Viva El Toro

Our second unit of the year for 10th grade is a reader and our goal is an interpersonal assessment.  We read Blaine Ray's Viva el Toro (and hopefully we'll get the new edition next year!). This unit has definitely shifted and grown as we've incorporated IPAs to be our structure for a unit.  There are so many fantastic authentic resources that support bullfighting and I'm sure that we'll include more in the future.  We wanted to structure this similar to a Socratic Seminar in which students referenced different resources to link them together.  We set our goal for Intermediate Low and try to model and encourage effective communicative skills throughout the lesson and also focused on asking questions on a regular basis.  We set daily learning targets and try to hold the students accountable each day with closure in regards to that goal. 

Playlist

Cuentos y Leyendas

This is our intro unit for Level 3, 10th Grade.  We make the goal clear from the beginning with our students.  We're doing a unit in which they'll have to retell a story popular in the Hispanic culture at the end at Intermediate Low.  So we created a unit with Backward Design in order to build them towards a successful presentation. We set daily learning targets and try to hold the students accountable each day with closure in regards to that goal. 

Unit: Poder de Solidaridad

I made some modifications from my unit last year, including the name, but there's a lot of the same.  A huge modification was changing my final assessment...it was lacking

something before.  My own children were working on their (5th grade) book report at home and that's when it hit me.  I have a lot of icons and symbolism in this unit, so I'd conclude with a Mystery Bag interview.  (I created a back up for students who "forgot")

Pinterest board
Youtube playlist
Youtube videos
Choice HW

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.

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.

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.

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/

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

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.