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.

1. We brainstormed ways to use language to make a positive difference in the world. After they shared their ideas, I explained the need for Spanish materials for our charitable drive, in a community with a significant Spanish-speaking community. (With more time, I would have included more sustained inquiry to research needs in our community.)
2. Students formed groups and chose tasks that fit with their language skills and interests. I divided the project into three "missions" that fit with needs for the campaign: Spanish posters encouraging people to donate and giving information about the drive, a list of donation ideas for our toiletries drive, and encouraging Spanish notes to include in the care packages. I estimated the language difficulty for each and whether or not it was appropriate for group work. For example, translating the list of donation items could easily be broken down into group work. (With more time, I would have put together groups myself, and divided up the work a bit differently - for example, having groups contribute in some way to all three products, either through creation or peer editing.)
3. I provided a variety of translation resources. 
   (With more time, I would have done smaller mini-lessons teaching students how to use each of the digital resources - though I did previously spend some time on highlighting the dangers of online translators with this Crossover vs. Computer activity.)
• Copies of the English publicity materials and documents that needed to be translated
• Wordreference.com - My favorite online dictionary. I showed students how this could help them pick the correct words, rather than letting another online "dictionary" or translator guess what form of "drive" they meant, for example.
• SpanishChecker.com - A great resource for native speakers especially, since it catches errors but also provides explanations of the suggested corrections to spelling or word choice.
• A shared "phrase bank" for phrases to use in encouraging notes. (More advanced students and native speakers brainstormed a list of phrases, checked their spelling and grammar, and provided this as a resource for less proficient students to create language notes.)
4. Students worked on their chosen missions.
   After explaining the three "missions" and briefly previewing some resources, I let students work fairly independently, while I circulated and checked in with individuals and groups. Many students were anxious at first, when faced with a large number of words they didn't know how to say.  However, a poster or a list of items was a manageable amount of language for translation, and WordReference was a great resource to let students look up words and choose appropriate word choices. We kept a running list of helpful phrases and word choices on the board. ("Feminine Hygiene Products" was enough to bring one otherwise very productive group of 8th grade boys to a halt.) A few students were off task or gave up and turned to online translators, but the overall level of engagement was higher than usual. (If I had more time, I would have included peer evaluation of the final products, with students evaluating their peer's projects using the same resources I would use later: a rubric, and some example translations from a variety of online translators to easily identify shortcuts.)
5. Students reflected and evaluated themselves at the end of the survey.
   As a final step, students filled out a survey to reflect on what they learned and comment on group dynamics, if applicable. I think self-assessment and reflection is so important, and so necessary for me to evaluate what has been learned. (This is why I'm spending my first day of the holiday break typing this very long reflection on my own learning!)
6. I used technology to keep myself and students organized.
   (Warning: Might not make much sense if you're not a Google nerd.)
   I made the project resources available and had students attach their work through Google Classroom. I used a lot of spreadsheet nerdery to keep track of this project and who was working with who: VLOOKUP functions to pull together my feedback sheet, the final survey results, and links to files attached through Google Classroom, and then the autocrat extension to synthesize this into a project summary for each student, where I could easily review students' self evaluation and grade the project using our rubric. For me it's always a dilemma whether or not to let students type up their work - generally I want their first drafts to be on paper, partially to avoid the online translator pitfall, but so much of this project focused explicitly on translation (both good and bad.) I've been using the Draftback extension to take a closer work at student work in Google Docs. It's easy to see their editing process, and to see suspicious appearances of blocks of pasted texts. In the context of this project and our time constraints, working digitally allowed us to produce the desired results - projects that could actually be used in our charitable campaign. (In the future I also would have had students choose missions and group members through a quick Google Survey, rather than signing up on the board and manually typing in the information into my nerdy project tracking spreadsheet. A beginning survey would have streamlined this a bit and allowed me to more quickly catch students who made poor group choices or who were off task and not working on the project at all. I would also have used Doctopus to create templates for students, rather than Google Classroom - I think this would have been better for group work, and an easier way to streamline grading through an attached Goobric.)
7. We used our language skills to make a positive difference in the world!
   As students finished up their posters, donation lists, and notes, I quickly reviewed them for any glaring errors. Students hung them around the school and on the collection barrels to encourage donations, and added them to care packages (along with other notes in English.) (If we had more time for peer and teacher review before creating final drafts, we definitely would have been able to produce more to actually be used. As it was, students who needed lots of corrections or were a little behind ended up creating projects that couldn't actually be used in the real world.)
   
   Seeing the real world connection was the best part - for me and for my students. 

I even got to use the momentum with my younger students - we made notes and holiday cards in Spanish to donate to local senior citizen's homes and other charitable organizations. (I'm a big fan of the adorable holiday mashup below.) I already am dreaming up bigger ideas for next year, and some organizations in Tijuana that might be able to use some friendly notes and letters in Spanish.

¡Felices fiestas a todos!

Nos vemos en 2016.