Monday, December 31, 2018

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

Saturday, December 29, 2018

My Five Favorite Lessons

Following Martina's lead of #MyFive, I'm sharing my top five fave lessons that I think are useable with all units.

1. Beanie baby toss
1 did my mariposa lesson in my unit called perspectivos de muerte that we studied to align Día de los Muertos. It's a lesson plan format I'll copy again because it engaged students and increases their level of accountability.
Teacher provide hook. in this case we did a Mariposa hand clap (just replace chocolate)  https://youtu.be/zWCLNACNObg
Teacher provide first round of comprehensible input. I pulled out my objects with butterfliesbutt at a time and gave input and asked questions (pics below)
Beanie baby toss as a class:  class stands in circle and give one word you associate with mariposa when you get beanie baby.
Teacher provide more input. I created a "book" and had students readalone before more comprehensible input and engagement via plickers 
Beanie baby toss with partner (same as before but not each student shares out more)



2. Salad bowl

Martina shared this 8 years ago. Carrie Toth describes with pictures on her blog post. It is fin and really gets the vocab into their heads!

3. "Close Watch"
When we have students read, we do a lot to get them to do a close read. I started doing that with videos this year as well. Whether it is a music video or not, the first viewing requires students to watch and write on whiteboards all they can see in Target language. They write nouns, actions, people, etc. Teacher calls on everyone to report out a word and then writes on front board. Watch again to try to get five more. Teacher can pause video and provide more CI and refer to the words the students provided.
The next watch can then be specific to your goals of the video.

4. "What's that?"
Gather around table in the middle to see what teacher has. I leave all objects in the giant "pot" for an suprise element.  As I pull out, I describe and ask some questions (thinking about giving them ideas and vocab they'll need for next idea)
Then hand out sentence strips (aka sentence starters) and students form their sentence when ready and teacher can elaborate or comment on students sentences when appropriate

5. Achi Pachi
Trick them into practicing questions through repetition.  My friend Senorita Walpole wrote a blogpost about it

Thursday, December 27, 2018

My 5 Blog post Influences

Here's my top 5 Blog posts that had a huge impact on my classroom:

1. Encouraging L2 from students
La Maestra Loca Points System
Huge game changer and easy to implement!

2. Sentence stems
Such an easy trick to prepare students to participate in a group conversation. No more crickets!

3. CI Tips
Notes from NTPRS 2017
high-leverage strategies ...those yielding amazing results with minimal effort

4. Deskless

Joining the trend!
Benefits of going deskless

5. Vocab List-Less
I saw Amy Lenord present this idea at ACTFL 2016 and was inspired!  I have really tried to lessen the list and depending the unit may have no list!  Added support from Carrie Toth

Friday, November 9, 2018

Spanish 5: Perspectives of Death



I wanted to make this unit to align with the PERSPECTIVES of Day of Dead. For the last few years, it was on family traditions, but we wanted to tweak this to give the students more to talk about in their final interviews.

We also set our goals on creating experiences and going slow.

Overall plan:  Perspectivos de Muerte
  1. Vamos a Morir (movie talk and song analysis)
  2. Holiday Comparison (show clip from El Libro de Vida)
  3. Art: Jose Guadalupe Posada (IPA reading)
  4. Cemeteries (stations, including a chat station with teacher)
  5. Mariposas
  6. Ofrenda (lots of hands on stuff)
  7. Perspectives of Death (Octavio Paz quote)
  8. Work day 1
  9. Work day 2
  10. Interview & on-demand writing
I would love to add a day about the parade in Mexico City.  I had no idea about this.  Hollywood actually inspired the new tradition.  Prior to 007, there was no official parade in DF and the parades were in small towns.  I feel like this could be a rich discussion.  



RESOURCES
Choice HW (this was quickly made, so it’ll have to be added to as I collect more #authres)

Sunday, October 21, 2018

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. 

Monday, October 8, 2018

Soy Yo additions



I am still very happy with my level 5 intro unit, but as we do, had some areas I wanted to improve in.  So using my unit, I think the big changes were to "pelo malo" and Frida Kahlo.

1. We wanted to spend more time actually talking about Pelo Malo so we could try to get to perspectives...this is always a work in progress, right?  Identifying products and practices is fairly easy (not for all in the target language!)

a. To better prepare, we changed the "world beauty" article to focus on African influences.  I did take this article and (eek!) altered it to make a (practice) interpretive article!  It's too long for my goal.  I want them reading authentic, but I don't want to overwhelm them and I want to stay true to my goals.

Friday, July 27, 2018

Frequent Feedback #4

My last post (for now) on feedback!

Feedback FROM the students

I want the students to give me feedback so I know what works, what they like and what they don't like.  So here are two ways that I can do that.


  • Using an idea from @lamaestraloca for her classroom management system   
    That sign was so that we could identify certain characteristics that we want in our intermediate-level students. Making Connections is one that we have also. We reward away when they ask questions make comment and connections.  But regarding feedback FROM the students, it's just something that I make myself build in my lessons.  After I introduce or use something such as an #authres or an activity, I pause, point to the sign and ask students if they'd like to comment, question or opinion about it.  Now...it's in L2 and it's in front of the class, so I know I don't get full disclosure, but it sets the tone that I want their feedback and I encourage L2.  So maybe a student says I don't like the song.  I can ask if it's too slow or too fast or the wrong style and then I can ask if other students agree.  I reward points for those that speak up (ultimately giving them a celebration of some sort at the end of the unit if they make the goal) and get some insight into their opinion.
  • I've blogged about my unit reflections before.  It's just another opportunity to get insight from them for my personal planning.  

