Unit: Comunidades

I LOVE teaching this unit.  It started out from the textbook as En La Ciudad and as I worked to implement IPAs I focused on transportation and it was ok...not compelling though.  Then at ACTFL 2016 I got the inspiration I needed.  Megan and Kara from The Creative Language Class presented about making a meaningful curriculum and they shared this image and I was in!  If I was hooked, I new I'd get my students wanting to talk about this.

Goal Setting & Reflecting

I want my students to 

• know that I set daily targets each day so that our lessons have a purpose.
• reflect on their own learning towards that goal.
• set their own goals for the class and share those goals with me.
• evaluate their own efforts in class.
• create a plan or action steps to meet that goal and I want to hold them accountable to reflect on that.
• let me know what works and doesn't work in my class so I can plan accordingly.  

Therefore, I created a daily "participation" form. 

Unit: Tradiciones Familiares

Our level 5 is tied to a textbook, but we have the power to add/subtract/modify to meet our needs.  I'm very thankful for that.  I really don't like using a textbook, but can appreciate the need to find a common way to tie multiple schools together.  I also believe that textbooks were designed for teachers and schools to use the parts that fit their needs, NOT to do every activity in their.  They are speaking to a national audience and populations vary immensely across the nation.
To take advantage of Day of the Dead, I changed the order and decided to squeeze in more culture with unit 4. I shifted the focus to family traditions.

Unit: Sentir y Vivir / Soy Yo

This is a unit for level 5 students who are returning from summer break and I anticipate the majority to have a baseline of developing Intermediate-Mid.  So as we get back on track to get them to a continuous proficient level of Intermediate-Mid this year, we're starting off with a unit to let them talk about themselves and to finish with creating a Frida-inspired self-portrait that they can describe to an audience.

Let me also tell you that Kara Jacobs has a great unit that could be used for this simliar theme connecting to the AP theme Belleza y Estetica.  She's got free stuff to use...I wanted to use her ideas but have other themes to touch upon so time doesn't allow.

Curriculum

I'm so excited about our unit changes!  We've been making changes to Lead with Culture....because
it's compelling content for the students.  Annnnddd....there's so many #authres that we get A LOT of materials to build around and upon.



So, here's the plan:


Spanish 3 (this is a new prep for me!)

1. Stories
2. Viva el Toro / Bullfighting
3. Musica & Baile
4. Salud (problems/solutions)
5. Rainforest (hoping for $$ for Robo en La Noche)
6. Telenovelas
7. Arte

Spanish 4

1. Amistades  
2. La Llorona de Mazatlan (thank you, NYSAFLT, for the $$ I won!!!!!)
3. Machismo
4. Heroes / Superheroes (Lucha Libre)
5. Guerra Civil de El Salvador
6. Vida y Muerte en la Mara SalvaTrucha

Spanish 5
I have adapted my units to support the textbook that my college course requires.
(in parentheses I'll share my main driving content or #authres)

1. Soy Yo (Pelo Malo, the song Soy Yo and Frida Kahlo)
2. Tradiciones Familiares (Day of the Dead)
3. Comunidad (pobreza, personas sin techo, cancion: La Historia de Juan, macromural)
4.  El Valor de la Idea (arte: Guernica, pelicula: In the Time of the Butterflies, desaparecidos, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, corto: El Ojo en La Nuca)
5. Las Riquezas Naturales de Colombia (Juanes, minas piedras, Living on a Dollar)
6. Inmigracion (peli: De Nadie, soooo many songs, peli: La Misma Luna)
7. Esperanza (I know this is a super easy read, but my goal is that they independently read and culminate in a book discussion which I'll evaluate as their interpersonal speaking)

Updated Rubrics

My department has been working over the last few years to articulate our goals among ourselves and to our students.  We aim for growth, but at the end of the year felt that we were not clearly building in the steps for our students.  So we took our rubrics that were labeled as the proficiency levels and built in steps that lead to the next level.  We built in words that showed they are trying, but not consistently meeting those levels.

