INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS
The videos that introduce each lesson may well prove to be the most helpful aspect of the ULAT to the teacher using the program for the first time. They allow the ULAT instructor to simulate working directly with the students, thus providing the students with an introduction to the lesson's topic before the students perform the lesson's exercises independently or with their classroom teacher. They also allow the ULAT instructor to demonstrate to the classroom teacher how the program can be used and material presented.

By clicking on the image of the instructor at the beginning of the lesson, you are taken to a page on which you will be automatically directed to the video corresponding to that particular lesson. Click on the video and then maximize the screen.

Watching the video in class is an optional activity, which is why it is numbered as "0" in the lesson plan. It is for you as the classroom teacher to determine if watching the entire 10 to 25 minute video is helpful to the students and if they are able to maintain their attention throughout. A second option regarding how to use the video would be to assign the students the task of watching it independently, either on the school's computers or at home. Thirdly, the teacher may choose simply to watch the video on his or her own before presenting the lesson to evaluate how the lesson might best be presented.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS
Present each of the singular personal pronouns. Insist that the students imitate the gestures as they repeat the pronouns! To show the distinction between the familiar "you" and the formal "you" (if such a distinction exists in the language you are teaching), take a student, put a tie around his neck, or some other mark of maturity/authority, and place him in the doorway. Go down the row casually saying "you" familiar as you point directly into the face of several students. Then turn toward the doorway, feign surprise and, bowing deeply, to your "guest" and performing the appropriate gesture for "you" formal, show him great deference and give him a comfortable seat in the front of the room. Repeat the process, pointing casually in the face of a number of students and saying "you" familiar and then, when you get to your "guest", again make a show of bowing and showing respect as you say the appropriate word and do the gesture for "you" formal.

When introducing the third person singular pronouns, make a show of turning your face away from the person to whom you are pointing and then, looking at another student, say the appropriate pronoun in referring to the first student. When the students imitate you, if certain ones say the pronoun while looking at the person to whom they are referring, emphatically turn their head away from that person and then have them repeat the pronoun.

INTERACTION SEQUENCE
An interaction sequence is a series of four activities, all located within the same section of a ULAT lesson, whose goal is to simulate live conversation between the student and the online instructor. In the first activity, the students must form a question as indicated by a series of images. Secondly, after clicking on the images to verify the accuracy of their question's structure, they click on the image of a computer mouse to hear the online instructor's response to that question. Thirdly, at the end of his response, the instructor turns the question around and asks it of the student, who must in turn answer the question. Finally, the students watch a video in which the same questions are posed and answered, but in a more natural and conversational manner. You can watch the video below for further illustation of an interaction sequence.

READING A LESSON
What does it mean to "READ" through a lesson which is composed exclusively of images? How can one "read" elements of the lesson when there are no written words in the lesson? When the term "read" is used in an oral lesson, it means to say the word or form the statement that corresponds to the image or series of images, thus it is very much like reading.

Reading through the lesson before the students is not merely a time to show that the teacher can form the statements. What happens during this activity is of the utmost importance. While reading through the lesson, the teacher teaches or reinforces gestures corresponding to the images, introduces kinesthetic representations of structural modifications that occur to a word from the original form of that word learned by the students, owing to the word's particular function in the sentence, and emphasizes, with his or her voice or gestures, irregularities and elements in the lesson deserving special attention.

KINESTHETIC REPRESENTATIONS OF GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE
As the teacher reads through a series of statements, all aimed at teaching a new grammatical structure, it is helpful for the teacher to use his or her body to visually represent the modifications that take place in words as they are employed in a context requiring a change in their form from the way in which they were first introduced to a student. Such modifications much be the changes an infinitive undergoes when conjugated, or what happens to a singular noun when pluralized or again the modification of an adjective for reasons of number and gender. Using Spanish as an example, after performing the gesture for the first person singular pronoun (yo), one can form an "o" shape with one's hand and, tapping it against one's chest and repeat the sound "o", which is the simple present verb ending in the first person singular. Similarly, the Spanish teacher can trace an "s" in the air with his index finger (learn to do it backwards so that it looks like an "s" to the students facing you) to emphasize the second person singular verb ending. For the "you" formal and the third person conjugations, Spanish teachers can hold up the five fingers of their hand, saying the entire infinitive and then, with the other hand, pull down the last two fingers of the hand they are holding up while making a sharp chopping sound with their mouth. This emphasizes the dropping of the sound of the infinitive's ending in these conjugations. You can even train the students to perform these manual gestures and to say the sound of the verb's various endings so that the conjugations become automatic to them, retention being enhanced by the performing of the manual gesture while saying the word and hearing it echoed by one's classmates.

Whichever the language you are teaching, come up with some similar system to symbolize the simple present verb conjugations. Why is this so important? It is critical and extremely useful for three reasons. First, as already mentioned, performing a manual activity while seeing the image and saying and hearing the word involves four senses and will greatly enhance retention - and does so without any recourse to the student's native language. Secondly, you are attempting to take the students on the shortest route possible to oral self-expression, not wanting to fill their minds with analytical grammar presentations charts and rules. You are trying to empower them to SPEAK, and to speak combinations of words of their own choosing, as quickly as possible. Physical representations of grammatical concepts is the fastest and safest path to your goal. Finally, and this cannot be overstated, students must be imbued with the confidence that they can express themselves effectively. Time and again, you will use these gestures to prompt the students when they are at a loss as to how to begin a statement. In the same way, rather than providing students with a corrected statement when they fail to conjugate correctly, you can simply take them back through these gestures (the pronoun, the verb stem and the ending) without saying a word yourself, thus leaving the initiative with the students and preserving their sense that they can be successful in expressing themselves, as opposed to merely parroting back the teacher's statements.

LAYING A "DEEP STRUCTURAL KNOWLEDGE" THROUGH MUSCLE MEMORY
As the students are forming the statements in the final section, insist that they perform the gestures as they say the words, including the manual representation of the verb's conjugation, unless such does not exist in the language you are teaching. Then having performed the gestures while making the statements, allow them to make the statements again without the gestures, correcting them by means of the manual gestures, but doing so silently when they make a mistake. Having the students perform the gestures as they form the conjugations reinforces retention. There is also something inherently desirable about cultivating an understanding in the students regarding the manipulation of a language's elements without that understanding being tied to an analytical process, expressed in terms of charts and rules, through which their minds must pass before speech can be formed. In essence, you want the students to know how to manipulate the elements of the language without being able to verbalize why they do it as they do. The verbalization is for the linguistic scholars whose profession impels them to put explanations into writing regarding a language's structure.

Very practically, when advised to "point" at the images, it is a good practice to use a pointer so that you can be specific regarding the image to which you are referring and to do so without getting in the way of the screen. Such a pointer can simply be a dowel picked up at the local hardward store.

THE REVIEW SEQUENCE
Typically, one uses the "review sequence" at the beginning of a class period to remind the students of new vocabulary, or new structures, and their corresponding gestures. The review sequence is composed of but two steps:

The teacher says a word or statement and the students silently perform the corresponding gestures.

The teacher performs the gesture and the students say the corresponding words or phrases.

