Lección de Navidad: Una carta al Viejito Pascuero

Another quick, ready-to-use resource that would work with even basic level students. An accompanying worksheet I made is available here, including some names for Santa Claus in various Spanish-speaking countries: ¿Cómo se escribe mountain bike?

This can connect nicely to:

• Christmas in Chile
• Santa Claus around the world
• "Quería pedirte..."
• Spelling

Ocho Kandelikas: Una lección cultural y lingüística.

Before holiday break, I like to introduce students to a variety of holiday traditions in Spanish-speaking countries. My strongest lessons involve traditions from Spain, since I lived there (and Catalonia has some pretty fascinating traditions that can truly get the attention of middle school students...) It is impossible to discuss holiday traditions in Spain without a discussion of religion, and this is always a good opportunity to compare Spain (with an official state religion) and the United States (with a strict separation of church and state.)

As a language teacher I think it is important to look beyond just the cultures and religions that are in the majority, and this time of year is a unique opportunity to expose kids to some less commonly known traditions and even languages. Many of my December lessons involve Christmas traditions, but I always use the Hanukah song Ocho Kandelas to introduce my students to Ladino.

Even very young students can compare the lyrics in Ladino to Spanish that they already know (particularly the numbers) and the song is simple and catchy enough to sing along. We talk about the (abbreviated) historical relationship between Judaism and Christianity in Spain, and why so few people speak Ladino now. We discuss languages that are endangered or rare, language education and cultural identity, and beyond. I've had some pretty fascinating discussions with kids as young as first grade.


Resources:

• Ocho Kandelas - Youtube (all ages)
• Artículo: Vida y Muerte del Ladino en California (More advanced reading)
• (Bonus: For some fantastic music from the Ladino tradition, check out Yasmine Levy. My father in law gave me a CD last year for Christmas, after I explained this lesson to him.)

Print & use today:

• Comparison of the lyrics of Ocho Kandelas in Ladino, Spanish, and English
• Ladino - easier reading in Spanish, ready to print with comprehension questions

Un día muy complicado para los maestros nómades...

After escaping the clutches of Michigan winters, such a balmy and sunny December here in San Diego has been a dream. Yesterday's rain, however, was pretty exciting... especially as a traveling teacher on an outdoor campus! Most of my materials escaped unharmed.

El Flamenco

Flamenco en Granada

On the last day before Thanksgiving break, the 7th graders had dance performances during their morning P.E. class. Our P.E. teacher had students work in groups of 3 or 4 to research a specific style of dance, choose a song, prepare a dance, and practice it to perform. I got to watch a few of these, and it seems like an amazing project.

Three girls researched and performed a flamenco dance. I really wanted to see it, but I was teaching 5th grade and just barely missed the girls' performance, and caught them as they were clicking and swishing to their next class (in very clicky heels and very swishy skirts.) They offered to perform for Spanish class that afternoon, which seemed like a great way to spend the last hour before break. (Not always a time for strenuous academic effort.)

I am envisioning future Spanish-P.E. collaborations on this type of a project, especially for native speakers who could write reports in Spanish, and offer demonstrations that are kinesthetic enough for even more basic levels to understand.

Sacromonte, Granada, where many caves in the hillside hold homes, shops, and famous flamenco performances.

I've used flamenco as a quick cultural lesson before, so it was a good thing to throw together at the last minute. The girls performed their dance, and explained what they knew about the history of flamenco. (They had to write a paper about the dance as part of the project, and as a result were able to teach me a few things!) We talked about the roles in traditional flamenco, the dialect in Andalucía (cantador vs. cantaor) and the cajón, which is also the name of a main road in San Diego and of a city nearby.

I showed them one of my favorite videos - Tengo, by Macaco. They compared (using these guided notes) what they knew about traditional flamenco with this modern video.