We've made them for speaking in both interpersonal and presentational modes.  I can see these working as we consider revamping our writing rubrics as well.

Novice High Level 1
Novice High Level 2
Intermediate Low
Intermediate Mid
Intermediate High

Now....I'm sharing these...but they've not been tested yet!  We're excited about them, though and think they'll be useful in coaching students appropriately in the upcoming school year.

Unit: Perspectivos de Inmigracion

I've decided to use this unit for a presentational goal in mind for the students.  In looking at all the authentic resources to use, I'm overwhelmed by the songs that fall into this theme and I know that I can't use them all...though I want to.  So I will bring many of them into my lessons and ultimately, students will be given a song that they need to present to their classmates.  I'm going to go a little old-school here and have my students present in a "job-fair" format (thanks for Megan Sulewski for the idea) and use *gasp* posters to present!  They can still use QR codes to incorporate technology (audio, visual, etc) but I want them to put a bit more love into their projects than I see them produce in powerpoint.  Also, I want this to be an opportunity for Q&A (interpersonal speaking) and when the audience can see everything (where a PPT advances and previous pages can be forgotten), they serve as prompts for conversation pieces.

Presentational Mode

Recently, I read some comments on Twitter about speaking in the presentational mode and it got me thinking.  The commentary was that we don't use presentational speaking in real life and I think this is untrue.  I use presentational speaking on a regular basis and I don't mean in my role as teacher.

Presentational communication is the creation of communication prepared for an audience and rehearsed.  There is opportunity for editing and revision before the presentation.  It is one-way communication that requires interpretation by others without negotiation of meaning.

When I need to speak to my principal about an idea that I have, I plan ahead for that conversation which will eventually be interpersonal.  But I know that my introduction is on my terms and I start out in presentational mode.  Before we talk, I get those thoughts together, I think about the vocabulary that I want to include (identifying some of the buzz words that can draw his attention), I think about the structure of my introduction.  I play a couple different scenarios out in my head first.  I muster up my courage and go for it.  This same thing happens when I have to talk to my spouse, my children, my doctor and when I call customer service.  They all turn into interpersonal, but start out in presentational form.  I saw Joshua Cabral (wlclassroom) give a presentation and pointed out a similar idea that stuck with me.  When preparing to walk into a store, it's in our nature to plan our statement ahead.  However, since our presentational mode tends to be higher than our interpersonal mode, we unconsciously send a message to our audience that we can converse at a higher level and they respond at that level.  The interaction may quickly crumble in this case.  But that does support my idea that we do use presentational mode frequently.

So, in the classroom, presentational mode needs to be a skill that we address.  I think we frequently do, but don't give ourselves credit for it.  It doesn't have to be up and in front of the class.  It's simply defined as communicating to an audience that's not up for negotiation.  That can be to a small group or even to a classmate.  Students have to have this opportunity to focus on form.  Examples that I can think of:

• share and pair
• give one to get one
• describe your picture/interpretation to your group
• create a voki

My colleagues and I offer a daily prompt for students to respond to for their "speaking points" and we've discussed which category to put this in now that we've changed our grading practices.  Our students attack this prompt in different forms and we see it play out differently per the student.  It's neat to see it happen.  Some students write down their answers and memorize it (we don't let them read it).  Some write down a couple words that they want to include and they glance at the paper when needed.  Some don't even read the prompt until we are in proximity and just go for it.  We respond differently to the students based on their individual personalities, readiness and the statement.  Sometimes I can ask a follow-up question, turning the conversation to interpersonal.  Sometimes, I give a statement to show I'm listening.  Sometimes I can say something that is connected to make them smile or laugh and provide them with another interpretive opportunity.  So all these scenarios make the grading category be a legitimate conversation.  For the record, we've decided to put it in the presentational category.  

Resources for a proficiency based curriculum

If you are on-board with teaching for proficiency, this may be a shift in your own understanding of what proficiency is and how to teach and assess for it.

My journey spiraled me into a different world and I want to note some helpful resources out there.  Obvi, there are GREAT bloggers, but I felt that I had to do some "research" type digging.  Okay, research is the wrong word, but I needed some formal investigating.

