A quick translation project and a long reflection

At my school we've been working hard on Project Based Learning (PBL) and how to implement it effectively in our school. There are plenty of school-wide challenges, like constructing quality projects within the constraints of fairly traditional schedules and staffing, and a national educational climate that still requires focus on specific national standards measured by high-stakes tests.

As a language teacher, I've been struggling with PBL and how that fits with what I know about developing language proficiency. Within the constraints of my schedule (two 40-60 periods per week, depending on grade level) I feel like I constantly have to choose my focus:

• Teaching entirely in the target language or creating student-driven, inquiry-based lessons
• Project based learning vs. language immersion
• Creating decent lessons for 6 different grade levels vs. creating a few great lessons

I know I'll get better at this with time, and it helps to be collaborating on PBL with others. I think for now I need to accept slow progress - which is hard for me. I've been averaging 60 hours per week just inside the school building (plus more at home) just planning and grading work that I know is subpar, from a language proficiency perspective. Compromising professional work quality for any kind of work-life balance is nothing new, but I do feel fortunate that I work with administrators who understand our constraints (rather than just creating more) and who are willing to give teachers space to grow within those constraints - there are definitely places where that is not the case. 

All of that to say: I've been thinking a lot about meaningful projects, and getting discouraged because they seem beyond my grasp.

However, one quick project I did with 7th and 8th grade this month was a bright spot... especially because it was the product of a spark of an idea while driving home one night and a few frantic hours of preparations in order to start the next morning!

This year some parents and staff at my school collaborated with a local charitable organization to collect donations of socks and toiletries for those in need in our community. Ideal projects address a real need in the community - which is tricky when it comes to unit planning, since sometimes real community needs don't fit into curriculum maps. I figured that an opportunity to create something real world and authentic was more worthwhile than spending our last class periods wrapping up weather review and holiday-related cultural lessons. So I threw together a translation project that could fit into two class periods. I'm pretty happy with the results - more so than some projects that have taken far more planning and class time.

This is what we did, how I would change this for the future, and maybe even some ideas for you.

2 Anuncios Navideños

I'm guessing most of you teachers in the US have one more day left before break. Here's a quick listening activity using two holiday ads from Spanish-speaking countries.

(Kids might need some hints for figuring out the country for the first video - this article listing the many names of a mysterious gift-bearing man might contain a clue!)

Enjoy!

Anuncio 1: ¿Cómo se escribe...? (Jumbo)

Anuncio 1: ¿Cómo se escribe...? (IKEA)

Quick linguistic comparison: Spanish vs. Arabic

About a year ago I shared the Ocho Kandelas song in Ladino as a quick lesson tying together Spanish history, linguistic comparisons, and Hannukah traditions. This year I'm using this song again, but am also sharing this quick video comparing Arabic and Spanish:

Here's a listening worksheet I made for with the video. (Any readers who speak and write Arabic, feel free to correct my Arabic transcriptions... I used wordreference and my dubious familiarity with the Arabic alphabet.)



This quick look at Ladino and Arabic have been a quick a chance for my students at all grade levels (3rd through 8th) to see how knowing one new language can help them with understanding others. It ties in well with our discussion of historical religious conflict in Spain, and even current events. (I've tried very hard to remain politically neutral, but when I told them about Jews and Muslims being kicked out of Spain, an entire 3rd grade class started yelling about a certain political candidate who is big in the news these days...)

I love nerding out about language learning with my students! I've been trying to learn Arabic for a few years, as my third language - not rigorously enough to gain any kind of fluency, as I learned during a trip to Morrocco where the only phrase I could consistently remember was an unhelpful "She drinks coffee." Maybe this lesson will give me the push I need to pick up my language studies again. I find it very meaningful to be a language learner along with my students.

Edit: Just read the news about Augusta Co. schools. Be careful where you teach this - yikes!

Crossover vs. Computer (Spanish Teacher vs. Online Translators)

At my school middle school students have Google accounts through the school, and access to chromebooks. Although I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy, this is the first time I've been at a Google school and the first time my students have really had reliable access to technology. Overall that's a huge benefit - there are so many amazing digital tools available for both teachers and students. However, learning to use them productively and responsibly has been a learning curve for all of us. As a language teacher, I've had to balance the benefits of these digital tools with the strong temptation of one tool in particular - Google Translate. When beginning students hit the wall of their language limitations, it's easier to take the easy way out. Last year I dealt with many individual cases of students using online translators, and I realized I needed to be more proactive this year.

This year I made sure I included a note about online translators on my syllabus, and explained that for language learners this is a form of academic dishonesty.

However, I wanted to go deeper than that. Beginning language learners turn to easy shortcuts like Google Translate because it's quick, but because it seems like a viable solution when they can't produce the language they want. To all appearances the computer knows more language than they do. However, even a beginning learner will make different errors than a computer. I wanted to show students the awkwardness of computer translation, and why it's pretty easy to spot.

