Curriculum Planning and Teaching
MUZZY’s multisensory approach appeals to all types of learners in every grade level and setting from preschool to high school and adult education with learners of all abilities to gifted and talented to special needs students.
MUZZY is used as a core program for PreK-8, able to be implemented by Classroom Teachers as a foundation program, and is used as a FLES (Foreign Language in Elementary Schools) and middle school program taught by foreign language teachers. In PreK-8, the MUZZY Lesson Plans and Activity Masters are considered a helpful and flexible tool, easy to use, already prepared and a great resource for Subtitute Teachers too.
MUZZY follows national foreign language standards which emphasize the use of functional language. Because MUZZY is not rigidly sequenced but flexible and adaptive, it integrates thematically and easily as a supplement for Foreign Language and ESL Teachers.
High school, colleges and graduate schools of education use MUZZY as a methodology model, for reinforcement and as a reward. These upper ages typically integrate the MUZZY Language Course content thematically along with the teachers’ own lesson materials.
Foreign/World Language /FLES and ESL Classrooms
MUZZY is a spiraling language program that is articulated with both National Standards for Foreign Language Learning and ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.) The program is used successfully with student ages from preschool through adult, and is a favorite of FLES educators and establishes a high interest and motivation from students’ first exposure to learning languages and stimulates all forms of communication in its multi-sensory design.
On-site Training Workshops can also be requested to assist a program launch for classroom teachers or foreign language teachers. They are led interactively, by experienced MUZZY Teacher Trainers for a fee to cover professional time and travel.
Classroom Teachers and PTA Volunteers
When foreign language specialists are unfortunately not available due to funding or staffing shortages, the benefits of early language learning can effectively be initiated by classroom teachers, staff or parents. Since MUZZY has had nearly two decades of success for millions of young students in homes in Europe and the U.S. with parents who are not professional teachers, you can feel confident about providing the benefits of early language instruction. The success of MUZZY in the classroom is also made easier by the help of MUZZY teaching materials.
MUZZY Lesson Plans and reproducible Activity Masters, available in five languages, and the MUZZY Spanish Complete Elementary Program enable classroom teachers to conduct interactive group activities following presentation of the MUZZY multimedia content, because everything is directed and provided. In these cases, the non-fluent teacher’s role is only expected to be to manage class time and activities. The students view their classroom teacher realistically and enthusiastically as a “co-learner”. These teachers are not expected to be the speaking model – that’s the function of the MUZZY characters’ native speaker voices in the multimedia content.
The Classroom Teacher’s role is to:
- Cue up the DVD/Audio CD and copy the reproducible activities provided
- Establish classroom expectations and routines for language time
- Direct the class to address the specific attentive listening task for that day
- Play the scene specified and follow that lesson plan as a guideline.
- Encourage participation following lesson plans that include interactive role play, practicing dialog, enacting scenes, or completing activity sheets and projects. Incorporate typical classroom materials around the room as props or the prop illustrations provided, for hands-on use in dialogs
- End the class by showing the scene again for review or concluding with a song or game
The English Version DVD component assists classroom teacher comfort by being able to quickly know all the immersion language content, as does the Multilingual Script Book which contains scene by scene images to follow along, with every word of dialogue and content – both in English and the target language, (as well as 3 other languages.)
Please click here to see our MUZZY Classroom editions and Supplementary Teaching Materials.
Our professional staff at Early Advantage School Services is here to answer teachers’ questions and provide free resources, via sending them to Schools@early-advantage.com or calling toll, free 888-327-5923.