THE DRILLING SEQUENCE

The instructor should first read through the lesson, highlighting elements that may cause difficulties for the students. A good practice is for teachers to take on the persona of a student, imitating and verbalizing their thought process aloud, as teachers go through the reading, thereby modeling the thought process at which they want their students eventually to arrive.
If you have computers in the classroom, or access to a computer lab, provided that headsets are available, the students should then be allowed to study the particular ULAT lesson in which the new information is contained. Teachers should discreetly follow their students progress through the lesson so as to call the students back from the independent study session just as the students are about to
To hold students accountable for how they used their time on the computers, an initial oral participation should should immediately follow the computer session. The statements must be correct for the students to receive credit, however the teacher may want to provide them with some non-verbal guidance at this point, such as the kinesthetic representations the teacher has shown the student that represent grammatical structures.
Next, as the teacher advances the lesson at a steady, yet challenging pace, the students work in pairs with their immediate neighbor alternating in forming the lesson's statements and providing one another with feedback.
If the subject of study involves an understanding of first, second and third person forms, an interrogation sequence can be used. The interrogation is a tightly structured conversational drill that obliges students to use all of the possible forms of the grammatical form being studied. It is composed of the following steps:
- The teacher first makes a statement about himself. (I like to listen to classical music.)
- The teacher then asks student no. 1 about himself and another student, student no. 2, (Do you two like classical music?)
- Student no. 1 answers the question (I like classical music.) about himself and asks the question of student no. 2. (Do you like classical music?)
- After student no. 2 answers (No, I don't like classical music.), student no. 1 informs the teacher of the response to his initial question. (Yes, we like classical music.)
- The teacher makes a new statement about himself (I live in the country.) and then asks student no. 2 to ask two other students whether what the teacher said is true for them as well. (Do the two of you live in the country?)
- To ensure that all of the students were paying attention throughout the sequence, the teacher can repeat the same questions about specific students who answered those questions. Only accurate answers will receive oral participation credit.
Finally, again to hold the students accountable for their attentiveness and effort, a secondary oral participation session is conducted. After all of the practice they have already received, without the benefit of teacher assistance, the statements must be correct for the students to receive oral participation credit.

THE ULAT AND CULTURE
This type of activity will only be mentioned this one time in your lesson plans, but it should be a regular part of your class, particularly throughout the lessons of the first unit.

The ULAT intentionally avoids the study of the culture where the language you are studying is the native language. This is true for two reasons. First of all, it has been created exclusively to serve as a language acquisition tool - hence the name. It enables a student to acquire the genuine ability to interact with native speakers and believes that the most powerful cultural learning will occur once the student becomes involved face-to-face with those native speakers, particularly if the interaction occurs within the culture in question. In short, first, learn to speak and then to read and write the language, and then travel and get to know the culture. However, there is a second reason that cultural studies are intentionally not integrated into the ULAT. It has been created to teach a multiplicity of languages with a minimum of adaptation. For example, if you look at the same lessons you are studying within the ULAT's presentation of another language, you will see that the lessons appear identical. Integrating cultural studies to the ULAT would therefore greatly reduce its ease of adaptability to teach the multitude of the world's languages.

Therefore, you are strongly encouraged to surf the Internet in search of videos that will perform the task for you of presenting diverse elements of the culture(s) you want to present. Suffice it to say, there is no lack of material. It is merely a matter of previewing them yourself and selecting what is appropriate and edifying.

Such videos should be encouraged during Unit 1 in particular. The aim of Unit 1 is to infuse the student with a knowledge of the 60 most commonly used verbs in any language, in the right way (without recourse to the student's native language). The goal is to do this as quickly as possible, so that the student may be able to express his own ideas and accomplish the most common oral tasks, recombining words to convey his thoughts instead of merely repeating memorized expressions dictated by the instructor. Unit 1, therefore, is very intensive and much more narrowly focused than the units that will follow it. For the sake of student interest, and to give them a break from the intensity, you will find that cultural videos will be much appreciated by your students. You should have a series of them already selected in advance for times when you discover you have a few additional minutes at the end of class once the ULAT activities are finished.

PRACTICING A TEST
You may be surprised to discover that the actual tests that students are to take are available to them online at the end of the lesson. Yes, the ULAT intentionally wants students to see and practice taking their tests before they officially perform them in class. If the tests are well made, they will correspond exactly to the skill we want our students to master. We want them to practice them...over and over. You may say: "But they can just memorize the test!" In a way, a valid response would be: "Great! They will undoubtedly learn something in so doing." Nonetheless, we realize that rote memorization will not necessarily result in authentic learning. It is for this reason that all tests exist in at least four versions. The students do not know which version they will actually take when they get to class. Thus, they cannot simply memorize all of the tests (though we should be rather pleased if they could).

The ULAT suggests that you allow your students to retake their oral tests for a limited period of time in order to improve their score. Oral expression is the foundation to language learning. You can teach an orally proficient student to read and write, but you will have great difficulty teaching a student to speak who learned a language exclusively by reading and writing. You do not want your students to move on to reading and writing until they have a strong oral foundation. You want to give them every opportunity to master each step of the oral language learning process.

For this reason, the ULAT suggests that you allow students to retake any oral test for a period of one week after they took it the first time in class To protect instructional time in class, if they want to retake a test, they must do it immediately after school. Only allow them to retake the same test once per day to ensure that they will have the time to put in some additional study before they try again. As the oral tests are very brief in nature, their retaking them does not impose any unusual burden on the teacher's workload. The students should also know that the teacher will never lower their grade if their second (or third or fourth...) score on the test is lower than their previous best. This assurance gives them the confidence to retake tests and thus to keep applying themselves to the skills we want them to master.

The goal of the ULAT is not to surprise students nor to try to "catch them" with some unexpected word or phrase, but rather to train them to be able to accomplish certain tasks. If the students can perform the tasks required of them by the tests, within a limited span of time that does not allow them the leisure to think in their native language, they have attained the objectives of the course. Multiple forms and limited time for reflection ensure that the student must have acquired the "linguistic reflex" spoken of in the foundational principles of the ULAT if he is able to succeed on the test.

As for practicing a test as an entire class, select a form of the test at random, turn on the stopwatch and allow them to "read" through the statements, stopping them when they have reached the time limit. Then select two or three members of the class to take the test aloud indivdually and, after they have finished, indicate to the class what their grade would have been were this the actual test. This gives students the opportunity to understand the degree of fluency required of them if they are to receive the grade they desire. As an aside, the students who take the practice test individually should be allowed to keep the grade they received if they are satisfied with it. In this way, students will be anxious to serve as examples on future practice tests.

LEARNING NUMBERS
Be sure not simply to teach them the numbers in order, but rather to present them to the students in random order, otherwise they are merely learning a chant or poem and do not know the numbers individually and cannot identify them without counting through all the preceding numbers to get to the one that they want.

SHOWDOWN
"Showdown" is an identification game in which two students on opposing teams come to the screen in the front of the class and, upon hearing a vocabulary cue from the teacher, try to be the first to touch the image on the screen of the appropriate vocabulary word. The student who "wins" remains at the screen and the opposing team sends the next student to challenge him. The first team to go through all of their players loses and then a new game starts over beginning with the next student from each team who would have been called to the screen. To augment the "stakes", and therefore the attention and intensity, oral participation extra credit can be awarded to every member of the winning team. So that students do not simply touch a number of images at random, only allow them to touch one, after which they may not try again until their competitor, at his leisure, has selected one.

LINGUISTIC REFLEXES
A linguistic reflex refers to a pattern of speech whose meaning has become so clear to a listener or speaker that he or she no longer needs to analyze the statement's component parts nor to reflect on the form or order in which they are to be spoken for effective communication to take place. Practically speaking, this takes place through abundant repetition performed in a context-laden environment and results in a thought process consistent with that of a native speaker.

The ULAT develops linguistic reflexes in its students as much by what it does not do as by what it does. First of all, it does not expose them to the written word or make any reference to the students' native language as modes of instruction until they have attained relative oral fluency. To reach that level of fluency, the ULAT presents the student with vocabulary and syntax in a visual context that is clear enough to ensure a high probability of comprehension and then continues to expose the student to a variety of statements employing that information at a gradually accelerating rate of speed. The students are obliged to perform certain functions (listening, repeating, responding, verbalizing, etc.) at increasingly rapid rates of speed until they are able to speak and comprehend speech at a rate approximating fluency. Almost needless to say and by contrast, the pedagogically unsound practice of premature exposure to the written word and the conveying of meaning by using the students' native language will not generate the thought process of the native speaker and therefore will cause students to communicate in an awkward, stilted, halting fashion.

TIMING GAME
"Timing" can be made into a game by challenging each of two teams to read through the vocabulary before the designated time elapses. The team which first succeeds, or which does so the fastest, is the winner. One teams plays at a time, with only one student, in order, speaking at a time. If a student does not know the vocabulary word, he may say "Help!" (in the target language, of course) and the next student may answer. However, two consecutive students may not call for "Help!" To ensure that a team does not simply repeat what the other has said, one team should read the words from left to right and the other from right to left.