Other Flamenco resources:

• Notes:
• Flamenco en España - A presentation with with some images and examples of the elements of traditional flamenco. (All slides were created using images found via google search, so these images do not belong to me.)
• Videos:
• Flamenco en una cueva - A performance in one of the caves in Granada, which many consider the birthplace of the dance.
• Flamenco en la calle - Street performers in Granada. This includes the use of el cajón, and a surprise halfway through.
• Albanico mágico - A performance in San Francisco. This is a larger-scale interpretation of flamenco, using fans. (The video is 6 minutes long, so I usually let kids watch it if they are working on their own fans.)
• Bailando - Enrique's popular song includes lots of dance styles, including flamenco.
• Crafts: Los Albanicos

Depending how much time I am filling with this lesson (and whether or not the classroom is unbearably warm at the time) I have also used flamenco as a connection to the tradition of fans, in the dance and in Spanish culture. For teenagers, this is a chance to learn about the use of fans as communication in the pre-twitter, pre-texting era. For young students, this is a chance to practice the fine motor skills needed to fold fans. (They will need more help than you think.) For everyone, it's an excuse to fold paper fans and have a dance party.

This is a good end-of-the-day, end-of-the-week activity, since it generally leads to kids of all ages wiggling their eyebrows at each other over paper fans for the rest of the day. (And on more than one occasion I've had to save teachers' stacks of homework and worksheets from becoming fans, once young students get the hang of folding.)

• 
  

Illustrating Vocabulary

I've heard of a lot of good ideas for creative vocabulary activities recently, at Edcamp and on Edmodo. (Using selfies to illustrate emotions, for example.)

My middle school students are working with descriptive adjectives right now, and I had them select a few of the adjectives and illustrate them. Many of my more artistically inclined students chose to draw the images themselves, but they could also find photos and images online or cut them from magazines and newspapers. This was a required assignment for 6th grade, and an optional extension activity for 7th and 8th, who were finishing up another project.

Here is the assignment sheet and rubric that I used.

(One very artistic student illustrated the adjectives using all Harry Potter characters.)

Students who submitted digital illustrations were able to present them to the class, and those who turned in hard copies of their illustrations used them to create a pretty fabulous word wall in the classroom.

 

I have used student examples during bell work to practice recognizing the adjectives, which has been more engaging than just using my own examples.

I'm curious to see the results of this week's vocabulary quiz, especially the for the students who didn't do so well on our last assessment but who really got into the illustrations. I think that students' enjoyment of any activity is a pretty good indicator of its success... or at least how likely students are to do it in a timely manner. (Assignments that are fun to grade are also more likely to be graded in a timely manner.)

I'll definitely be using similar assignments in the future. Any other ideas for creative vocabulary assignments?

Recordatorios Musicales: Music Cues

I've been trying to use music a lot more in my classes, especially with middle school. I've been structuring lessons, reviews, and assignments around music, as well as incorporating it into classroom management.

I was inspired by one of my coworkers, who is using music cues for math class. She uses popular theme music from television shows, played through this app. The app is nice because its designed for the classroom. (It doesn't automatically play the next song on a playlist, and you can set a specific time for the cue to begin.)

Here are the musical cues I've been using in my middle school classes, including links to the songs and the specific clips: Musical Cue Playlist. Most of these are from songs that students turned in as part of a project this past quarter, which helps with student buy-in.

• La Vida es un carnaval - Celia Cruz
•  Transition to groups. (20 seconds.)
•  Te extraño - Xtreme.
• End of class: Write down homework, get ready to be dismissed. (51 seconds.)
• La Tortura - Shakira.
• Get out homework, staple as needed, turn in to the correct folder. (1 minute, 22 seconds.)
• Pa' Bailar - Bajofondo y Julieta Venegas.
• Shut down computers and put away laptops according to our class procedure. (3 minutes, 36 seconds.)

Most of the lyrics are pretty carefully chosen, mostly because I think I'm hilarious. (Por supuesto, la tortura es la tarea... y no de excusas vivo yo.)

On that note, if anyone can rewrite La Totura to specifically be about lost homework, they will be my personal hero. (Fue una tortura.... perderte.) If I can get one of my students to take this on as a project, I will consider the year a success.

Technical tips:

I use Youtube and Dirpy to create clips from specific bits of the songs, but there are plenty of other similar tools out there, for all platforms. If you do use Dirpy, make sure you use the correct buttons. It is a free and ad-supported site, so it's easy to accidentally click ads.