To do this, I found songs that had been released in English and in Spanish - Perdón by Enrique Iglesias & Nicky Jam and Tengo tu Love by Sie7e. (Links are to PDFs that I used.)I gave students a side by side comparison of some of the verses: the Spanish version, the English version, and a Google translation of the Spanish into English.

I asked students to examine each set of lyrics and think about which lines were translated awkwardly by Google Translate, and what changes the artist made so the lyrics worked better in a new language (or new culture.) Songs are a great way to highlight why exact translation sounds clunky. "Ricky Martin's got the looks" is catchier than the literal "Ricky has cute face," and sometimes crossover artists leave some simple lines untranslated - because eso no me gusta, eso no me gusta just sounds better!

The students had fun with this activity and it was a great way to talk about translation with them. As they were working on their pen pal letters over the following days, I overheard several encouraging comments.

"No, don't use Google Translate! Dude, we just did a whole activity about this!"

Any other fun examples of awkward translations? Here's an interesting news article about a Spanish town's reliance on Google Translate that got very awkward (though I'm not quite ready to go into that vocabulary realm with my middle school students.)

Side note: I had the chance last week to go to ACTFL here in San Diego, which was great.. but even after a whole week of break I haven't managed to finish processing the massive amount of ideas, notes, questions, resources and professional connections from the conference. More on that later!

Tarea Mensual: What middle school homework looks like this year

The short version of this post:

Here's a copy of my monthly homework options for middle school Spanish students! Tarea Mensual: Differentiated Spanish Homework Options (It's my first resource posted on Teachers Pay Teachers, and it's free!)

And for those of you who want to hear about how and why I put together this resource...

I spent a lot of time over the summer thinking about homework in middle school Spanish. (I rambled a bit about this over here.) At EdCamp this year I had the chance to hash(tag) this out at a great discussion with Alice Keeler. I don't feel as a language teacher I can give up on homework if I really want kids to be proficient - class time just isn't sufficient for learning a language. However, I do need to make sure homework is manageable and meaningful.

As a teacher, "dream homework" would do all of the following:

• Homework should get kids to use Spanish outside the classroom - including reading, writing, listening, and reading, at appropriate levels. (That's the tricky part!)
• Homework needs to be accessible for all my levels of students - from beginners to native speakers.
• Homework needs to be engaging, relevant, and enjoyable (so that kids wantto do it.)
• Homework shouldn't rely on internet access. We are using Google Classroom this year, which makes assignments so much simpler from my point of view - and for most of my students. However, not all my students have internet access. 
• Homework shouldn't make or break a grade. Kids have wildly varying home situations and access to support. It's not fair for me to rest an entire grade on something I can't help students with.
• Homework should not take over anyone's life. This applies to both students and teachers! Even in middle school, homework can start to take over - especially for the students who care about their grades and care about completing their homework, who in many cases are also the ones involved in extracurricular activities. I also can't let homework take over mylife - I have so many students, and I want to spend my time planning and assessing projects, not homework!

With all this in mind, and inspired by the homework choices over at Musicuentos,I started the year with weekly homework options to choose from. Students were to choose one or a combination of activities from a list, and turn in a report at the end of the week via Google Classroom. Those first two weeks were a little chaotic. Remember how homework shouldn't take over anyone's life? Homework took over my life. Students were confused about the report format (a normal learning curve, perhaps) and most of them just emailed me screenshots or questions, swamping my email inbox with emails. With the option of choosing a variety of 1 pt, 3 pt, and 5 pt activities, students all wanted to do the harder 5 point activities for more points - though these were often too hard for them. (Lead Us Not Into Google Translate Temptation.) I made some necessary adjustments that I think were important. 

• Students get a grade based on whether they complete a variety of activities and submit proof. Activities are not assigned individual point values. I don't assign point values to any particular activity (since kids were tempted to go for the more "valuable" activities, when often these were not appropriate for their level.)
• Students turn in one report at the end of the month, describing what activities they did that month. Weekly reports were just too much, for me and my students. Students need 4 activities for the month, but they can complete those at their leisure.
• Students have some class time near the end of the month to complete the reports via Google Classroom. This makes the assignments more accessible to students who lack computer access at home, or who are less tech savvy... or who just aren't going to remember to turn in their report on their own.

Here's the final product: Tarea Mensual: Differentiated Spanish Homework Options 

So far I've gotten positive feedback from students. They've enjoyed picking activities themselves, and some have found resources they really enjoy. (Lyrics Training and Free Rice are some favorites.) So far I've rolled out this homework with 7th and 8th graders (3 classes in all) and I have found it fairly manageable as far as grading goes - using Goobric and Doctopus* for my workflow, I've been able to grade the homework for one class in 45 minutes (including individual comments.) That's not too bad for monthly homework!