ONE-ON-ONE TESTING SOLUTIONS
The great challenge for a classroom teacher is to reconcile the indisputable need for one-on-one oral testing with the reality that the teacher must meaningfully occupy all of the remaining students in the classroom while endeavoring to concentrate on the performance of the individual being tested. Here are solutions to manage the one-on-one testing situation:

Ideally, your students will have access to computers, whether it be in the classroom or in a computer lab. That will allow them to review before they are tested and to move on to the next lesson after their one-on-one test is completed. The use of a "splitter" attached to two headsets is a good solution in the event that doubling up on students per computer would result in your having enough such work stations. Strategically choosing to pair a weaker student with a stronger student, in fact, can enable peer tutoring to take place as well.

If sufficient numbers of work stations are not available in the classroom or in a computer lab, the teacher can call half of the students, for example, to the front of the classroom or lab and then carry out the oral tested which is being projected onto the screen in the front of the classroom. In this way, the students who are awaiting testing (and who are thus deeply motivated to pay careful attention) can observe the test, listen to their classmate's performance and benefit from the teacher's brief feedback to their classmates, thus helping them prepare more thoroughly for their upcoming test. Those having been tested them move to the back of the classroom and view and practice the next lesson that the class will be studying.

If one-on-one testing is too lengthy to complete in the time you would like to allot to it, whether because of the length of the test or of the number of students to test, provided that the work stations are equipped with a sound recorder and a microphone, students can record their oral test simultaneously and then either e-mail the sound file containing the recording to the instructor or placing it in a single world language folder on the school's network to which they can copy, but from which they cannot delete.

If the availability of work stations is even more limited, provided that the classroom is equipped with at least two computers or a computer and an IPad, work can continue at three stations. First of all, the teacher can be situated in a remote area of the classroom to do the testing with the auxiliary computer or IPad. Secondly, for those who want to review the content of the test before they take it, the teacher can allow the next three to be tested to sit in relative proximity to the student being tested and thereby listen in to the student's performance and the teacher's feedback. Thirdly, the teacher can send the first student tested to the main classroom desktop or laptop from which the teacher normally projects the lesson on the classroom screen. That student can then slowly advance through the next assigned lesson with the rest of the class which has yet to be tested or which has already been tested. The key is for the instructor to hold students accountable for the content of that next assigned lesson, and therefore for how well they take advantage of that student-led session, by conducting an oral participation session after all are tested, accepting only perfectly correct responses to the items of that next assigned lesson.

As for determining in a just manner which student will be called upon to be tested first, and then in which order you will proceed, one method is to take the day�s date and to count off that number of students. Thus, on January 15th, for example, it is the 15th student who will be tested first. Another means is to select a number from 1-30, to write it down and then to ask a student to do the same. By adding the two numbers and counting off that number of students, one can determine who is tested first without having to choose someone intentionally. Once the first student to be tested is selected, one simply advances in order through the seating chart.

A proposed grading key is available for every ULAT test. By clicking on the percent symbol to the upper right of the first form of the test, you can find the grading key.

THE INTERROGATION SEQUENCE
If the subject of study involves an understanding of first, second and third person forms, an interrogation sequence can be used. The interrogation is a tightly structured conversational drill that obliges students to use all of the possible forms of the grammatical form being studied. It is composed of the following steps:

The teacher first makes a statement about himself. (I live in the country.)

The teacher then asks student no. 1 about himself and another student, student no. 2, (Do you two live in the country or in the city?)

Student no. 1 answers the question (I live in the country.) about himself and asks the question of student no. 2. (Do you live in the country or in the city?)

After student no. 2 answers (I live in the country.), student no. 1 informs the teacher of the response to his initial question. (We live in the country.)

The teacher makes a new statement about himself (I live in a house.) and then asks student no. 2 to ask two other students whether what the teacher said is true for them as well. (Do the two of you live in a house?)

To ensure that all of the students were paying attention throughout the sequence, the teacher can repeat the same questions about specific students who answered those questions. Only accurate answers will receive oral participation credit.

MODELING
"Modeling" involves first affirming the value of the student's initially faulty communication which, though potentially grammatical inaccurate, still successfully conveys a message to the teacher. This affirmation is in the form of a nod, a smile and an encouraging tone of voice in which the teacher merely repeats the statement back correctly to the student - possibly with an accompanying gesture that conveys the correction in visual form, yet without overemphasis nor any discouragement that might make the student less likely to speak up again. Such an interaction, in English, might sound like this:

Student: "He live in city." Teacher: "All right! 'He lives (teacher gestures the "s") in the (spoken with slight additional emphasis and articulation) city.' Very good!"

THE CONJUGATION REVIEW
When studying such verb conjugation reviews, the teacher should first review with the students the connection between the personal pronouns and the kinesthetic grammatical representation of the conjugation process. Once that connection has been consistently established, the teacher has the students repeat after him all of the conjugations for two or three of the verbs in the review session and then, using the pointer, indicates alternating and random pronouns while the students say the corresponding verb conjugation. Finally, he can call on individual students to say the conjugations he indicates.

COMMON VERBS 6-11
The verb presentation skit continues with the presentation of common verbs nos. 6-11. Return to the first five actions from lesson 1.2 and act them out again. Then continue on to the six new actions. Present the verb "prepare", by miming the preparation of a hot breakfast cereal on the stove, placing a pot on the imaginary stove, opening cupboards and taking out ingredients that you mix together in the pot. For "eat", you can mime the taking of a bowl, removing ingredients from the pot, sitting down at a table and then eating. Rub your stomach, smile broadly and give the "thumbs up" sign to indicate "like". To convey "watch", stand up from the table, put your dishes in the sink and settle down comfortably in front of an imaginary television set, switching it on and responding a couple of times in some way to the content you are watching. To represent "take", turn off the TV, stand up and take your wallet and cell phone from off of the table beside you. Finally, stick them very deliberately in your pocket to suggest the action "to put". As you go along through the presentation of these new verbs, insist that all the students imitate your gestures and repeat them after you.

POLITE CONVERSATIONAL EXPRESSIONS ROLE PLAY
Divide the students into pairs and ask them to replicate the conversations they have just seen. Their conversation should contain a greeting, an exchange of names, a request as to the other person's health and age, the exchange of two items and saying goodbye to one another.

DEBRIEFING
Following a Language Pals interview, the teacher wants the students to share what they learned about their overseas Language Pals partner. This can take place in several ways. He can simply call on one student at a time and have the student relate what his partner said. However, if the class size is large and time is fairly limited, a second approach is for the teacher to ask the students to form pairs and to relate to one another what they learned. This would then be followed by a question and answer session, for oral participation credit, in which the teacher asks a question of the second student regarding what the first told him about his language partner. A third solution is for the teacher simply to mention the individual questions from the interview and have students volunteer to tell what they learned from their Language Pal.

As these sessions begin to provide more sophisticated information, the teacher can address cultural issues from the Language Pal's home country that would explain their answers. For example, if a Language Pal from France explains that he does not practice every night with his soccer team, as does the American student, the teacher can explain that sports teams in France are not associated with the schools, but are rather part of private sports clubs, that they tend to practice Wednesday afternoons, when there is no school, and on weekends, and that one's secondary studies are so time-consuming in France, and school finishes so late in the day, that daily sports practices would not be feasible.

EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE
Following a Language Pals interview, the teacher wants the students to share what they learned This is a good time to interject a reminder. With the possible exception of a "code red" or a fire alarm, NO USE SHOULD BE MADE OF THE STUDENTS' NATIVE LANGUAGE IN CLASS. This calls for tremendous patience, perseverance and creativity on the part of the instructor, and a willingness occasionally not to be understood for a time. What is gained in oral comprehension thanks to a strict adherance to this policy is far more valuable than a cultural point the student may or may not glean from the discussion! If you are not convinced of the importance of the teacher's commitment to the inconvenient, yet crucial practice of exclusive use of the target language in class, ask those colleagues you know who practice this discipline to tell you about the feedback they have received from their students who have gone on to college. Invariably, those students report that they have placed surprisingly high in their world language entrance exams and that their oral comprehension far surpasses that of their new classmates.

