepare a presentation with the high/low temperatures in Celsius &/or Fahrenheit, weather description with graphic, sunrise and sunset with 24 hour clock system.  With only three countries in the world not using the metric system, world language teachers can facilitate the acquisition of this skill daily.

One of our favorite games is a variation of a kid’s counting game called “Buzz.”  Students form a circle and count in the target language but cannot say multiples of a predetermined number; instead they say “buzz.” In the original version students are eliminated until there is a winner, which is fun sometimes however some students want to be eliminated in order to avoid participating.  In Spanish we play a version called “Arroz y Frijoles” adapted from Bryce Hedstrom.  In French I call it “pain et fromage”, it could be peanut butter and jelly in English, use any two words in your target language. Here is a way to play without eliminating students. Divide students into two circles.  Students go around counting aloud one at a time in the target language.  When they hit a multiple of 5 that students says “Arroz” instead of the number. The counting continues with the next number. The object of the game is to get the highest number. The next day, switch to multiples of 7 and have students say: “frijoles”instead of the multiple of 7.  You can then combine and use multiples of 5 and 7 and then a number like 35 is “arroz y frijoles” because it is a multiple of 5 and 7.  You can substitute any number for the multiples and any words for rice and beans. One thing that works well is to have the circles compete against each other.  When someone misses arroz their circle has to start over with the counting.  The person that misses has to go to the other circle but can be absorbed into that circle without them stopping. With this arrangement no one is sitting out, the peer pressure keeps them all trying. Posting the class period and the winning total for each class helps keep motivation going.  With this activity we are not teaching math but reinforcing fluency in math which supports CCSS.Even things as simple as having students change the scores on their papers to a percent and decimal helps according to our math department chairperson.  Common Core does not have to be complicated.  Look for little ways to support math while teaching your target language.