We'll see how this evolves! I'd love any feedback and suggestions if you've done something similar with your students, or if you find this useful for yourself!

*Please do let me know if you'd like to know more about how I've streamlined my grading process with these tools!

Día de los Muertos - Resources you can use tomorrow

I'm finishing up some sub plans for upcoming absences, and let's be honest - this is the time of year where many teachers need some sub plans even if they aren't going to be absent. By that I mean: you're so swamped by parent emails, test administration, professional learning, and preparing for parent conferences that planning time is limited. (Also, Halloween is coming up this weekend, so kids are going to be a little distracted.)

I feel fortunate because as a Spanish teacher, I can use this time of year for some cultural lessons connected to Day of the Dead - something that's meaningful and engaging, even for burned out teachers and sugared up students.

I figured I'd reshare one of my favorite and most versatile Día de los Muertos resources - this brief digital short that's touching, really encompasses a lot of traditions, and is engaging for all ages. (I've used it successfully from everyone K-8.)

Some things you can do with this video:

1. Focus on listening and reading! Learn more about Movie Talk here (including a demo by Martina Bex.) See some slides with stills that I put together to talk through the story (it was just clearer than pausing the video for me.) I also use a written text with vocabulary questions at the end. (I started with Dustin Williamson's as an example, but changed it to present tense and edited it to make it fit with my students' needs.) 
2. Cultural focus: Show the video as an intro to the traditions involved in Día de los Muertos and have students compare and contrast it with traditions in their own families. Here is a packet of information I've used.
3. Follow up: Depending on how much time you want to spend and the grade level of your students, follow up with one of these resources or a simple calavera mask using one of HappyThought's free templates or the one from AZ Central's teacher packet.

¡Buena suerte!

A mask using AZ Central's template.

Calaverita - La Santa Cecilia

It's that time of year again!

Chicano Park - Día de los Muertos, 2014

I have some absences coming up due to training, jury duty, and out of town weddings, and so I'm trying to come up with sub plans that are engaging. Luckily, it's Day of the Dead season, and there are lots of resources out there! Last year I shared some of the resources I've used, and a list that I've added to since then.

I just bought the Book of Life movie, which was released last year. I'll be leaving that with my sub plans. While researching resources for the film, I stumbled across a newly released song by La Santa Cecilia from nearby Los Angeles. I'm definitely going to use this to introduce the holiday and set the stage for when I'm gone.

I love so many things about this video. It includes many traditional Día de los Muertos symbols, as well as some not-so-subtle references to current events (did you catch Zombie Trump?) Most importantly, it conveys the spirit of the holiday and the underlying attitudes toward death.

It was Kara Jacobs who pointed me to this song and compiled several great resources. I will be using a revised version of the lyrics she posted, with questions that fit with my diverse student levels.

If you'd like a copy: Google doc here, or as a PDF here.

¡Hola hola, Coca Cola!

I just survived the second week of school, and am recovering with a Saturday morning cup of coffee. I've never felt so unprepared for the school year - even two weeks in! Luckily the first weeks of the school year are a chance to incorporate simple class routines that don't necessarily rely on all the little details being in place. (Like supplies... keys to classrooms... access to printers... access to technology... access to curriculum...)

Calling the attention of the class is one of those tiny things that makes a big difference in classroom management. In the past I've tried several things:

1. Counting down in Spanish.
2. Patterns of claps or snaps.
3. "¿Clase?" and "¿Sí?"
4. A rain stick (which was fun, but quickly fell by the wayside when I became a traveling teacher again!)

Training kids to recognize these and being consistent is probably the most important part of any quiet signal, but I'm always trying to find ways to incorporate authentic language and culture into classroom routines. Halfway through last year I found this fun list of rhymes and started using those with my younger classes. They were so much fun that this year I'm using these as my attention signals with everyone. Here is the list I use, and some bigger signs that I use as cues. (They just have the first part of the rhyme and a picture, as a cue for the response.)

I love these because they are more authentic and interesting than my other methods. (My native speakers can repeat many of them the first day.) Also, I've found that "quiet signals" are universally more interesting if there is some intrinsic motivation to stay quiet - for example, waiting to see what the next rhyme may be!

Do you have any rhymes to add to this list?

Middle school Spanish grades: Big picture musings and small scale plans

It's August! Not only that... it's the end of August! Teacher week starts tomorrow. I meant to post more during the summer. I have been doing a lot of planning and reflection this summer, but none of that translated into blogging. We've also been moving into our brand new building, which is very exciting (and very time-consuming!)

I've been meeting with the middle school team this summer to plan for the year. We have several new teachers on the team, a brand new building, and a lot of new changes to plan for. We've been talking about grades, and I've been trying to figure out how to align our school-wide policies with my Spanish class policies.

My big-picture grading philosophy can be narrowed down to the following:

Grades should show students, teachers, and parents what students have learned and what they need help on.