Identifying the different proficiency levels is not as black and white as we'd like it to be.  

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spt/

Spanish Corpus & Proficiency Level Training (SPT) Website

Here you will find video recordings of Spanish learners of different levels answering several questions, a written transcript of what they say, and exercises that will guide you interactively to notice features about their talk, as well as answers to those exercises. The purpose of the site is to learn to evaluate Spanish proficiency levels.  You can access a Spanish corpus of beginner to advanced learners of Spanish.

I've shared these with my students throughout the year and find them to be helpful in recognizing areas that they can aim for in their proficiency.  When they compare different levels, they recognize the pauses, the pronunciation and the sheer quantity.  That's a big one for me...don't give up but show off as much as you can in order to grown on the proficiency scale.  

Now that you are teaching for proficiency....are you assessing proficiency?  

Changing your units is work.  If you think about how to assess proficiency, you need to create opportunities for that.  The ACTFL IPA (intergrated performance assessment) model is amazing....but again....go see some examples to inspire!

https://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/assessment/index.html

http://carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/assessment/ipa/example3/index.html

http://carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/CreateUnit/unit_examples.html

http://flenj.org/caps/149/

Unit: Las Riquezas Naturales en Colombia

 

In my level 5 class, we are aiming for Intermediate High as the goal for the course.  Of course, the individual students vary, but I want Intermediate High to be known as I do my research for what authentic resources and what content I choose.

We teach a chapter entitled "Las Riquezas Naturales" and I was looking for a more focused approach as I designed my IPA and after collecting a lot of authentic resources and trying to determine what cultural aspect would be interesting to the students, I decided to focus on the landmine epidemic in Colombia.

Every unit, I aim to use art and music as authentic resources and cultural insight and I felt that I was getting something in this direction through Juanes.  I watched the movie Living on One Dollar with my 9-year daughters one day and knew I had to us
e it in the classroom. The movie shows the reality of true poverty in a country in Central America and is very inspiring to want to help to make a change.  So I was also aware of the nonprofit organization Kiva where people ask for loans.  Some other bloggers have created a project with it also.  Putting this together with a Colombian focus gave me a true vision for the unit.  I knew that I had to get the students to see the beauty in Colombia and the harsh reality that citizens face.  So my backward design and path of study has settled on the following:
(we meet on block schedule.  80 minutes every other day)

UBD

I am in the process of re-working my units because I want to LEAD with culture.

For many years I polled students regarding what they wanted more in class and they always said more culture.  I struggled with this because I didn't know what culture to give them beyond the "cultural Friday" bits.  It was basic!

Then I started letting #authres take the lead and I realized I was missing out.  So as I continue this journey, let me show you the forms that I've created to hold myself accountable as I plan:

unit template

Unit: El Valor de la Idea

Our textbook, Imagina, has a chapter called El Valor de la Idea
I took this opportunity to show how groups have been able to overcome and work in solidarity.
I was able to get some inspiration from Kristy Placido, Srta Dentlinger and Martina Bex as well as my colleagues as this is a college-credit bearing class and I got to work with a group for planning.

Here's my planning for this this:

Proficiency Wall

I think that being aware of the proficiency levels allows us to guide our students in their growth. It's our job to know what those descriptors are (which in itself can be convoluted when you start analyzing samples of their work) and to know what students should be focusing on to go to the next level.

And....students need to know the jargon also.  They need to hear it, see it, be aware of what they can truly work on in order to improve.  So I have a proficiency wall that I display.  I teach grades 11 and 12 so I want them to see lots of pieces...but maybe your students need to see less.

Either way, I'm sharing my grid (which is kind of like my key...see below) and my blown-up version so you can print out your own or save and modify.

  

Speaking Modes

Using the IPA guideline proposed by ACTFL and has really led me to acceptance of different skills in speaking modes.  Presentational mode and Interpersoal mode are quite different.

When I give time for students to prepare, they can focus on creating a clean message and ensure they use effective grammar and vocabulary.