Numbers in Spanish: Some ready-to-use activities

I feel that I am always trying to sneak Spanish numbers into my curriculum. Numbers on their own are not very exciting, and I try to build my lessons on communicative (and hopefully engaging) objectives. If there is not an established and well articulated language curriculum, I often encounter students who are tired of going through several years of repetitive lessons: greetings, numbers, colors. The challenge is always finding interactive and quick ways to refine and review these skills, while still offering structure for the students who are starting with limited experience.

Uno was always my review card game of choice - until I discovered the magic and ease of ¡Pesca!

Out of everything I have tried over the years, here are a few resources and activities that have been successful to review and practice the numbers in Spanish. These are ready-to-go activities that you can use this week if you'd like... or today in the next class period, if you are quick on your feet. (You probably are, if you are a teacher.) These are things I have used successfully in classes with a wide range of levels and experience: from students fluent in Spanish to students who are in the first Spanish class of their life.

Día de los Muertos: Resources

This is one of my favorite seasons with my students, and I have a feeling that this year I will be learning even more than I teach. As a newcomer to San Diego, I am excited to see some local celebrations, and to get input from my students who have celebrated this holiday with their families.

Here are some of the things I have done with my students in the past, and some things that will be included in my lesson plans for this week.

Let students explore some of the sights and sounds of the holiday.



I love the opportunity to hook students with something mysterious. As a traveling elementary teacher, in past years I have put together a mini portable altar in a wooden cigar box, with a picture of Frida Kahlo (a favorite figure that most of my students learn about at some point in their time with me.) I light the "altar" with battery operated candles, and the flicker of yellow light from inside a closed box gets everyone's attention. Usually I extend the suspense and leave the box closed until we have explored some resources together, and then I will invite students to gather around and look at what is inside the box (photos, candles, flowers, sugar skulls... all things they just saw in a book or video.)

Digital Tools for the Language Classroom

It's Saturday morning, which is generally pretty predictable in a few ways. I was up fairly early, partially because I passed out early (sometimes on the couch, if I was pretending I could stay up past 8 on a Friday.)

Today I want to share two digital resources that I have found to be very useful in my teaching. These are not big-picture resources (like social networking platforms, file systems, or grading platforms) but just a few digital tricks to have up your sleeve - or perhaps new ideas to use resources you are already familiar with.

Screenshots 

My teaching is pretty image-heavy, and I frequently use screenshots as a very fast way to capture what I need and integrate it into what I'm creating, whether that is a lesson plan, a student assignment, or an example of an assignment on the board.

I've been using Jing for this purpose. One of several products from TechSmith*, Jing allows you to quickly capture and share what's on your screen, both images and videos. I like to structure my lessons in middle school through a powerpoint each day, and it's helpful to take quick snapshots of an assignment we are doing in class and put it right into a powerpoint, rather than switching between files or switching to the document camera.

(You can also take a quick example snapshot of your example snapshot, and then blog about it!)

I have also used the video capture feature to record and share quick how-to videos with my students (via screencast.com, another TechSmith product that is automatically available and linked to Jing.) Especially as I am using Edmodo more with middle school, it is an easy way to model exactly how to sign up, turn in assignments, or do other digital tasks. This means I don't need to spend as much class time walking students through the steps, and I have a quick tutorial to use in my responses to parent and student emails.

 Learn more about Jing and get the free download here.

Word Clouds

I use word clouds a lot in my teaching,  I often give word banks to students to help with spelling new Spanish words that we have mostly practiced orally, but I almost always use word clouds instead of lists. They look prettier and also force students to sift through words a bit, looking for the correct one.

They are also great for reading or listening activities. Before giving students a written text in Spanish, I give them a word cloud created by copying and pasting the entire text into a word cloud generator. This is handy for a few types of pre-reading and post-reading activities:

1. See if students can recognize any of the words out of context. Have them circle well-known words and underline slightly familiar words. After reading, return to the word cloud and see if they can recognize any more after seeing the words in context.
2. Ask students to predict the main ideas or themes of the text. Many word cloud engines change the size of words in the cloud based on frequency, and some give you the option to screen out specific high-frequency words.
3. For more well-known vocabulary, give students a few minutes to sort words from the cloud into specific categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives sorted by gender and number, etc.

