10 Practical Ideas for Making the Language Commitment Work ▪ 06
1. Take a small, erasable whiteboard on which to write meeting times,
meeting locations, metro lines, and/or any other information that is
absolutely imperative for your kids to know. By writing numerals and/or
names on the board, you are not compromising your end of the language
commitment and yet you are providing written reinforcement for the kids
whose aural language skills are weak.
2. Teach fun songs (with actions) before you go that you can sing on the
bus. Have different sides of the bus compete for most romantic rendition,
loudest rendition, rendition with most exaggerated actions, etc. If you are
sharing the bus with other groups, take turns teaching each other favorite
songs.
3. Expose your kids to popular music of the target culture. Make a mix CD
or CDs that you can take with you on the bus. Make copies of the words
to those songs so that kids can sing along with their favorites. Have
karaoke competitions by asking volunteers to sing along with the CD on
the bus microphone. Give prizes.
4. Prepare and bring games for the bus with which your kids are familiar,
so that they require no English explanation.
Examples: Scattergories, quick draw (or hear/circle) with
appropriate monuments and vocabulary, jeopardy,
partner pictionary, charades, card games, etc.
5. Have language activities in your backpack/purse at all times. No place
or time is a bad one to practice the target language. Prepare taskspecific activities for your students for all monuments/museums they will
see. Such focus will keep them communicating in the target language.
6. Prepare and give to students in advance one-page informational
sheets about all of the towns, historical sites, museums they will visit (in
English). This gives the weaker students a heads-up as to what to expect
before they arrive at a given locale. Students can keep these “cheat
sheets” in their travel notebook and refer to them the night before they
visit each site. Include related vocabulary in the target language to aid
their communication.
j. dunkelberger  2003
10 Practical Ideas for Making the Language Commitment Work ▪ 06
7. Phrases, phrases, phrases! You know which phrases the kids will need
to have on the tips of their tongues while abroad. Make sure they’ve
learned them in advance. Encourage kids to teach their U.S. parents
common phrases that they anticipate using regularly in the target
language (e.g. “Thank you!” “You’re welcome”) so that they can
practice them at home before they leave. Encourage them to get in the
habit of using the target language at home and with their friends at
school.
8. Gently refuse to speak anything but the target language with your kids
during the school year in which they are planning to travel. If they need to
speak in English for some reason, ask them to come in before or after
school so that: 1) other kids do not hear you speaking in English and so
that 2) they recognize that the target language is the norm and English is
not.
9. Assign kids to hotel rooms and mix them up! If close friends room
together every time, they will be much more likely to want to continue
their regular English-language habits while abroad. If they have to get to
know some new friends, they are more likely to use their target language
to do so (and, of course, this is great practice for the family stay). When
assigning students to hotel rooms, ask some of the more mature, stronger
speakers to take a younger, weaker student under their wings. Tell them
you have great respect for them and that you have chosen them
especially for this purpose. Almost undoubtedly they will rise to the
occasion.
NOTE: Groups of good friends in the same hotel room can also mean a
higher likelihood that students will try to sneak out. This is an incredibly
stressful (and terrifying) hassle you want to avoid at all costs! Encourage
everyone to meet new friends on this trip and you’ll save yourself many
headaches.
10. Make up soap operas and/or skits while on the bus. Let kids perform
them for their peers. Encourage them to be creative and fun and they
will have a great time. Videotape the performance so as to be able to
include them in the group’s video diary when you arrive home.
j. dunkelberger  2003