I like my unit reflection.  It’s feedback for me about the students overall take-aways and their opinion of the unit.  It’s also a way for me to keep identifying the cultural Ps.  Sometimes my students tell me this is stressful, though they say it lightheartedly.  I don’t know why…it’s in English and there’s no grade!



Thursday, July 26, 2018

Frequent Feedback #3

Self-Reflection
Students need to take time to do some self-reflection, goal setting and self-analysis.  Probably one of my number one additions this past year came after #ACTFL17 where I heard multiple speakers say that they have their students record themselves and then scribe it.  It didn't wow me at first and I really thought the students would despise it...but I was wrong.  Well, some students despise it, but many tell me they glean insight from it. So Alyssa Villareal @Villarreal6585 was so very kind to lead me to the Shelby County Schools' website (being updated here) that has sooo much that they share and I was able to get their transcription document.   I actually plan to make an interpersonal and a presentational form but one thing at a time!  I use flipgrid for this.  
1. Students record themselves (I'm working on asking them to respond to 3 prompts to show them the need to SUSTAIN their performance)
2. Students transcribe their performance....all the uuummms....pauses and reformulations.  
3. Students self-evaluate based on the descriptors...using evidence! 
4. Students set a goal
5. Students re-record and submit.


Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Frequent Feedback #2

Proficiency level goals
  • We have goals set up for our levels.  I teach levels 3, 4 and 5 (though this year I'm taking a break from 4 and it's only my second year with 3 after a loooong hiatus).  We've set goals.  They *must* be performance goals although we use the word proficiency.  None of us are trained nor do we have any assessments that are independent of the curriculum.  

https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/ACTFLPerformance_Descriptors.pdf

So, we share with our students the year-long goals.  
Level 3:  Intermediate Low (knowing some students are stepping into IM characteristics but not consistently)
Level 4:  Intermediate Mid
Level 5:  Intermediate High
And many of the teachers in my department have proficiency walls. With this, I can pause (when appropriate) to share out how a student's output met certain characteristics.  Or when I give directions for an activity and share the goals, I can refer to the goals meeting those characteristics.  
I have shared this before..but I wanted it to be prettier and after a few years working with it, I wanted to make some tweaks.  So feel free to use!  (Please know that my descriptor strength is at Intermediate and not Novice)  

  • Weekly written assignment:  This is not new.  There are multiple schools of thought on homework, but I've received enough feedback from students to keep doing this.  They have weekly homework and must respond to a prompt that can vary from generic communicative practice (introduce yourself, you family, etc) to topic relevant to interpretive based.  Some weeks require oral response (flipgrid) and some are written.  They complete it and it's a 100% (that goes in the administrivia category which is only 10%!)  I then give feedback in the form of stars and steps based on the proficiency level goal.     

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Frequent Feedback #1

I'm in mid-summer....but other teachers are posting about their back-to-school plans and I can't help but read them and think about next school year.  I'm really interested in focusing on being a coach to my students and providing feedback to them.  Feedback can take sooo many forms.  I'm going to do a few posts about giving them feedback in order to help students move forward in their path to proficiency!

 I want my class to feel relaxed but fun! So I'm going deskless this year!  I think the set-up sets a certain tone that this class is different.  And I can change the arrangement easily....circle talk, rows, teams!



Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Spanish 3: Salud y Medicina

Salud y Medicina
We created this unit to fit into our “health” unit.  In order to have a cultural lead that would engage students, we focused on the topic of “curanderos”.  We knew that we would have access to #authres to support this and that the topic would be interesting to students as they learn something new.  Our old way of performing skits in the doctor’s office was not realistic for most of our students nor was it an opportunity for them to feel like they were learning anything more than simulated uses of Spanish.  Curanderismo is a topic in which they are willing to discuss because it’s new and different to them.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Unit: Las Riquezas de Colombia (updated)

I've taught this unit for a few years, so it's a pretty solid unit at this point.  This year I did some tweaks that felt like the icing on the cake!

Per the UBD (Understanding by Design) framework, I shared the long-term goal of the unit.  I reminded on a daily basis the long-term objective and how the day's goal was connected.
We would be studying about different aspects of "lesser developed country" and the need to help a community and specific focus on children.


Thursday, February 8, 2018

Unit Reflections

I'm reading The Keys to Planning for Learning right now in order to participate in #langbook chat. In finishing up chapter 3 #langbook chat about Lesson Design,@MmeCarbonneau posed the prompt about reflection.


I like my unit reflection.  It’s feedback for me about the students overall take-aways and their opinion of the unit.  It’s also a way for me to keep identifying the cultural Ps.  Sometimes my students tell me this is stressful, though they say it lightheartedly.  I don’t know why…it’s in English and there’s no grade!





I collect them, read all of them, make some comments so they know I’m not wasting their time and write down any ah-ha’s in my unit plan. 

So here’s access to many of my docs.  Some are level 4 and some are level 5.  They vary because the summative goal changes (mode and task type) and the content changes.

Feel free to use and modify.  I got the proficiency level reflection from @WLClassroom.

Monday, February 5, 2018

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