Until recently I always used the Wordle website to make word clouds. However, the website does require Java. Since my current school laptop is running an outdated and unsupported operating system, I am trying to take safety precautions, which includes avoiding Java.

Luckily, there are lots of other options. Here are a few that I have used, with examples using text from this blog. (Most of the sites offer various options for saving and sharing the word clouds, but I usually just capture them with a Jing screenshot. It's quicker and more straightforward.)

• Worditout is pretty straightforward and visually simple. It highlights frequent words by increasing their size. You can customize the range of word sizes, the colors, the margins, and more.

• Tagcrowd is simpler and doesn't offer much in the way of visual tweaking, but does offer the option to set the number of words shown, and the minimum frequency for words to appear in a text.

• Tagul is very visually appealing, with lots of custom shapes and color options . It does require a login, though registration is free. You have to type in each word individually, but you can manually set the size for each word. It could be used for short vocabulary lists or to highlight certain terms, but doesn't have the same appeal as other sites where you can dump in a block of text.

*I am not receiving any compensation from any of the websites mentioned for the promotion of their products. (Then again, I haven't been offered any.)

Have you been to Edcamp yet?

Yesterday I spent the day at Edcamp San Diego. I went to my first Edcamp this past Spring, in Detroit, and loved it. I have been to my share of conferences, and I almost always find something useful - even if it's just the time and space to brainstorm, rather than trying to come up with stellar ideas in between the daily logistics of teaching. I've attended several MiWLA conferences back in Michigan, and I always come home inspired (and refreshed by the chance to collaborate with other teachers.) However, the Edcamp model is by far my favorite.

• It's free. (A teacher's favorite four-letter word.) You still sign up, but it's completely free, with no need to plead for district funds. Edcamps are free and run by volunteers, with venues and other resources donated by local districts and businesses. 
• It's run by educators. The schedule is formed on the day of the conference, based on participant's needs. You can sign up to lead a session on a specific topic, or put up a question or a request for something you would like to learn about. The organizers shuffle these topics around into the available rooms and share the schedule.
• The format is clearly designed for educators. There's an hour lunch break and ten minute passing periods. (Teachers are way chattier than middle schoolers.) Nobody cares if you are multitasking wildly during every session. (I was drafting emails to my administration and sketching out unit plans on the spot, based on ideas shared.)
• You only attend what works for you. Organizers stress the "Two Feet" principle - if a session isn't what you were looking for, you leave and find another.
• It's the perfect format for a digital age. Participants view the schedule and updates through a specific Edcamp app. During sessions, many of the participants share resources live via twitter, using session-specific hashtags. Yesterday a group of other language teachers and I brainstormed and shared resources using padlet. 

I am already trying to brainstorm how I can use a similar model for in-class brainstorming. (The power of people learning about what they are passionate about is always incredible.)

Find an edcamp near you!

Columbus Day Alternatives: Jigsaw Reading Activity

Yes, Stephen Colbert, you called me out. Columbus Day is under attack. Seattle has decided to celebrate Indigenous People instead, and many schools (including my own) don't even have tomorrow off.

I'm one of the teachers who would rather use this as an educational opportunity, rather than mark this day with a day off. It's a positive step to shift the focus - to celebrate Native Peoples Day, Explorers Day, Día de la Raza, and beyond - but as a language teacher I feel the obligation to directly address some of the myths and traditions attached to Columbus, that even when innocuous are connected to much bigger issues.

Several years ago I put together a jigsaw reading activity for my middle school students related to this theme. I collected a variety of articles and resources and had students work in groups to read, discuss, and share opinions.

Because of limited time this week and the need to play catch-up with nearly half my class (we've had lots of absences recently) I am going to select just a few of the resources and use this as an extension activity for the students who are already finished with our other assignments. I have adjusted it a bit to include some resources in Spanish and some current articles, and I thought I would share it in case it could be useful to anyone else.  All the materials are in this shared Dropbox Folder, with some more details below.

Use this List of Resources for grouping and planning.

