Search

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). To this end, the Center provides professional support for foreign language educators through ongoing research projects, publications, and national summer institutes. In the summer of 1996, the Center offered the Culture and Children's Literature Institute of France and Mexico. Forty participants (20 teachers of French and 20 of Spanish) were selected from applicants across the nation to participate in the 10 day institute. This institute focused on effective strategies for the development and teaching of thematic curriculum units based on cultural knowledge and children's literature of France and Mexico. A key component of this institute was small group collaboration in the development of thematic units integrating language, culture, and content. Each small group selected a work of children's literature and created a unit. During the fall of 1996, the teachers piloted their units in their own classrooms after which final revisions were made. This unit was based on the children's book, "Le geant de Zeralda." The French language teachers who selected "Le geant de Zeralda" for their thematic unit developed the unit for intermediate or advanced high school students. This unit links language, content, and culture, as it explores a fairy tale based on the legend of ogres by author-illustrator Tomi Ungerer. In this unit, students learn about French-language newspapers, art, history, and culture of the Middle Ages; they enrich their knowledge of the role of food in French culture; and they also participate in the planning of their own meal "a la francaise".