That's it! Despite our educational system today which is very focused on numbers and scores, I don't believe students should be narrowed down to static numbers. My teaching shouldn't be narrowed down to numbers. And yet so much of my time is spent on numbers. During those marathons of final grades, I lose myself as a teacher and even as a human, and become GradeBot - typing numbers into little boxes. I want to make sure those numbers are at least meaningful.

GradeBot is usually fueled by coffee. So much coffee.

Here are a few of the big-picture grading questions I've been asking myself:

• How can I make sure my grades allow for and show growth across all language levels in my classes? My classes include a wide range of students - bilingual students who are also biliterate, native speakers with little exposure to the written word, students from immersion schools, students who I had last year, students who are brand new to Spanish, students who are pulled from half or all of my classes due to IEPs, and everything in between. I want my students to grow from wherever they are at, and I want my grades to reflect that. 
• How can I make sure my grades reflect what students know and can do in Spanish, not just completion and effort? Participation, effort, and work completion are all very important in language learning. I think it's important that students are rewarded for hard work. However, when students earn points based just on whether they've attempted, it doesn't give anyone (teachers, students, or parents) a very clear idea of exactly what skills they have mastered. Last year I was doing a lot of research and thinking about Standards Based Grading. I think it's important for grades to show what students can do in Spanish, and SBG seems like a logical way to do that. I also would love to see a shift away from letter grades and percentages to grades that show how well students have mastered specific objectives. (Our elementary grades use the Common Core 1-4 grading scale, for instance.) However, as a team we aren't quite ready to make that jump, at least not this year among all the other big-picture changes that are happening. So in middle school, we'll be using a more traditional point system again.
• How do I make sure assignments are meaningful and not just empty points? Homework in particular is tricky in this sense. I want students to practice outside the classroom, but it's hard to regulate that. If homework or classwork is not meaningful, only the students motivated by those points will do it - and might not be learning much from it anyway.
• How can I make sure grades are easily understand by both students and parents? At the end of last school year a disappointed parent was unhappy that her daughter did not get perfect grades in Spanish. She commented that she thought I must be giving the good grades to "all the Hispanic kids." I'm trying to use my gut-punch feeling as impetus - I want to have a very clear vision and justification for my grading system, that I can share with parents and students. (In reality, as a general group my native speakers had a wildly varying range of grades.)
• How do I best use my grading time? I'll be teaching eleven different classes this year, across grades 3 through 8. We've increased Spanish time in all grades - which is wonderful! - but that means that my schedule is pretty packed. I need to use my grading time wisely. I don't need to grade every single thing my students do. How do I plan out exactly what I will be grading in a smart way that lets us all (teacher, parents, students) know what students can do?
• How do I teach from a textbook in a meaningful way? This is a little bigger than just a grading question. This year is the first year I will be teaching with a textbook in middle school. We just got Avancemos (Level 1) for middle schoolers. I'm excited about the structure and resources it offers - after seven years of making everything from scratch, from curriculum maps to daily lessons to assessments, K-12! However, I want to use the textbook as a tool, not as a crutch.

As I've been pondering these things, I've had some great insight from other language teachers:

• Creative Language Class - How many grades?
• Musicuentos - Meaningful homework incorporating student choice

So how is this going to play out this year?

In middle school, we've agreed on three weighted grade categories:

• Homework/Classwork (30%)
• Assessments (20%)
• Projects (50%)

For me, this is what that will look like in my middle school grade book:

• Homework/Classwork: Participation is so important in a language class - and a tricky thing to keep track of! This year I'm trying to focus my participation grades in two ways:
• Objective Stamp sheet: For each unit I'll have a stamp sheet (again, thanks to the Creative Language Class.) Here's the one I've created for Lección Preliminar in Avancemos. I'll collect it at the end of the unit - I'm not sure yet how long that will take, since the curriculum is new to me.
• Weekly Homework: Inspired by the choice-driven homework at Musicuentos, students will choose from list of options for homework. Here's what that list of options looks like currently.  Edit: Here's how our homework has evolved!
• Assessments: I like that Avancemos has a variety of differentiated assessments for their units. I'm not sure how many of these I'll actually have - I'm still waiting on the curriculum materials. I like that this is only 20% of the grade - I prefer to see what students can do through projects, but it's nice to be able to hone in on specific skills too. This is a good category for students and parents to see a breakdown of specific skills.
• Projects:We are a project based school, though this is definitely an area of growth, especially in middle school. We are still trying to figure out how to create meaningful cross-curricular projects, and I think we'll be spending a lot of our professional development time on this. (We have half days every Wednesday to leave PD time in the afternoon.) I have ideas that I'm excited about, but I'm not sure how much planning time I'll get with other teachers this year. Within middle school Spanish classes, however, I will have a variety of projects. Because this is 50% of their grade, a lot of things will fit under this umbrella:
• Planning activities
• Project check ins (to check student progress throughout the project)
• Final project grades (with a rubric connecting the project to our objectives)
• Presentations
• Reflections

Now... how to put this into a syllabus in a condensed way...