I summarized the resources I found in this chart, categorized by topic, format, learning style, and reading level (including some appropriate for heritage Spanish speakers, and ELL.) I am hoping to give each group a laptop and a folder of printed materials so that they can select the information that fits with their level and learning style. I wanted an easy "database" of resources to find exactly what my students need, or to help them to choose resources for themselves. (Click the preview below for the entire list as a PDF.)

Share links to digital resources, or print out appropriate texts for your students.

Brainpop videos listed above do require a subscription. For the other articles and resources, I have a few PDFs that I put together to print. 

• Printable resources - Reading
• Maps (hopefully to print in color)
• Comics

I'm hoping that the maps and comics will be particularly good to assign to low readers and visual learners.

Have students work together with a variety of resources to gather information. 

I have this response sheet for my students to use in groups. Depending on the level and the time constraints, you could have each group only focus on one section, or you could have groups focus on resources for different sections, and then regroup to share findings.

This is not an activity I have tested extensively yet, but I wanted to share it now since it is seasonally relevant for this week (and since I was already gathering and categorizing the resources, maybe it can save you a little time!)

Do you have any other resources I could add to my collection?

Clear Expectations

As a new teacher, I had to come to the realization that student behavior is almost always tied to my expectations and their clarity in both my mind and the minds of my students. If I'm not exactly sure what I want students to be doing, there's a good chance they won't know. If students don't know exactly what they are supposed to be doing, they will decide on something - and chaos is a popular choice, rather than intentional and structured learning. Refining my expectations and making them clear to my students has been a huge part of developing good classroom management.

At my last school we all were trained using the CHAMPS system, using this book:

There's a lot of good advice in the book related to overarching strategies for "proactive and positive" classroom management. Especially when the whole school had the same training, it helped to have consistent expectations and language. Something that I especially appreciated were the "CHAMPS" posted in each classroom, which were a way to give students very specific and clear expectations for each activity: Who students could have conversations with and at what voice level, what students should do if they needed help, what activity or objective the class was working on, what movement was appropriate, what participation should look and sound like, ultimately all adding up to success.

Most teachers had specific sets of CHAMPS for specific activities or procedures: bellwork, transitions into group time, assessments, etc. I liked this because it forced me to really clarify my directions and expectations, and was a way to have consistent and visual reminders for students.

While this is not a program in place at my new school, I have modified the CHAMPS for my own language class. (This is one of the things I did during the very long drive from Michigan to California... thanks to a husband willing to drive a moving truck, and a laptop power converter plugged into the truck's lighter.) I played around with the categories a lot and tried to make a snappy acronym, to no avail. If you are better at acronyms, maybe you have a suggestion. Snappy acronyms aside, here is what I came up with:

Stress-free assessments: Two strategies

I'm not a fan of quizzes and tests. They are boring to create, boring to take, boring to grade, and often not an ideal way to assess students' language skills. In the current American educational climate, standardized tests are very much in the spotlight. They are the measuring stick used to measure students, teachers, lessons, and schools.

I have plenty of opinions about high-stakes standardized tests... but those are rants for another time. 

Among all these tests, I try my best to teach and assess through projects and communicative practice. I do use vocabulary quizzes on occasion to check student mastery of the words we have been studying. I try to make them quick, focused, and never worth more points than communicate and project-based assessments. At the very least quizzes are an opportunity to teach kids how to take assessments, especially when it comes to managing test-taking anxiety.

I always introduce the first quiz with a short cultural snapshot. I ask kids about good-luck tricks, and show them some pictures from Salamanca, Spain.

At the Universidad de Salamanca, one of the oldest in Europe, students have a tradition of searching for la rana hidden somewhere in the intricate decorations on this building. Finding the frog is supposed to bring good luck on exams and in life. I let my students give it a try - with a slightly zoomed in picture, because trying to find it on a small version projected on a screen is even harder than in real life!

Can you find it?

Una pista: La rana está en una calavera.

We talk briefly about good luck and whether it exists, and I remind them that being relaxed and calm before a test is important - maybe even just as important as preparing and studying beforehand. We share tips and ideas for how to reduce anxiety before testing.

Any cultural lessons about good luck charms are a good opportunity for addressing anxiety with students of any age (for example, my favorite lesson on worry dolls, or the chanchitos in Chile.) Superstitions aside, feeling calmer and more confident is always beneficial.