When I ask students to converse with another speaker, they start out strong in regards to grammar and vocabulary, but those elements tend to quickly disintegrate as the focus is on the message and the fact that they don't have complete control over the conversation.

So I realized that I needed to use different rubrics.  And I need to make them aware that we focus on different elements in the different modes.  So I made a checklist for them to use.

My Professional Growth

Last year marked the end of my 10-year original National Board Certification, so I was forced to plow ahead with my renewal.  It was perfect timing for me as I was in the middle of being rejuvenated by the re-release of ACTFL's proficiency descriptors.  I had to choose 4 Professional Growth Experiences.  Those areas fell into place very easily for me.

1. Student Output:
My 90% TL began a long, long time ago. Before ACTFL posed their 6 Core Practices, I was committed to speaking 95% of the time in Spanish to my class and making every effort to do so in a way to ensure their affective filters were LOW.  I felt it time to work on increasing my students' oral output.  I know that you're not supposed to force output, but I teach levels IV and V, juniors and seniors and I feel I can ask them to get on board with the output as long as I frame it as OUR goal.

Some of my fundamental procedures to meet goal:

• Daily "frases":  The daily question / prompt is posted on the board and the students can answer during warm-up time or at another lull to earn their cumulative speaking points.  They can earn 3 points (I don't really know why I say 3...probably because of the way New York State grades the speaking tasks lower levels.) and I will offer 1 bonus point for a variety of reasons (elaboration, answering more follow-up questions, using sophisticated grammar structures) and I do that based on who my student is (they range from novice high working on intermediate low to intermediate mid working on intermediate high).

• "actividad conversacional":  I always plan 2 activities that in which I ask students to be on board with speaking in Spanish and avoiding English.  I mark them with a star and announce when they are occurring so students are in the right frame of mind and up their participation.

• "minuto de charlar":  This was a game changer.  I attended a workshop from Harry Tuttle who presented this idea.  Prompt is on the board, students exchange papers, 1 minute timer starts and partner 2 simply tallies as students make sentences.  I LOVE listening during these.  Students sometimes say they are stressful, but there's no grade so I'm not completely sure why.

2. Feedback

During a book study of Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning, I learned of a strategy to provide effective feedback. The essential idea is to share one area of strength and one area of focus. During this time, I was watching American Idol and saw the same strategy. The quality of feedback given to the contestants is significant and honest. Furthermore, the contestants greatly accept the feedback and use it to guide their continued practice. After their performance, the judges give a positive comment that is far from the generic “good job”, but specific in description. They give advice on exactly what to focus on improving in the show. Since this occurs immediately following the performance, the examples are significant to the contestant and they know how to proceed in their practices before the next competition.

I’ve taken this practice to the classroom and have used a “stars and stairs” method to give the same idea of a positive praise to acknowledge an area that is already strong and an area that can be improved. I’ve applied this to a weekly written evaluation. I created a form with a star icon and a staircase icon. This task is not a graded assignment. These written evaluations are formative assessments and are on-going. It’s a practice opportunity for students to demonstrate their ability to effectively communicate an idea related to our topic of study. I provide a prompt and students write a paragraph according to the prompt.

My feedback is based on the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. By using the ACTFL descriptors and my “stars and stairs” form, I limit myself in quantity to not overwhelm the students. The ACTFL descriptors reflect how language learners progress. By using their verbiage, I can show the key points that identify their current proficiency and target which area to work on in order to improve. As I review the writing samples, I can glean areas of strength or weakness in regards to the topic, vocabulary and grammar so that I can make modifications to the unit of study. Additionally, I can respond in a variety of ways. For example, I can use this time to identify errors that create roughness in fluency that students have the knowledge and ability of correcting, such as spelling, agreement of subject-verb and noun-adjective, and tenses. By highlighting errors, students make corrections as a warm-up activity the next class. They may work with their group members to seek help or ask me if they get stuck but it’s a time for them to examine their errors and determine the correct form. Other times, I identify the strength and improvement area. Yet another option is to share their proficiency level demonstrated in the task. Regardless which feedback I give, I attempt to return the paper the following class because good feedback is timely as well as specific.