Chicano Park

Chicano Park - Día de los Muertos, 2014 (My first visit to the park.)

Earlier this month I had the chance to go with the 6th graders to Chicano Park here in San Diego. The field trip was part of a really cool cross-curricular Social Justice project that they were doing in their other classes. Next year I want to integrate a lot more connections in my Spanish class, but I was really excited to go along this year, and I want this to be an ongoing part of my Spanish curriculum.

Back in Detroit, I collaborated with the art programs at both schools I worked at, to take field trips to the Detroit Institute of Art, especially to see Diego Rivera's mural. It's an amazing mural with significant ties to local history and culture, and I was sad to leave it behind when I moved to California.

Since I moved to San Diego in August, I've been looking for local opportunities. Chicano Park has an amazing history and is the perfect place for students to learn about art, the local Spanish-speaking community, our identity as a border town, alternative histories, and an inspiring example of grassroots movement and personal activism that they are studying through their Social Justice project.

We got a great tour by members of the park's steering committee. My group was led by Victor Ochoa, one of the muralists. I learned as much as the kids did!

Before going on the field trip, I made this scavenger hunt for the kids. They looked for the phrases around the park and matched them to the murals they were included on, and then later in Spanish class we translated them and connected each phrase to the history we had learned about. (The file includes an answer key. I made it using images from this documentation project, but I already know I'll be updating it with more images and phrases later on.)

As a follow-up project, students are researching and presenting information about people from the Spanish-speaking world. This includes famous Hispanic figures, some relatives and family members, and people they learned about during the field trip. I used one of the murals from Chicano Park as a starting point for this project, and created a Thinglink for students to explore the people and symbols pictured.



This year, the field trip, subsequent project, and curricular connections were all somewhat hasty, in the midst of end-of-the-year chaos and the general upheaval of establishing and refining a new program at a new school. I have high hopes for next year, however, and am excited to do more.

The Chicano Park Steering Committee was so helpful in coordinating and leading our tours. They have a website at www.chicano-park.com.

For local educators - if you have led field trips to Chicano Park or would like to in the future, I would love to hear more about what you have done, share resources, and collaborate!

Chicano Park - Día de los Muertos, 2014

Movimiento Naranja - Movimiento Ciudadano

I haven't posted much here recently. I've been busy with some exciting things (working to expand the Spanish program at our school, lots of cross-curricular planning for next year, and some end-of-the-year projects with the middle school students.)

Every year at the end of the year, I find myself trying to do things that are too complex and too long for the inevitable chaos of end-of-the-year schedules, where student and teachers alike are affected by state testing, field trips, camps, absences, and (in my case recently!) immune systems that are succumbing to end-of-the-semester stress. I'm excited about some of the projects my middle school students are doing - but a little hesitant to share before I see how they turn out.

However, I want to use this blog to reflect on what I'm doing, and to share what is working - so I'm attempting to do that, even in these last crazy weeks of the school year! Here's something that may be useful to you as the school year winds down.

Here's a song that I heard on the radio* a few weeks ago. It was so catchy that I immediately looked it up. As it turns out, it is a promotional music video for a Mexican political party.

As a disclaimer: I am not promoting this political party or any of their campaigns. But I am congratulating them on writing a simple, catchy song with a feel-good music video that includes lots of beautiful images of Mexico. There are quite a few familiar shots for my students and I - the border fence, and scenes from our neighboring city across the border, Tijuana.

I've used this for some grammar practice in middle school, and played it for my younger students to wrap up our Mexico-focused lessons about Cinco de Mayo. (It's a good "get the classroom cleaned up" song, too.)

Thanks to the folks in the Spanish Teacher Share group on Edmodo for helping me find and correct the lyrics! Here they are, with several different activities I did with my students:

• Cognates: Matching translations (to lines with lots of cognates)
• Grammar/Conjugation: Ser, Estar, and Tener conjugations
• Advanced: What does this song tell us about the party's political platform? (Led to some interesting discussion of political propaganda in middle school.)

If you find any errors in the lyrics, let me know!  Also, I haven't been able to find the name of the artist who wrote the song - do you know?

*Side note: Since moving to San Diego, I've discovered a new hobby: Listening to Mexican political ads awkwardly translated into English, on the English stations broadcast from Tijuana.

Culture in 3 Acts: Semana Santa

I started rethinking some of my cultural lessons after a colleague presented about Three Act Mathematical Stories. After getting back from break I applied the concept to a cultural lesson about Semana Santa.

My main goal was to create a very student-driven exploration of culture. The ACTFL standards ask students to explore the connections between products, practices, and perspectives of the target culture, but it's often up to the teacher to select which products, practices, and perspectives to focus on. With a large range of options, how do we choose which are most relevant and important to share with our students? One option is to let students direct the focus of those explorations. Here's how that worked out in my classes this week.