Another strategy I've used for years is to give students something to color after they finish. My quizzes are usually only one page, so I always put something on the back. (Middle school kids sometimes love coloring even more than the little ones.) At first I did this to reduce boredom, not anxiety, but as it turns out, there has been some research on using mandalas to reduce testing anxiety.

I usually allow students to choose an image from the stack of tests, which also helps randomize my selection of quizzes a little more. I use mandalas, or sometimes images from this book of Mexican Folk Art.

(This is also something colorful to display at home, if the grade itself isn't quite fridge-worthy.)

Gracias a mis alumnos por sus colores.

Any other ideas to combat test anxiety?

A Personal Language Toolbox: Learning Styles and Vocabulary Practice

One of my big goals as a language teacher is to teach students how to be language learners. I want to differentiate my own lessons to a wide range of language levels, student interests, and learning styles, but I also want to teach students how to adapt information in a way that will make it connect with their own personal learning styles and language goals.

A coworker directed me to the Birmingham Grid for Learning, which is a 40-question online survey using Gardner's eight multiple intelligences. Especially for visual  learners like myself, it was fun to see everything mapped out on a colorful wheel. Each person's results produce a code (you can see mine below), and the results page allows you to post a whole list of codes so you can view the averages of the whole class, and averages by gender.

I had my students take this test online and either print the results or give me the code via Edmodo. Next week in class I will show them the class averages, and talk about ways we can adapt our class practice to fit the learning styles we have in the class.

This year, I also created the following chart for my students. They can check off their strengths to see what kind of a learner they are, and then see some ideas to practice vocabulary that might work best with their personal learning style. (The actual google doc is here, if this embedded document looks wonky on your screen.)



Thanks to my Edmodo colleagues who already gave me some input on strategies to include for each learning style. Does anyone else have contributions? I am especially looking for more ideas for Logical/Mathematical learners (which is not my strength) and for Naturalistic learners, a relatively new addition to Gardner's theory. (Turns out that this has been part of the theory since the 90's, but even a decade ago all the multiple intelligence tests I was using as a peer tutor were apparently from slightly older materials.)

Beginnings

Looks like a teacher weekend to me.

 

 I am a list person, so to start this blog I will start with a list. This September marks a few things:

• My seventh first-day-of-school as a teacher 
• My fourth new school
• My first California September (still waiting for the palm trees to turn orange and lose their leaves)
• On a related note - my first early dismissal due to heat, rather than snow
• My first school year without my K-2 niños (but I've still caught glimpses of those first-week-of-kinder tears)
• My first school year where I might have time to blog (with the exception of my Fulbright in Spain)

After five years teaching K-8 Spanish in Detroit and one year in Spain, I am beginning a new job teaching 3rd-8th Spanish in a charter school in San Diego. Even though starting at a new school is a lot of work and energy, I already can feel the relief of actually having some prep time (and even a lunch break!) after driving at least two hours a day and planning for 30+ separate lessons each week. Although I already have a collection of successful strategies and lessons, I am looking forward for the chance to improve myself as a teacher.

How did teachers get new ideas before the internet? Did they just open a book, give students a page number, and start reading? (Sometimes.) Did they travel around to different classrooms, peek in doorways, steal extra copies of particularly intriguing lessons, and pull aside a teacher during prep to chat about what worked during the morning lessons? (Sometimes.) The great thing about living in a digital age is how much easier it is to share information and ideas. Foreign Language teachers got high-tech pretty early on with the Ñandutí listserv, which is still alive and well. Classroom websites (mine is here) and social networking sites like Edmodo and Twitter allow teachers to share resources with students, parents, and colleagues alike.

I use all the above, but wanted to create another space to share resources. That's why I started this blog. I'm going to challenge myself to update it at least once weekly, as a way to force myself to take a break from the never ending list of necessary but tedious tasks (grading, tracking attendance, emailing, wrestling with copy machines) and actually develop myself as a teacher. I want to search for great resources and share successful ideas. Please stay tuned if you'd like.

What are your favorite resources for professional development? Do you have a language teaching blog or website I can share here?