So how might a teacher communicate the cultural information suggested in the "debriefing" discussion, for example, about athletics and academics in France? While explaining verbally, one could draw a picture of a school at the extreme left end of the blackboard, a house in the middle of the blackboard and an athletic field at the extreme right end of the board, possibly labelled with the names of French sports clubs the students might recognize (Paris St-Germain, Paris Universit� Club, etc.) from the world of professional soccer. Between the school and the house, he would draw a line with an arrow at each end and a stick figure of a student atop the line. Under the line, he could draw a week's calendar, representing the days the student makes that trek back and forth and he could place a checkmark and times indicating when school is in session. Situating himself at the left end of the board and pointing at the school, the teacher could then imitate the activity of studying, reading and writing (all of these actions will eventually have their own ULAT gesture) and convey the notion of intensity. Next, he point at the house and express, with the same gestures, that studying continues there as well, possibly yawning a few times to suggest late nights of study - all the while interjecting new vocabulary as he continues to express his thoughts verbally as well as visually. He could then draw two bars to the right of the house, suggesting separation from this pattern of school and study, and situate himself in front of and point at the sports field. Below the field, he could draw another week's calendar, checking the days and indicating the times when sports teams might practice and compete. Throughout the entire activity, the students are learning more than a cultural point. They are learning that exclusive use of the target language requires creativity, but is possible. They are picking up new vocabulary and they are hearing the teacher model fluent speech in a way the usual classroom activities may not give him the chance to do.

SPEED CHECK GAME
A speed check can be made into a game in a couple of way. One way is to create two teams and then to have the students all stand. As the PowerPoint progressively accelerates, the teacher can have the students make the statements its images suggest, one student at a time, according to the seating chart. The first student on Team A says the statement for the first slide and then the first student on Team B for slide number two, then back to the second student of Team A, etc. As a student fails to say the statement correctly, in time or at all, the teacher motions for him to sit. The winning team is the one with the last student standing. To get to that point, it may require playing the PowerPoint several times. If the teacher is uncomfortable with the notion of eliminating students from the game, the students can remain seated and the teacher can merely keep a record of the mistakes made by each team, with the team with the fewest mistakes being declared the winner.

COMMON VERBS 24-32
The verb presentation skit is now extended to include 34 of the total of 60 verbs. After acting out the first 23 actions, continue by presenting the next nine. Ideally, the skit will continue outside the school building, if weather permits, as the main character in the skit is supposed to arrive at school part way through the skit. Additionally, while teaching this group of verbs, the teacher should simultaneously be teaching the students the gestures corresponding to this set of actions.

Present "to sell", by miming the activity of a street vendor selling apples, raising an apple in the air and stretching out an open palm to receive payment, and then giving the apple to a student who adopts the same pose as the teacher returns to play the part of the main character in the skit. (The teacher can communicate "apple" by miming the picking of an apple and by making a crunching sound as he takes a bite.) The teacher then expresses his desire for the apple being sold by joining his hands in a pleading manner and putting an expression of intense longing on his face while saying the verb "to want". As he tries to snatch the apple, the seller emphasizes that it is for sale and that the teacher must buy it. Consequently, the teacher shrugs his shoulders and feigns taking money from his pocket and handing it to the seller, while taking the apple and saying "to buy". He then briefly offers it to a student and then snatches the apple away and protects it while pronouncing "to have" with a covetous look of delight on his face. Finally, as he is about to take the first bite, he stops in mid-bite and looks with pity on a nearby student and, again shrugging his shoulders, gives him the apple while saying "to give". Then the teacher, preferably carrying a student's heavy backpack on his back, trudges on toward the school building. As he arrives close to the front door, he sighs deeply, takes off the backpack and sets it down, stamps his foot and thrusts his two hands downward and to the side as if to indicate that one has finally arrived and says "to arrive". He then opens the front door of the school and, as he takes an exaggerated step across the threshhold, says "to enter". At this point, he can contrast "to go out" with "to enter" as he exits and reenters the school several times. Then, heading to a staircase, as he climbs the stairs, he says "to go up". Finally, entering his classroom, the teacher sits down while saying "to sit down".

ACCOUNTABILITY
One of the most important words in teaching and learning is the word "accountability". Students need to know that they are going to be held accountable for whatever instruction transpires at any point of a class period. Consequently, when they have been given time during which to study a lesson independently, it is incumbent upon the teacher to hold them immediately accountable for how the used the time allotted for that task. This is particularly true for assignments to be accomplished during the time a teacher is performing one-on-one testing. As soon as the last students is tested, the teacher should immediately begin calling for students to demonstrate aloud, for oral participation credit, what they have learned during the independent study session or at home, and only accurate responses should receive credit.

THE TIMING GAME
"Timing" can be made into a game by challenging each of two teams to read through the vocabulary (numbers in this case) before the designated time elapses. The team which first succeeds, or which does so the fastest, is the winner. One teams plays at a time, with only one student, in order, speaking at a time. If a student does not know the vocabulary word, he may say "Help!" (in the target language, of course) and the next student may answer. However, two consecutive students may not call for "Help!" To ensure that a team does not simply repeat what the other has said, one team should read the words from left to right and the other from right to left.

THE LINE GAME (NUMBERS)
"The Line Game" has a number of variant forms. The one element that is identical among all of them is that the teacher divides the class into two teams that stand and face one another. In the "numbers version" of the game, the teacher points to the first student at the head of one of the lines and that student must call out a number within the range of the numbers known by his or her classmates (0 to 19, 0 to 29, 0 to 69, 0 to 99, etc., depending on how far the class has progressed through the lessons). At that point, the students must count off, aloud or silently and as rapidly as possible, that number of students and the student, on both teams, who is the designated number of spots ahead in the line must raise his or her hand. Here is an example. If the third student in the line in team "A" calls out "11", then the fourteenth player on his team must raise his hand. For team "B", starting with the student after the last one who called out a number or who was eliminated, the eleventh player must raise his or her hand. Of course, once one reaches the end of the line in counting off students, the counting continues from the first student in that team's line. For example, if a team has 15 students and the 5th student says "12", then the 2nd student from the head of the line would be the designated student needing to raise a hand. The student who is slowest to raise their hand steps back out of the line and the game continues as the one who was fastest says a new number.

As the students advance through the unit, and come to know more numbers, the most successful, of course, will be those who have stronger skills at division skills (i.e., a team only has 4 players left and the number called is "72". If the counting starts from the second player on that team, the most skilled will know that 72 divided by 4 comes out exactly to 18, with no remainder, which means that the one to their hand is the same one with whom the team began counting. (Do not allow the students to speak their native language while they are playing this game, but rather teach them some expressions they may want to know how to say, such as "Quick!", "Hurry up!", "It's you!", etc. By the way, if you want to keep the students involved who have already been eliminated (which is a noble and worthy objective), you can impose the rule that the eliminated students are the only ones allowed to call out the name of the person who should raise his or her hand. From their vantage point, they may actually have the best perspective on that issue.

ORAL PRESENTATIONS
Before evaluating your first oral presentation, you would do well to watch the video explaining why the students need to make such presentations and how they might be evaluated. Additionally, you should read the section entitled ORAL PRESENTATIONS within the item in the Teacher's Manual labeled "How do testing and feedback take place?". Testing will take place one-on-one. The remaining students not being tested are responsible to watch the next lesson's instructional video before and after they are tested.

LANGUAGE PALS
The Language Pals sessions are among the most important activities performed in the ULAT. In a sense, you could say that they represent the end goal of all toward which the ULAT lessons build. They represent one of the four pillars on which a language program needs to repose, namely, the matter of "relationship". However, engaging in a Language Pals session depends upon teachers having made prior arrangement for their students to interact throughout the school year with students from another classroom overseas. This kind of cultural exchange can be established by means of online services designed to match classrooms around the world to the end that both sets of students would benefit from the interaction. The interaction can take place in a variety of forms, such as videoconferencing, e-mail, the exchange of PowerPoint presentations and images, the sending back and forth of sound files in which the students talk about their lives, etc. The options for interaction will only increase as the years go by and technology continues to develop. Language Pals sessions in the first four units will exclusively involve an oral exchange of ideas, either in real time or by means of the sending of audio files back and forth. From Unit 5 on, that interaction can also involve written communication.