Here's a copy of the guided notes I used with my class during this assignment.

Games for review and practice: Two great resources

This coming week my middle school students will be taking some quizzes - a vocabulary quiz on verbs for interests and pastimes for 6th grade, and a ser vs. estar quiz for 7th and 8th grade. Both quizzes will be taken and graded online (thanks to Google Forms and Flubaroo) but in class we have also been using some fun digital tools for review and practice!

At the beginning of the school year, I focused a lot on individual learning styles and ways to practice that work for each individual. More recently, our focus has been on group work. Our school's virtue of the month for March is Cooperation, and this is a good time to find ways to learn together, with lots of group explorations and assignments. Our review for upcoming vocabulary and grammar quizzes has also been in groups, using two review games:

Activity: ZAP


How I used it: 
I put students in groups and gave each group two whiteboards. I asked the class a review question (normally the translation of a vocabulary word or a sentence.) The first group that had the answer up (and correct!) got to choose a number from the Zap board - and scores were changed accordingly!

Will probably work well for:

• Spur-of-the-moment practice - all you need is the online template, and whiteboards. 
• Groups with good teamwork and generally good behavior, and who love a competition! 
• Student-chosen groups, since the end scores are less a result of correct answers and more a result of blind luck (based on the numbers chosen!)

Will probably not work well for: 

• Any classes that are already loud and chaotic, since this can get pretty crazy - especially with the random swapping of scores!

Tips for success:

1. To make sure everyone gets a chance to participate, require that students rotate the board among their group members - or require that all team members have a board and all have the correct answer!
2. Require students to request numbers in the target language.
3. If groups are too chaotic, play with individual students, each with their whiteboard, and randomly select a student each round to give their answer. (Choose from a jar of sticks, etc.)

 

Activity: Flippity.net Quiz Show

How I used it: 
I used Flippity's amazing template to created leveled questions related to what we were studying - Verbos y Opiniones and Ser vs. Estar. It is time consuming to come up with 30 separate items, but once you type the questions and answers into the online template, it automatically creates a Jeopardy-style quiz show. You click on the numbers to pick questions in each category and difficulty level, and click buttons to choose teams that answered correctly or incorrectly - the site keeps track of scores automatically. (You can add or delete teams, edit team names, and adjust scores as needed - for example, I give bonus points for the first teams ready to play, and take off points for things like off-task behavior or misuse of supplies.)

Will probably work well for:

• Mixed level groups: I made sure to distribute my native speakers evenly throughout my teams.
• Carefully leveled items: I put items using new vocabulary (or that included written accents and other common mistakes even for my native speakers) in the 500 spaces.
• Test preparation: You can even try out some new test items.

Will probably not work well for: 

• Spur-of-the-moment practice, since you need to create the questions.
• Student-chosen groups, if you have a wide variety of language levels in one class.

Tips for success:

1.  Make sure every member of the team writes down the answer correctly - this requires the groups to check in with their team, and makes sure everyone is getting practice (even if one team member is significantly stronger in the language.)
2. Don't have teams hold their boards up right away, or it's too easy to copy other scores. I give a countdown to finish up, and ring a bell. You can also randomly choose a team member to show you their board. (It's pretty easy to sneakily add a missing letter or accent!)

Flippity also includes some great resources to create online flashcards and other tools, using Google sheets as templates.You can check out the resources I have already created with this tool, or easily create your own. Huge thank you to Steve Fortna for creating this resource, and to Ashley Fulks for passing it on!

Yo tengo / ¿Quién tiene? (Descripción Física)

I like using Yo Tengo / ¿Quién tiene? activities as a quick way to practice pronunciation, and an informal, low-stakes way to formatively assess individual pronunciation.

Recently I have been using this set with my 6th graders, who are practicing the physical description vocabulary we have been working with. This focuses on noun-adjective agreement (with the colors.)

Yo Tengo / ¿Quién tiene? - Descripción Física

(I cut each page into three narrow strips, and  laminated them to make them more durable.)

(All images are clip art found via Google image search.)

Hope it can be useful!

For those who have not used this type of activity before:

Culture in 3 Acts: Rethinking how I teach culture

This past week during our weekly professional development afternoon, a colleague demonstrated Dan Meyer's "3 Act" math tasks, or math stories. These inquiry based, student driven math explorations seem to be a great resource for flipped classroom models and for the kind of authentic tasks and higher level thinking that the Common Core is now requiring. Thanks to the magic of modern technology, math teachers can now find and share their own "3 Act" Math tasks, with links to prompts, standards and suggested questions.

