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?