At the very least, if the teacher has not set up such an exchange between his or her classroom and another composed of native speakers of the target language, the teacher can invite a local native speaker of the target language to class to participate in a Language Pals session. That session could take place with the entire class simultaneously or, depending upon the guest's time, with individuals or small sub-groups of the students in a class.

MAKING DAILY LESSON PLANS
Be aware that the lesson plans that you access by clicking on the image of the teacher at the top of each ULAT lesson include the totality of the activities for each lesson. They do NOT correspond to a single day's activities. In fact, they cannot as some teachers using the ULAT meet twice a week for 30 minutes with their students, some have a 50-minute class period and some may meet for up to 2 hours at a time with theirs. Consequently, the task of determining how many of the lesson's activities should be performed in a single class period is in the discretion of the instructor. Moreover, as masters of good pedagogy, we study our students' interaction with us and must determine when the pace of activities must be slowed or sped up and when certain activities should be repeated if we intend for our students to attain mastery of a subject. As an example, therefore, of how one typical ULAT lesson plan might be broken up into class periods, click on the words ULAT 1.12 to see how one ULAT lesson might be broken up into daily lesson plans.

ORAL PARTICIPATION
By far, oral participation is the most important tool we have to train our students. Oral participation activities are important for the students as they oblige them to speak the language, which thus makes them more comfortable with speaking and provides them with the chance to receive feedback from the instructor. Oral participation activities are also important for the teacher for two reasons. First, as explained earlier, they allow us to hear from the students frequently enough to begin helping them refine their speech. (You can't steer a car unless it's moving.) Secondly, and this is a very important matter for a new teacher in particular, it takes the pressure off of the teacher to "carry the class" and places it squarely on the shoulders of the students. It all goes back to the issue of accountability. Without the sense that their contributions in class are obligatory, particularly when February rolls around (and particularly for those of us in the north who are struggling with our students' "cabin fever"), students can tend to sit back and expect you to put out all of the effort to "entertain" them. The attitude can almost become: "Teach me...I dare you." On the contrary, the students in my classes have been so thoroughly trained to understand that there grade "sinks or swims" on the basis of their oral participation that there is a constant competition to be the next to speak. (A little sheepishly, I admit that they are almost like Pavlov's dogs. Even on the very rare occasion when I might not be recording their participation, their hands fly up to speak as though they cannot help themselves!) Though it may seem that I am overwhelming the students with the constant burden of having to participate, it is clear that their doing so enlivens the class period and actually results in greater interest and more enjoyment for them.

Before explaining the oral participation spreadsheet, you need a means of recording oral participation, as well as other daily classroom occurrences. Below you will find a link to download a seating chart grid to which you can add your students' names. You will have to modify it, of course, to correspond to the layout of your own classroom.

SEATING CHART GRID

Typically, I print this sheet and make about 30 photocopies of it to place on a clipboard on my desk. I do not make more than that quantity of copies, as students may be added or removed from a class list throughout the marking period. On that grid, I record a number of events. I write a capital "A" within the student's rectangle to indicate an absence and a "T" for a tardy arrival to class. Recording absences here is very important to a fair and accurate oral participation score, as will be explained later. Positive oral contributions are indicated by a vertical hash mark and negative behaviors with a horizontal one. I also record there any test scores that were obtained during the class period. This makes the seating chart grid a very handy tool, as it contains all the data you need when placing your records online later in the day. You can modify the grid to any seating configuration. By the way, you may wonder how I can arrange a classroom to be eight students wide. This is through the use of chairs, instead of desks, which will be explained later in the teacher training section dealing with classroom layout.

Now, so that my evaluation of oral participation might be objective, fair and tightly tied to specific student behaviors, I have created a system that outwardly appears rather complex. Do not be deceived however. What was complex to create, is now very easy for you to use.

ORAL PARTICIPATION SPREADSHEET

Having had your first glimpse of the spreadsheet, refrain from judging its practicality until I have had the chance to explain it. It is actually simple enough that I have had people with minimal computer skills thoroughly versed in its use in less than 30 minutes - and vowing that they would never cease using it.

To understand how to employ the oral participation spreadsheet, watch the following video: The Oral Participation Evaluation Spreadsheet Set-Up and Use (21:27 video)

In sum, on a daily basis, all you need to do is to:

place the date at the top of the column in row 6 and record the total of student and teacher remarks
add the portion of a class discussion missed by absent students in column G.

Parents and students both want to understand how such an important factor in a student's grade is determined. You would do well to download and photocopy it, simply to have it on hand to present to parents or students if they should ever challenge the impartiality of your system. The explanation sheet below is so exhaustive that I am never again challenged once they have had the chance to read it.

ORAL PARTICIPATION EXPLANATION

Now, where does all of this discussion of oral participation apply to the ULAT program itself. In a sense, it can apply to any classroom, regardless of the curriculum you are using. Nevertheless, with reference to the ULAT, you will want to conduct oral participation activities in two types of situations (and hopefully do so on an almost daily basis). First of all, oral participation points should be awarded in the context of open-ended, spontaneous conversation. For example, after listening to a Skype conversation, such as one finds in lesson 1.46, or following one of the reading assignments or simply regarding a topic suggested by the instructor, the students can be offered the opportunity to summarize the conversation, answer questions about the reading or volunteer responses to the topic the teacher proposed. An example of this latter situation would be, in the course of Unit 2 during which the students learn to speak of their daily routine, to have one's students share what they would change about their daily routine if they could. In the course of such open-ended discussions, in which there are no right or wrong answers, and no prior practice was provided, any comment which is on the proper topic, no matter how grammatically flawed, should receive credit.

The second type of oral participation situation deals with the review of a ULAT lesson's structured vocabulary or grammar activities in which the students must form a statement on the basis of a series of images with which they are presented. Typically, this sort of a review is performed on the classroom screen immediately following an independent study session during which the students studied the lesson on the classroom or computer lab computers. When the students are asked to form statements regarding material that they have just studied and practiced at length, their responses must be completely accurate in order to receive credit. In this manner, they are held accountable for their use of independent study time and the teacher is able to insist upon structural accuracy.

PAIRED READING
A paired reading involves having two classmates, seated side-by-side, perform together a reading of a lesson's exercises. This will usually take place after the instructor has done an initial reading through the lesson twice - first alone and then in tandem with the class. The students alternate in forming the lesson's statements and in providing one another with feedback.

ROLES GIVEN TO STUDENTS
A paired reading involves having two classmates, seated side-by-side, perform together a reading of a lesson's exercises. This will usually take place after the instructor has done an initial reading through the lesson twice - first alone and then in tandem with the class. The students alternate in forming the lesson's statements and in providing one another with feedback.

BUZZ
"Buzz" is a game that serves to become better acquainted with numbers from 1 to 100. The students all stand and then, in order, begin to count off in the target language. The first student says "one", the second says "two" and so on. However, they are not allowed to say a number which is a multiple of 7 or which contains the digit 7, either in the tens or units column. When they come to one such number, they must say "Buzz" instead of the number itself. In other words, they would say "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Buzz, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, Buzz, 15, 16, Buzz, 18, etc." If a student either says the wrong number or says a number when he or she should say "Buzz", that student is eliminated and must sit down. (Be careful to keep track mentally when they reach the upper 70's, because they will have to say: "68, 69, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, 80, 81, etc." If they forget what the student before them said, do not help them. They have to make their best guess as to the number they should be saying.

THE DICTATION GAME
When the students come to a dictation activity within one of the lessons, this can be turned into a game. Divide the class into two teams. Send one representative from each team to the whiteboard. While you play the sound file containing the first dictation, have all of the students, including the two at the whiteboard, write down or type the transcription of the dictation. Do not allow the two at the board to see one another's writing. Have both students sit down before commenting on their work. If both of the transcriptions on the whiteboard are correct, give both teams a point and then move on to the next dictation. If only one is correct, that team receives the point. If neither are correct, send a second representative from each team to the board and allow each of them to make one correction only in the work of their first teammate. Continue sending students to the board until one of the two transcriptions is perfect. Do not allow students in their seats to call out corrections to their teammate at the board.

