Reflexiones de Sala63

I am blogging about this because writing helps me think.

My school has decided to get rid of Honors level courses for Spanish and French I for the coming school year. (2012-13)   In lieu of these classes, we are to develop  an honor challenges that students in any level one class can take.    If a student completes enough Honors Challenges then she will get Honors (weighted) credit for Spanish One.  She will also be qualified to take Spanish Two Honors.

There are several rationales for this move.  Included in these rationales is the idea of equity.  All students should be able to access the Honors curriculum, if they so chose.  Another, rationale is based on a more realistic assessment of our current schedule.  We are a small school and as such have a lot of singletons—our name for classes that have only one section.   Student have to make some hard choices regarding the schedules.   This year I have about 11 kids who are scattered through out my “regular”  level one classes who should be in Honors but cannot work it into their schedule.   The Honors Challenge would be a great way to keep them engaged.

I have decided to start planning for this change now.  I have started looking for ideas on line but many of those appear to be “busy-work” activities.   I am trying to find that perfect activity that is rigorous enough to be honors level but not so hard that it  turns into a task.  (¿ me entiendes ? )

What I envision at this point is my students preparing a portfolio of work that demonstrates a deeper understanding of  the material covered.   My challenge now is to decide what that is going to look like.

I would love constructive input and  examples … as I start working on this.

All my students have cell phones despite the administration’s ban. This year, I have been exploring the use of cell phones in class. A great site I have been using is Wifftti. Wiffitti is an on line tool that allows students to publish real time messages. I can then project those messages on to the screen in my classroom. I learned about Wiffit this March at the Foreign Language Association of Maine’s annual conference.

One use I have found for Wiffitti is posting the answers to a question of the day. (Reminiscent of a “bell ringer” activity) As students enter the room, I have a question on the board and the necessary codes. I should add that we have been doing this often enough that they know what they have to do. Friday’s question was, “¿Qué hicicste anoche?” (What did you do last night?) We have been studying the past tense. Students come in and text their answers which are displayed on the screen. We start class by going over the answers. A variation to go over their answers is to guess who texted which answer.

Sometimes the questions are designed to give me feed back. Complete this statement: “I need help with”…. Because the answers are semi-anonymous, I get a lot of honest answers.

Sometime we use it to check exercises that we have completed. When students come I, hand them a slip of paper with a prompt to text their answer to question 1 or question 2.

When we look at cultural activities, the prompt could be– “Tell me something you learned about the history of Peru? “ Or “Complete this statements: I am wondering” … This give me another chance to talk about the topic, clarify misconceptions and tie new information to prior knowledge.

An added benefit of Wiffiti is that it gives them something to engage with when they walk in. I used to have a “bell ringer” on the board for student to complete before the bell as I handled administrative activities like taking attendance . Most kids waited until the bell rang to get started. Wiffitti has changed that, they come in and get started right away. This has been especially helpful in my largest class. I have one class that has 26 high energy freshmen types. Wiffitti has made it easier to get them settled and on task. They like trying to “one-up” one anther with their answers.

Classroom Tool

Speaking is  important when learning a new language.  Ironically, one of the great difficulties in teaching a language is practicing and assessing speaking skills.  Google voice has saved the day .

Google Voice allows students to use their cell phones to record their speaking.  They dial a local number and leave a message.  The message is then sent to my desk top where I can listen to it at my leisure. (As if teachers have a leisure this time of year)

Initially I had concerns about equity.  I wondered what to do about the student who does not have a phone or does not have free minutes.  (track phone)  Most students have phones.    Most of the activities that we do require them to have a partner.   Thus, in a class of 20 we only need ten (10) phones.  Problem solved.  When we  have individual activities, the students without a phone can a) use phone in my room  b) use a friend’s phone  c) do the activity live with me.   It has never been a problem.

Lesson Ideas:  My ideas for using google voice are all based on the “old-way of doing things”  These are the things I am doing.  Google voice provides a nice formative assessment.

• We do information gap activities where they have to find something out about their partner.
• I put a picture on the overhead and ask them to tell me 10 things about the picture.
• I ask them questions and they respond.

I am certain that google voice has applications that I am not realizing.  I would love to hear what others are doing.

Cell Phones in the Language Classroom: Recasting the Debate

TV Bombay provides students with short clips from a 1970′s Indian television show.   Students are asked to provide subtitles for the the video clips.    First students must go to the web site and select a clip.  Then, I ask them to  imagine what they must be talking about.  They are free to make their clip funny, serious or informative.   The only caveat is to be sure to keep it classroom appropriate. When they have finished they  e-mail their clips to me.   We spent the next day reviewing the clips.   I gave a prize for the best, the funniest and most serious.

These clips are short and easily lend themselves to most grammar topics.

Example TV Bombay

One of my students  stayed after class and complained that our adventure away from the textbook is leaving her a little confused about what she is supposed to be learning.   This comment caught me off guard.  I was a little surprised and  my initial impulse was to say, ” You are learning Spanish”.     Instead, I asked her to elaborate.  She said that with the book she knew what to study and what to memorize for the test–the way way we are doing it now,  she said, left her lost as to what to study.    This exchange has stayed with me all weekend.

