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. 

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!

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.

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.     
  

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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:

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.