INDEPENDENT STUDY
Independent study requires the students to have access to some sort of device in class which allows them to go online and to study the ULAT lesson silently. If such devices are lacking, or if the school's network is insufficiently strong to handle the demand, the teacher will have to display the lesson on the screen in the front of the class and to go through the lesson with the students. The teacher can display the lesson on the screen and, after giving students a few moments to reflect and anticipate the statement they are about to hear, can simply click on the images and enable the students to hear the corresponding statement, moving in this manner through the lesson or portion of a lesson to be studied independently.

If the independent study activity is to occur while the teacher is testing students one-on-one, and if work stations are not available, a student can be designated to operate a computer, connected to a video projector, whose lesson is then projected on the screen. In this way, a student can display the lesson to be studied, clicking on the images to enable classmates to hear the correct response. If relative quiet is required while the teacher is simultaneously performing one-on-one testing, students can work their way through the projected lesson in pairs, quietly verbalizing the statements on the screen to one another and making note of questions they will want to pose to the teacher when testing is finished. Teachers can hold students accountable thereafter for how intently they are concentrating on this activity by conducting an oral participation session short thereafter on the same material, conceivably after having done a reading and then a paired reading of the same material.

THE POWERPOINT RACE
"The Racing Game" can be played in class when you come to one of the timed PowerPoint videos. Divide the class into teams of whatever size you desire and designate the order in which each team's members is to speak. As the first image appears on the screen, the first member of the first team must try to say the word or statement before the video's narrator provides the correct answer. If the response to the images is said before the narrated correct answer is heard, and if that response is correct, the team receives a point and, without stopping the video, the next member of the same team must provide the response for the next screen. The same team continues to provide the responses, one member at a time and in order, until one of them makes the first mistake and answers too late. Each correct answer receives a point. Once a mistake is made or a late response provided, the teacher simply says "STOP!" (in the appropriate language) and stops the video. At that point, the next team's first member must provide the response to the screen incorrectly said or said too late. If correct, the second team receives the point. If not, the first team's next member is allowed to try to say it correctly. This pattern continues, going from one team to the other, until someone says the statement correctly. At that point, the video is restarted and the next member of the team that provided the correct answer continues to respond until the next mistake is made. Obviously, particularly if there are multiple teams and the video is an accelerating one, the responses will become more frantic and hurried as the video advances.

THE MULTIPLE CHOICE GAME
"The Multiple Choice Game" is a timed activity that helps students focus on careful listening and on the distinctions that individual components of a sentence make between it and another similar one. First, the teacher divides the class into teams. Then, while projecting the lesson's image on the classroom screen, and after opening the stopwatch, the teacher clicks on the image of the mouse found just below the stopwatch. This reveals the first screen on which are located a numbered button and four sentences that are similar to one another. The teacher calls the first member of the first team to the screen in the front of the room. Starting the stopwatch, the teacher clicks on the numbered button and the students hear the first sentence. The representative student then carefully selects the series of images that best portray the meaning of that sentence and then goes and sits down. The teacher immediately clicks on the student's selection. If the student was correct, clicking on the sentence will take the team to the next page, which will be numbered "2". If not, clicking on the incorrect series of images takes the team back to the first page and, with the help of the next student in order, they must start over. After page number 4, each error will take the team back a total of 3 pages, thus obliging the next student to start over again from that point. When the last student correctly selects the statement on the final screen, clicking on it will reveal a stop sign which means that the teacher should stop the clock. In that the second team would have an advantage, having already seen all of the screens one time, for the sake of fairness, teachers can assign independent study work on the classroom computers to the second team while the first team plays the game or they can simply reverse the order of which team goes first the next time the game, or a similar one, is played. Unlike most competitive games involving students making a choice while at the screen, allow seated students in this game to provide advice from their seats as their remarks will be highlighting the specific distinctions on which you went them to focus.

THE TUG O' WAR GAME

"The Tug O' War Game" is a means of reviewing any number of structural elements or vocabulary. However, it is not a game one can meaningfully play alone. One can play the game with another individual or in a classroom divided up into two teams. One begins by clicking on the image of the mouse found within the lesson. This downloads a PowerPoint show whose first screen reveals two teams about to engage in a tug o' war competition. After a stirring drum roll (humor me and let it play out), click on the mouse that appears in the middle of the screen. This will take you to a screen containing an image or images that the first member of one of the two teams competing in the competition will have to describe within a time period determined by the instructor (who silently counts off the seconds). Toss a coin to decide which team gets to go first. Students take turns and only supply the answer to one screen per turn. If the student correctly says the word or forms the sentence, the instructor pushes one of the keyboard's arrow keys, either the one pointing to the right, if the team is seated on the teacher's right, or the one on the left, if the team is seated on the teacher's left. If the student is wrong, or takes too much time, it becomes the other team's turn to speak and its first team member to speak begins with the screen that the other team said incorrectly. If a correct answer is provided the teacher will push on the arrow key pointing toward that team (thus advancing the "rope" on the screen in their direction). Each team continues providing answers until one of its members makes a mistake, at which point the other team takes over. The game ends when the "red" flag reaches one of the red lines drawn on the screen. (It will be obvious when the game is over.)

THE INTRODUCTORY VIDEOS
"Introductory videos" are distinct from the ULAT's "instructional videos" in that, unlike the instructional videos, they allow for the use of the student's native language and attempt to simulate what students might hear if coming for help from a teacher during his or her office hours. They introduce the topic to be studied in a particular day's lesson and give tips to facilitate the students' approach to and retention of that lesson. They can be found by clicking on "DAILY LESSONS" on the home page, then on the flag representing the language being studied and then, finally, on the particular day of instruction that includes the lesson in question.

THE INTERACTION VIDEOS
"Interaction sessions" are those in which the student responds to the instructor's questions or to a topic which the teacher proposes. Of course, this typically takes place between the classroom teacher and the students, however the ULAT also provides for such interaction by means of videos in which the online instructor makes a remark and then leaves time for the student to respond, and sometimes even to ask a question in return. For the sake of brevity in the videos, the time allotted for the students' responses is too brief for multiple responses. For this reason, the independent study student or the classroom teacher should stop the video until are possible responses have been heard.

THE POWERPOINT VIDEOS
"PowerPoint videos" are ones in which the student is shown a series of screens, each containing images suggesting the word or phrase that the student should say. In that its screens are timed, and as most of them are accelerating in nature, students must provide the word or phrase as rapidly as possible and before they hear the correct response provided for them just before the screen changes. When this activity is performed in class and projected on a screen in the front of the room, a good technique to help the students engage in the challenge of the video's pace is for the teacher is sit amongst the students and to engage in the activity along with them, hesitating briefly to allow them to speak first.

PRACTICING A TEST
When practicing for a test with students in class, here is a helpful sequence of activities to follow:

Teachers should first read through a form of the test, highlighting elements by taking on the persona of an uncertain student, imitating and verbalizing their thought process aloud. At random, teachers should include some erroneous thought and statements which the students are expected to correct when they detect it.

Next, teachers can READ with the students through one of the four forms of the lesson 1.23 test.

Then students can do a PAIRED READING of a second form.

Finally, teachers should ask for volunteers and have them perform a fourth form of the test. Teachers should grade the test, thus showing those watching what their expectations are for the students' performance. Teachers should allow those who volunteer to take the test in advance to choose to keep their grade as their actual test score or not to have it count. In this way, teachers should have no lack of volunteers.

You may be surprised to discover that the actual tests that students are to take are available to them online at the end of the lesson. Yes, the ULAT intentionally wants students to see and practice taking their tests before they officially perform them in class. If the tests are well made, they will correspond exactly to the skill we want our students to master. We want them to practice them...over and over. You may say: "But they can just memorize the test!" In a way, a valid response would be: "Great! They will undoubtedly learn something in so doing." Nonetheless, we realize that rote memorization will not necessarily result in authentic learning. It is for this reason that all tests exist in at least four versions. The students do not know which version they will actually take when they get to class. Thus, they cannot simply memorize all of the tests (though we should be rather pleased if they could).