Using the terms from the ACTFL proficiency guidelines is amazing!

Giving my students free-write time and responding with their level (although it's just a snapshot of their ability and not true proficiency level) is so encouraging.  I don't even have to use grades, it's effective.  They don't even ask "how many sentences?" any more.  The more they write the better they chance they have at receiving a higher label...and believe me they want that label!

In the first picture, you can see my proficiency wall to the left of the agenda and frases.  I refer to that when I want to seize an opportunity to give feedback.  Maybe a student uses a complex sentence, I can refer to Intermediate mid to say how that's a characteristic.  You know what happens next?  More kids start using complex sentences!  This stuff is gold for feedback!


3. Expanding my PLN 
(it's a constant, evolving, work-in-progress)

• I am adjunct with a university so that our students can get college credit.
• I participate with NYSAFLT
• Listen to TeawithBVP podcast (and sometimes call in!)
• Participate in #langchat
• Work with regional committees

4. Using authentic resources
I use #authres regulary.  I try to make it daily but I won't commit 100% to that statement.
I think you can get so much mileage out of #authres.  And it better after the countless time I spend in the vortex of finding the perfect one...but as Kristy Placido said "let good be good enough".  The perfect one may come in the future!
I, myself, have learned so much from using authentic resources. Grammar rules are broken!  Why did I take off points on a paper for breaking the rule I taught when they get broken IRL!?!?  There's so much more vocabulary than my list!?!?  The cultural ah-has!  The comparative ah-has!  I am often able to make many connections to the ACTFL 5 Cs:
communication √
(interpretive via receptive and interpersonal or presentational when using the insight as springboard or communicate)
cultures √
connections √
(different perspectives, other disciplines)
comparisons√
(both language and cultural)
communities?  this is by far my most challenging standard.

So here's a homework choice board I use for each unit.  They must complete one a week for a total of 3 or 4 depending on the length of the unit.  My level 5 write 8 sentences in the 1st half of year and 10 in the 2nd half.  My level 4s start at 5 and work their way up to 8 by the end of the year.  It's actually refreshing for me as I correct homework because each student turns in something different or writes from a different point of view.  I'm happy to not read 50 of the same thing as I grade.  (simple rubric: sentence structure, content and language control)


Geesh.....super long....just trying to give insight on to the extent of my work and support of SLA and ACTFL.  Looking back at where I've come from, it's been a long journey.  I'm only half-way there!  It's a great path that I'm on right now.

To Blog or Not....

So I've been pondering making a blog for a bit.  I feel like I've gotten so much from other blogs and from being part of a PLC through #langchat that I'd like to pay ahead.  I'm hesitant with how much work this can be so am envisioning just sharing how I structure a unit that I think will be compelling for students.  I've gotten inpirations from other sources and sometimes my path differs based on my needs (the levels I teach, my students' interest or experiences, my personal strengths or preferences, goals).

Additionally, I want to create an outlet for my pedagogy thoughts.  I received my masters through the University of Southern Mississippi.  I received a Masters of Arts in Teaching Languages.

The focus of the MATL program is on knowledge, skills, and theories in language, language acquisition, and language instruction.  I learned a lot about SLA and had numerous ah-ha moments as the research and theories supported what I felt worked in students.  I always knew that studying about the language wasn't quite right.  It wasn't engaging enough and it never produced any communicative skills.  And really, what's the goal of taking a language course?  Nobody says that they want to learn paradigms, verb charts, lists of words...they want to communicate!  So that's probably when my work with CI began.  I took Krashen's 5 hypotheses to heart and let i+1 be my motto and tried to create a setting to lower affective filters.

So I figure this blog may be a way to get my SLA/CI ramblings out.  I know that I can be intense to colleagues and friends when our paths cross when I'm in SLA mode (I don't even bother with my husband because SLA talk is a foreign language to him!) and everyone's busy and on their own journey at different places.....so here we go.