As a Spanish teacher, I immediately began thinking of my culture lessons in 3 Acts. I already try to hook students with a fascinating image or video related to what we are learning about, and I always encourage guesses, questions, and discussions... but then I usually give them the questions that I want them to answer. If those questions were things they were actually interested in, they were driven by curiosity... and if not, they were driven by the grade carrot on a stick, if anything. In re-imagining these inquiries, I was drawn to the idea of having students drive the inquiry themselves.

I would like to adjust my culture lessons and apply some of the ideas behind the 3 Act math tasks:

• Act One: Introduce the central conflict of your story/task clearly, visually, viscerally, using as few words as possible.
• Leave no one out of your first act. It should be comprehensible to all levels. It should, as Dan Meyers says, get all students "right in the curiosity bone."
• Elicit questions from students, rather than handing them a list of questions.

In my colleague's demonstration, she categorized the questions elicited from students (in this case, teachers) by how much interest each question generates. Teachers can also try to pull out questions that fit with  specific objectives or standards. For culture lessons, I might leave it a little more open ended than in a math lesson, since culture standards are so broad. With that list of student-generated questions, there are some options. We could choose one question for students to focus on as a class, assign different questions to differentiated groups, or have students choose from a few selected questions that will address specific objectives.

• Act Two: The protagonist/student overcomes obstacles, looks for resources, and develops new tools.
• What resources do your students need to answer their questions? What tools do they need? What language do they need to answer their questions?

Teachers can try to anticipate student questions and prepare lists of resources (I often try to create differentiated lists of resources for various language levels and learning styles - I have shared some here on this blog.) However, in authentic inquiries, students need to look for information on their own. I might help students come up with authentic (and not-so-authentic) sources of information. We might brainstorm search terms in the target language. I might introduce Act 1 in the classroom, and then set students loose to answer their questions, in the computer lab or at home.

• Act Three: Resolve the conflict and set up a sequel/extension.
• The resolution should be a satisfactory payoff for students. (In Meyer's example task, he highlights the difference between actually seeing the basketball go through the hoop, and reading in the answer key - "The ball goes in.")
• Have students share the answers to their questions, and their process for finding those answers.

Using the  list of student generated questions from Act 1, and further curiosity generated by their investigations, this could easily open up extension activities and "sequels."

Many teachers are used to handing students questions, along with some set tools and formulas to answer those questions. In flipped classrooms and inquiry-based lessons, it is up to the students to select the tools they need to meet their objectives... and when students generate the questions themselves (after being motivated with a fascinating hook) they will be much more eager to find the answers. As a language and culture teacher, I want to develop independent language learners... and students who can independently find new information about other cultures, fueled by genuine curiosity.

I already am scheming up some new culture lessons in this format... I'm guessing my next attempt will be some inquiries about Semana Santa, perhaps starting with this great video. I'd love to hear from others, and perhaps collaborate on a database of resources. (Math teachers aren't the only ones who can collaborate!)

Los colores y las perspectivas de género

It's project time in middle school, and I am learning a lot along with them. Two of my students wrote a skit for their opiniones project, which takes place in a dress shop and has a fair amount of bridezilla drama in it. They wanted to know how to say the color "eggshell" in Spanish, which took us on a detailed journey of color palettes in Spanish. I ended up learning about the name of some specific shades in Spanish.

I also found this graphic, which I am using today as a writing and discussion prompt for my 7th and 8th graders. I'm hoping it can spark some interesting discussions. As a woman who is a language teacher (not an artist or an interior designer) I don't think I could name all the shades described... in my native language or my second language!

(Thanks to the community over at Wordreference for helping me with the eggshell question, by the way!)

El Carnaval: A resource pile

President's Day, the Lunar New Year, and Carnival were all jumbled together at the beginning of this week.

El Carnaval en Alicante, España.

My middle school classes have been working hard on other projects, so I wanted to create a somewhat independant exploration for students who were done with their projects, or for extra credit in some classes. Our schedule is a little messy right now after a 4 day weekend, so this was a fun "filler" to help get all the classes caught up.

Carnival/Carnaval/Mardis Gras is a truly multicultural topic of exploration, and there are so many great examples of colonized cultures combining (or disguising) their beliefs with newer Catholic traditions. It's also a good example of some traditions that are fun enough on their own, even without the complex historical background behind them!

This might be belated for this year, but I wanted to share some of the resources I used this year related to El Carnaval! Here is a leveled list separated by learning style, with resources in both English and Spanish.



I gave this list to my students directly, along with this paper. They could choose which resources they used to find the answers to the questions, according to their language level, learning style, and interests.

(I went paperless with some classes by creating a Google Form of these questions, too - I can share the template with you if you wish. Feel free to contact me!)

Do you have any more great resources related to Carnival? I am especially interested in expanding my knowledge of celebrations in Latin America - my only personal experience is from Spain and my own Catholic childhood.

Muñecas Quitapenas

Worry dolls are one of my favorite culture lessons for the little ones. It allows for some personal connections and relationship building, and also brings a little magic into the classroom. I have used worry dolls with kids in K-4, and as a brief cultural lesson for the older kids (usually when talking about good luck and anxiety, particularly before quizzes.)