RESPONDING TO QUESTIONS
Allowing students to respond to questions does not immediately require the instructor to abandon the exclusive use of the target language in class. If teachers have made it clear that they only use and respond to the target language in class, students will use their creativity (much as they must to communicate in another culture) to find a way to convey their question (i.e., stating a sentence structure two different ways with a quizzical look on their faces). In the same way, the teacher can provide the correct response, liking relying on a kinesthetic representation reminding the student of the handling of the syntactical element causing confusion. If repeated examples using this means of response prove unfruitful, or if the student appears completely unable to convey his or her question, the teacher may indicate (still in the target language) that the student may use his or her native language to convey the question. Similarly, after having understood the question, if the student is clearly not understanding the teacher's responses, the teacher may temporarily switch to the student's native language to provide an explanation. That should, however, be seen as truly a last resort and not merely a convenient solution.

Remember that providing students with an analytical explanation of the rules governing a particular syntactical issue causing them difficulty, which obviously would need to be given in their native language, is not going to be helpful because of the nature of ULAT instruction and, therefore, of their tests. Needing to perform within a time restraint will oblige them to function on the basis of linguistic reflexes and not via logical analysis. For that reason, it is more helpful to provide students with examples of proper syntax, highlighting the areas of confusion by means of the kinesthetic tools you have been employing since the beginning of the course.

THE IDENTITY GAME
The Identity Game is particularly useful when studying interrogatives however, if teachers keep all of the forms from all of their classes and mix them together, it is a game that the students enjoy and that can be played all year long when they have a few moments left at the end of a class period. It is very simple to play. Once the forms are collected, the teacher selects a form at random and does not inform the students of the identity of the person described in the form. The students have to ask questions using an interrogative to determine the student's identity. Of course, they may not ask: "What is his/her name?" Each question asked should be awarded oral participation credit. When first used during lesson 2.2, the teacher will have to provide the students with a little help, such as writing the time on the board at which a student says that he or she arrives at school, since telling time takes place later in that unit. One bit of advice, do not allow students to guess the student's identity until they have asked at least three questions and then, before being allowed to guess, they must always ask a question first.

JEOPARDY TIC-TAC-TOE
Jeopardy Tic-Tac-Toe is obviously a mixture of two popular games. It has as its goal to oblige students to form questions using interrogatives. Click HERE to download a spreadsheet containing 49 small squares in 7 columns and 7 rows. At the top of each column, you see the image representing one of the interrogatives the students have just learned. Under each interrogative, there are 7 squares in which you are to type a word, name, phrase or sentence that would be the response to a question the students could form using the interrogative at the top of the column. Ideally, you will want to make this game about things of personal interest to your students and therefore the items you enter in the 7 squares in each column would deal with things and people all of your students know - very likely people, places or things in your school or town. For example, under "Who?" (column 1), you might type the name of a student on your school's basketball team. A question the students could easily form, which receives that answer, would be "Who plays basketball at (name of your school)? You would fill the remaining 6 squares in that column with the names of other people commonly associated with some activity, skill or trait. Under "What?", you might enter, "we sleep", and the students would have to form the question, "What do we do in math class?" Of course, to receive credit, the students can form any question that would receive that particular answer.

The game proceeds in the following manner:

The teacher divides the students into two teams and establishes an order in which they are to speak.

One team is selected to go first and its first member says one of the interrogatives and then a number from 1 to 7, with 1 meaning the top square and 7 meaning the bottom one.

If the student forms a grammatically correct question that properly corresponds to the answer he or she selected, then the answer is deleted and a symbol representing that team is placed in the square and the next member of that student's team is allowed to select another square.

If the student's question is incorrectly stated or does not fit the answer, it becomes the other team's turn to try to form questions.

The game ends when one of the teams has 7 symbols stretching in a straight horizontal, vertical or diagonal line indicating that they have formed correct questions to the answers in those seven consecutive squares.

BEGINNING READING INSTRUCTION
Two very important matters should be emphasized at this point. First, exposing the students to some very limited written text does not mean that they are ready to begin writing and the instructor should definitely not ask them to do so yet. That skill will not be developed until Unit 5. Secondly, do not ask the students to read aloud yet. Their only task during this first series of lessons providing reading instruction (2.3 � 2.10) is to listen to the narrator (or the teacher) reading the text and to follow along with their eyes. They will begin reading aloud toward the end of Unit 2 once they have a good grasp on phonics.

Finally, there is a choice to be made as to the nature of the reading your students will do. One option is to read about a fictional American family, the Richardsons, living in France (yes, this will be appropriate for the Spanish students as well). The other is to read biblical content, beginning with the account of Creation found in Genesis. Of course, if time permits, you may do both reading selections.

If you choose to read about the Richardson family, you will find a series of images at the end of each lesson to which the students can refer as they retell you the information they gleaned about the family from what they heard and read. If you opt to do the reading from the Bible, rather than finding a series of pictures at the end of each lesson, you will see that there is an interaction video which students are to watch and to which they will respond. (Remember to stop the video after each question to provide the students time to respond.) In both cases, use the activity at the end of the lesson to stimulate oral participation.

BEGINNING READING INSTRUCTION
Do not ask your students to read aloud during their first exposure to phonics instruction in lessons 2.3 to 2.10. The purpose of those lessons is to give them a strong understanding of the correspondence between sounds and their transcription in the language you are teaching. Requiring them to read aloud before they have a thoroughly reinforced knowledge of the language's phonics places them at too great a risk of applying their native language phonics system to the new language as they read. They will begin to read aloud at the end of Unit 2.

By contrast, after having listened to them in section 3, the students are expected to say aloud the sounds made by the combinations of letters that they find in section 4 of the phonics oriented lessons starting with ULAT 2.3. As they are reading aloud the combinations of letters found in section 4 of these lessons, remember that this is an excellent time to review with them the elements that go into proper pronunciation and that were highlight in several instructional videos during Unit 1. Insist very adamantly on the proper pronunciation of the sounds they are reading as they consequence will be much more authentic-sounding reading once they begin reading aloud.

THE SPELLING GAME
The purpose of this game is to enable students to practice their knowledge of the alphabet in an entertaining fashion. Divide the classroom into teams of four or five students and send one representative from each team to the board, providing each with a marker. Select a word that they do not yet know and spell it aloud at a rapid, fluent pace. All of the teams' representatives are to write it on the board as quickly as they can and to the best of their ability. Once they have finished writing the word, they are to put down their marker. Do not give them any feedback until all have finished and set down their marker. Be careful to note which one finished first and spelled the word correctly. That person's team receives a point and the next representative from each team comes to the board. However, provided that you are spelling rapidly and that the word is a difficult and fairly lengthy one, there is a good chance that none of them will have it completely correct. In that case, indicate that none are correct and have them sit down, being replaced at the board by their next team member. Once all are in position, spell the word again rapidly and allow them to make changes to what their first team member had written. Continue with this word until one of the teams has spelled it correctly.

THE SCRAMBLED LETTERS GAME
Prior to class, select the names of a number of students in your school and then scramble the letters of their first and last names. Read the scrambled letters to your students, keeping the first and last names distinct, and then let them raise their hands and say the name of the student to whom you were referring. Do not allow them to raise their hand and provide the answer until after you have read all of the letters.

THE PHONICS DICTATION GAME
This game is similar to "The Spelling Game", however this time, rather than spelling a word for the teams, without showing them section 7, you will read them the words containing double vowels, one at a time. All the remaining instructions for this game are identical to those for "The Spelling Game". Prior to playing this game, you can help them learn to break down the sound of two consecutive vowels by first saying the word that contains them, spoken at a conversational rate, then rapidly repeating just the portion of the word containing the two vowels, again spoken at a rapid rate, and then progressively repeating them more and more slowly until they can hear each vowel spoken individually. This is important because English-speaking students will tend to try to memorize the order of vowels in such a word, rather than sounding them out, often resulting in inverted spellings.