We have been studying the human body.  We have looked at H 3N2 in Mexico City.  We have plotted it on a map.  We talked the black death and followed it on map through 14th Century Europe.  (I used to teach geography)  We have looked at accidents, created a prezi for of injured people  and talked about what goes on at the doctor’s office.    Although students know the names of basic body parts, we learned the names of others.  (Except the ones they REALLY want to know)    Everyday we have talked, read, role played and written about el cuerpo humano.  “How can you not learn?”,  I wanted to shout.

As I have explained muchas veces,  I beleive that vocabulary is self selected by the student.  In other words, they pick the words and ideas that have meaning to them.  As such, I try to create assessments that will allow them to showcase what they have learned.   I always leave them the option to create their own prompt.    They are a little more creative than I and have great ideas.  For their oral assessment, they will have to create a dialogue based on a conversation in a doctor’s office between a patient and a their health care provider or  create a public service announcement regarding the outbreak or prevention of some   disease.    For the written assessment they  have to create a public health poster or write an accident report or write a note explaining why Juanito will not be in school today.   This is where they are headed and where I began.

So, as I have pondered this exchange, I realized this morning that issue might be one of organization.   She has not/cannot organize all the material in her head.   She is having trouble grouping things.  In order to help all of them get a handle on all that we have covered.  I am going to work with them on mind mapping the ideas and concepts we have learned.   We are going to use an online program called Text 2 Mind Map. My plan is to divide them into groups and have one group create a mind map for body parts, one group for in the doctor’s office and one group for illness and disease. I have mocked up a mind map to get an idea of what the finished product will look like. I’ll post their maps later this week.

My practice mind map

On Valentines Day, we are going to review affirmative  and negative commands using candy hearts.   The way this works  is  I get students to cut-out ten hearts using construction paper.  I give each students a handful of candy hearts and have them identify the ones that have commands on them.  Students separate those out–they are free to eat the others.  Then, students create a set of five hearts using affirmative tú  commands.   Since most the majority of the hearts are affirmative commands,  students then must create five negative tú commands.  This is the fun part– I traditonally get things like–”No me compres dulces” (Don’t buy me candy) , “No hables con Mary”(Don’t talk to Mary) , “No salgas con tus amigos el sábado”. (Don’t go out with your friends on Sat.)   It is a short lesson that lends itself very easily to a little a fun.  It also shows students that command are all around and that they are useful

I have decided to put the book on the shelves and to do my own thing.  This decision was based on numerous factors but was primarily driven by the idea that students were not learning Spanish.  They learned the Chapter 3 material, did well on the test and moved on to Chapter 4 but,  Spanish is not Vegas, “what happens in Chapter 3 does not stay in Chapter 3″  but rather provides the foundation for the skills introduced in Chapter 4 and subsequent chapter.

As I looked at the material for chapters three and four, I noticed that the themes were noun/adjective agreement,  present tense verb conjugation  and the weather.

Based on this info, I created a new unit called.  Mi Mejor Amigo.   We started off with a list of adjectives.  Students went through the list and circled the ones that described their best friend.  We worked with the adjectives to create simple sentences describing their best friend.

Next,  we looked at a list of verbs and students circled the things their best friend did in a typical week.  One thing I noticed here was that the list in the book–my starting point—did not match up with things they did.  It matched up with things I did.   I gave each students an index card and asked them to list things that their best friend did that was not on the list. We took the list and created a googledoc that was shared wtih everyone.  Students were able to add to the list.

Finally, I incorporated weather into the mix by talking about what their friends did when it was nice and when it was not nice weather.  Students really got into it.

As a final assessment of the unit, students had to write a letter nominating their best friend for “Amigo del Año”  I was pleased with what I got.

I see this lesson as huge success-not flawless but successful.  My students mastered the content and were able to use the information in class in a meaningful way.

Teaching speaking skills presents several problems for World Language teachers.  First there is the issue of trying to simulate authentic conversation in the classroom.  Secondly, there is the issue of student not feeling comfortable.  Lowering the affective filter is an important step for students language acquisition.  Finally there is the issue of time.   Research shows that most students spend less than 2 minutes a day speaking in the target language.

One solution that I learned about at the ACTFL Convention this Fall is from  Center for Language Education and Research. (CLEAR)  Although CLEAR offeres numerous products for language learners, one that I found particularly helpful was the Audio Drop Box.   This is an open source audio collection tool that allows teachers to create an audio drop box and embed on a web page.  Students then access the drop box by going to the web page. The process is very simple.

There are numerous advantages.  One is that students really focus on pronunciation.  Most students record their work 2-3 times.   When asked about the re-do’s students say that they did not like the way they pronounced something or that their speaking did not sound natural.     We have only done this 5-6  times but,  I notice that my students are more eager to speak and that their speaking has improved.

Now that we have done this enough to work out logistical problems, I assigned my first audio drop box assignment for students to do over the break.  I was pleasantly surprised this morning to have the majority of them done already.  Student have been working on them from home.  I have also been pleased that students are exceeding the 2 minute time limit.   Speaking from home reduces student anxiety and thus, they produce more.