We talk about the Guatemalan tradition of worry dolls and how they are used, and then create our own on paper. (Although much of this cultural lesson is in English, most classes can understand the basics in Spanish... and they know the animal words necessary to understand when I tell them about my childhood fear of dogs!) Kids decorate their dolls, and write what they are worried or scared about on the back of each doll. We hide all the dolls together somewhere in the classroom, and check on them the next day. Sometimes they just disappear with all our worries... and sometimes there is a note in their place that tells each student "¡No te preocupes!" (Sometimes these notes are even in color... it depends on how much time the worry dolls had, and if they could use a color printer. Worry dolls apparently don't get a lot of prep periods, either.)

Especially in the older classrooms, the students almost always are convinced that I took the dolls - but most of them say that it made them feel a little better, anyway. Students write in their culture journals comparing this tradition to the ways their own families comfort them when they are sad. 

Depending on your students, I would caution against extended group sharing what students are scared of. I always focus on sharing what makes us feel better when we are scared - not the things that scare us. (Why have these kiddos seen so many scary movies?) Back in Detroit, this lesson led to at least one referral to child protective services, based on the troubling fears one kindergartner expressed. This can be a very real window into your students' lives - and not everything there is pretty.

Some resources:

• My simple worry doll templates - for students to make their own in class. (4 per page.)
• I bought my worry dolls at Ten Thousand Villages, but there are other fair trade options available. (For example, from the Hunger Site.)
• El Misterio de los Muñecos Quitapenas - Article (beginning and advanced versions) and related media from the wonderful Veinte Mundos magazine.
• Worry Dolls - Article in English (to send to parents) with instructions to make your own at home.
• Silly Billy - A sweet book (in English) about worry dolls. (Find a review and preview from Alexandra Asophie here.)

Paz y Libertad

Hello all! My posts have been a little sparse in the new year so far. I have been a little swamped with the end of the semester grades and report cards, but I'm introducing some things during the new semester and I'm hoping to share some of them!

In 3rd and 4th grade we have been beginning the class all year with a greeting song, but after a few months of that I think they are ready for something fresh and a little more involved. We are learning Paz y Libertad, by José-Luis Orozco.

This is from his album De Colores, which I love. I have both the book and the CD:

 

The book has the lyrics, music, and beautiful illustrations, but I wanted to make sure my students could understand the song they were singing. So I created a lyric sheets with some key words illustrated. (You can find the PDF here.)

I had my students see if they could read and understand the main ideas of the song, with the support of the pictures. We went through each verse individually, adding actions, and then sang the whole song together with music. It's simple and repetitive enough that the kids could sing along with the chorus almost immediately.

We also spoke about what peace and liberty mean, and real life examples of each (in a kid-sized context.) To wrap up the lesson I had kids illustrate one of the verses on the back of their paper. (Lots of people wanted to illustrate the last one.) I reminded them that they should illustrate what peace and liberty might look like in each of the situations mentioned in the song... so we didn't just produce pictures of bombs and kids fighting.

When we sing the song together, we'll use the lyrics sheets and illustrations as a listening activity - kids will listen for their verse and hold up their illustrations when we get to it.

Pie charts for all!

No más. Sí, mas.

For my kids, this was a successful (and meaningful) way to introduce a new song. I hope it can be useful to you, too!

 

Rompehielos: A communicative icebreaker activity

¡Feliz 2015!

This week we are back in school after two weeks off, and we have several new students in middle school. I put together this rompehielos (icebreaker) to help those kids get to know their classmates a little better, while reviewing and introducing some new vocabulary.

I focused on the verbs tener and gustar. We've used both verbs before, but haven't had a lot of practice fully conjugating them.

Here's the document as a PDF and as a Word document, if you would like to make some changes.



I did this with 7th and 8th grade, and it worked out well. It was a way to channel the just-back-from-break chatter into some authentic communication.

1. Briefly review the verbs. I gave students this cheat sheet on the back... including some corny memes.
   
   
2. Let students preview the vocabulary. For my more basic classes I starred some boxes I wanted them to start with (that used familiar vocabulary or cognates.)
3. Model how to ask for the necessary information. Many kids will try to just ask "¿Tiene un gato?" since that is how it is written on the paper, instead of using "tienes." (When I pointed this out one bilingual student theorized that they were just using the Usted form... so maybe they were just being super polite?)
4. Model how to negotiate meaning without translating. I showed examples of how to give hints without switching to English: If your partner doesn't understand the question, try pointing out the word on the paper, acting it out, etc.
5. Grab a paper and participate yourself. You will find out some things about your students, and can provide a model for students.
6. Ask follow up questions. It was fun to see which categories were the hardest to find. (¿Nadie tiene un hámster?)