THE LOST AND FOUND GAME
The lost and found game is one which is played to review vocabulary, preferably nouns and preferably ones of which a sample is small enough to bring to class. If you want to play the game with nouns related to larger objects (school, church, house, etc.), you can mount a photo of those items on sturdy cardboard, however it is better by far for the students to be able to see and handle the actual object - thus this game is best played with nouns such as household items, classroom items, food, clothing, etc. Divide the class into two teams and ensure that the aisles between the students' desks are free of clutter. Widen the aisles if the classroom's size permits it and emphasize that the students may not run as they play this game - only walk quickly. In the front of the room, place on a table all of the objects or images that correspond to the vocabulary you are reviewing. The first student from each team stands and stands at the table. Then the teacher calls out the name of one of the objects. The first student who locates and picks it up takes it back to his or her team and places it on the desk of a classmate on his or her team. The next two students stand and the teacher again calls out the name of an object that they must find and pick up first. It is important to note that, from this point on, the teacher may call out the name of an object on the table in the front of the room or one already on a student's desk and therefore the students will not necessarily go all the way to stand by the table in the front of the room as they await the teacher's call. Whether the object was found on the table in the front of the room or a student's desk, the student who picks it up first must place it on another teammate's desk. The game ends when time is up or when all of the objects are in the possession of the same team. (The teacher should emphasize that seats students may not do anything to hide the objects on their desks or to impede the progress of the opposition player.)

THE LINE GAME (GESTURES)
Another variation of "The Line Game" involves having the members of two classroom teams challenge one another to recall and perform the appropriate gesture corresponding to vocabulary learned in the past.has a number of variant forms. The teacher divides the class into two teams that stand and face one another. The teacher points to the first student at the head of one of the lines and that student must call out a word, generally a verb, already learned for which the first member of the other team must perform the gesture. If that student performs the gesture correctly, within 5 seconds, he or she then calls out another word and the second member of the first team must perform the gesture within 5 seconds. If he or she does the correct gesture within the 5-second time limit, that student calls out a word for the second member of the second team, and so on.

However, if one of the students who is obliged to perform a gesture does the wrong one or does not do the gesture within the time limit, then the one who called out the word must perform the gesture. If he or she is able to do it correctly, the one who was unable to do so must sit down, and the successful student challenges the opposition's next player with a new word. If both students are unable to do the gesture correctly (that is, even the one who called out the word), they both sit down and the next person on the caller's team challenges the next student on the opposing team with a word. The game continues until time runs out, at which point the team with the most students standing wins, or until one team no longer has any players standing. (A variation, to keep all of those sitting engaged, would be to allow one of those sitting to perform the gesture if both players (the caller and the one being challenged) were unable to do so, in which case the ones standing would sit and the one sitting who correctly did the gesture would stand again.)

WALK AROUND
A "walk around" is a walk around the school building with your students to illustrate some new grammatical structure. Beyond the benefit of providing the students with a little variety in your classroom activities, a walk around enables them to hear the stucture being used with reference to a visual and more easily comprehensible context. Of course, you will certainly want to use the walk around as an oral participation session to hold the students accountable for their attention and participation. An example of a typical walk around would be one used to demonstrate the distinction between the simple present and present progressive tenses. The teacher would ask the students questions of a general nature regarding people they see on their walk and then would ask them what those people are doing at that very moment.

LETTERS AND NUMBERS
In the game "Letters and Numbers", one team participates at a time and attempts to complete the task they are given in the fastest time. Once the stopwatch is started, the first student in the team races to the front of the classroom and clicks on the first image of a computer mouse found next to the number (1-5) of the series they are doing. After hearing the letter and number this generates, they must find the number within the column of the letter they have heard and click on it before returning to their seat. They may only click once. If they are wrong, the next student on the team must come to the front and click on the correct number. However, the student may not leave his or her seat until the previous student has sat down (to avoid collisions and accidents). Once that team has correctly clicked on all of the buttons linked to the letters and numbers in their series, the stopwatch is stopped and their time is recorded.

TOUCH-AND-GO GAME
In the "Touch-And-Go Game", the class is divided into two or more teams. One team participates at a time and the team's performance is timed so as to determine which team accomplishes the task the most rapidly.

The first member of the first team goes to the board and the teacher clicks on the first sound icon. This plays a sound for the student who must find the object corresponding to that sound within five seconds. If the student is successful, the teacher clicks on the next sound icon and the student goes and sits down. This brings the member of that same team to the board to touch the corresponding object, also within five seconds. When a student touches the wrong object, the next team member in order must come and touch the right one before the team can move on. The timer is stopped when the team has gone through all of the sound icons in that section of the lesson. To avoid, having the next team simply memorize the order (not likely if there are a large number of sound files), the teacher can take them backwards through the activity.

PROBLEM RESOLUTION ACTIVITY
This activity serves the dual purpose of reviewing problem-solving vocabulary and of reviewing the use of the modals (can, could, should, must, may) and the near future tense. The students are to write down on a slip of paper some type of problem they are experiencing in their life. It is imperative to emphasize to them that this should NOT be a problem of a truly serious nature, but something fairly trivial or commonplace, such as too much homework, not enough sleep, a troublesome sibling, dad's cooking, etc. The teacher then reads and explains the problem to the class, using drama if necessary to convey the difficult vocabulary. To establish the parameters of the problem and, of course, to encourage the students to participate orally while practicing question formation, the students are allowed to ask questions of the one whose problem is being discussed (i.e., How much homework do you have? Do you have to share a bedroom with your brother? At what time do you go to bed? Do you listen to music while you do your homework?). Once all of the questions have been asked, the students are to make suggestions as to what their classmate "should" do about their problem. The teacher will ask the student if he or she really "can" or "may" do what is being suggested or if they really "must" do the thing causing their problem. Finally, the teacher asks the student what he or she "is going to do" or "isn't going to do" about the problem in light of the suggestions made.

HIDDEN CLASSMATES
The name of this activity is more ominous-sounding than the reality. This is a game that can be employed for any number of objectives. The teacher sets chairs in the hallway and then selects three or more students to leave the room and sit in those chairs. Once seated the students are not allowed to change their order. The students remaining in class then ask questions (potentially for oral participation credit) to try to identify the students in their proper order. So as not to reveal the students' voices, the answer to each question is provided by the teacher, who stands in the doorway to supervise and relay information to both groups of students. The students are not allowed to guess the order of the students until a minimum of 5 questions has been asked. By the way, be careful as to whom you select to sit in the hall in that certain students, especially if the topic is physical appearance, could be embarrassed by having to respond to an indiscreet question.

IDENTITY RECOGNITION
The Identity Recognition game is primarily applicable for us in Unit 3 while learning to describe people's appearance and clothing. Preferably, prior to the start of the school day, the teacher walks about the halls taking photos of student (who are willing to be photographed and understand why it is being done). Then, during class, without showing the photos to the students, the teacher describes the physical appearance and, once this subject has been presented, the clothing and colors being worn that day by those students who were photographed. The students in class must try to guess the name of the student being described. When the students' vocabulary does not yet allow them to understand matters of clothing and color, the teacher may have to add additional information beyond physical appearance to help the students identify the one being described. Once someone correctly identifies the student, the teacher shows his or her photo on the classroom screen and repeats the description, pointing out each aspect that was described.

GESTURE DRILL
A gesture drill is typically performed at the beginning of class. It involves three steps.

The teacher performs the gestures to be drilled, while simultaneously saying the corresponding word, and the students repeat both the gesture and the word.

Next, the teacher says the words being drilled and the students try to remember and to perform the corresponding gesture. This activity should be gradually accelerated until the students struggle to keep up with the pace. The acceleration serves the purpose of fostering the establishment of linguistic reflexes, meaning the ability to produce a word and to demonstrate its meaning without any inner reflection in the students' native language.

Finally, the teacher silently performs the gestures and the students try to recall and say the corresponding words. Once again, these gestures are performed with steady acceleration.

SILENT SIGNING
The term "signing" refers to using gestures to represent the various elements of a statement. The ULAT proposes many gestures, but creative and expressive teachers will not limit themselves to those proposed by the ULAT. They can and should invent their own because the ULAT's are not exhaustive and because the best way to convey meaning is through the senses and not via the written word or by "helping" the students via translation.

"Silent signing" involves performing the gestures in silence, without providing the corresponding sounds. Whereas this may initially feel awkward or foolish, it is accomplishing a very important task. Performing a repetitive series of motor activities is laying a deep understanding in the students of the language's structure and is engraining that structure in the students' mind so that it becomes a reflex action and does not have to be generated by the recall of rules and charts displayed on the pages of a textbook.