La Señora toca el ukulele: PBL and language learning outside the clasroom

If I've learned anything in almost a decade of teaching, it's that I'll never stop learning... and although I don't think I've ever lost track of how to be a language learner, it's still easy to lose hold of what it feels like to be a beginning language learner. As we are deep into conjugation practice in 8th grade, I see novice students and native speakers alike baffled by the mysterious jumbles of pronouns and verbs. After approximately 15 years of pounding those verbs into my head, it's easy to forget how confusing they first were.

One of the things I've been pushing myself to do this year is to learn new things. This is part of my ongoing and often futile quest for work/life balance, but also pretty crucial as an educator. It's harder to empathize with my students and give them the support they need if I forget what it is like to be a learner.

Here's what I'm learning and what I'm re-learning about about being a learner:

Arabic: I began learning Arabic a few years ago. In reality it's been about a decade... but with nothing more consistent than a year or so of (supposedly) weekly language lessons, which were more like monthly or semi-monthly. I tended to switch into Spanish as my default L2 mode. I used the strategies and tricks I taught my Spanish students - I labeled items in my house, made flash cards, came up with mnemonic devices, and drew things on whiteboards. During my year teaching English in Spain, I found a Spanish/English/Arabic exchange in order to rediscover my language-learning self as I was embarking on the new adventure of teaching my native language.

I learned what my students (hopefully) have learned - if you don't put in time to practice and study, you won't be able to use the language. Some words stuck - the word for thank you (because I drew a picture to go with it, and because I could actually use it in the real world) and the word for worm (because of the little worm dude/dood I drew.) (Okay. That is totally a caterpillar. Apparently I have a lot to learn.) By the time I actually traveled to Morocco, the only full sentence I could remember was "She drinks coffee." Not super functional.

Now I'd like to pick Arabic up again, especially in our current country's situation, where I am trying to engage with and fight for those who are oppressed and under-represented. (That's another story.) I know the drill - I need to practice every day. I need to learn phrases I can actually use, and find places to use them. I know how to be a language learner. (Now let's see if I can carve time for being a language learner out of the massive amount of time it takes to be a language teacher.)

Maybe I'll set myself the same monthly homework requirements I give my students, and they can grade me.



I'm also trying to learn the ukulele. A few months ago I somewhat impulsively bought a ukulele. Now I've been muddling my way through learning how to play it, usually on sunny Saturday mornings. I have limited musical experience, and only with melodies on very linear instruments (Celtic harp, mountain dulcimer, piano) so there's a steep learning curve! I am starting by trying to learn Limón y Sal by Julieta Venegas, starting with this tutorial.

I'm learning from a Spanish tutorial, and learning a new skill in my 2nd language is great in the context of project based learning. It's made me realize a few things about a second language + PBL. To learn to play the ukelele, I obviously needed to understand enough of the tutorial to follow along. I needed a basic level of language in order to learn a new skill in that language. That allowed me to follow along, and learn more specific new vocabulary in an authentic way. (Acordes and traste I could understand from the context. Rasgueo I could understand, and looked up to learn the new verb rasguear.) Chord charts are confusing to me because I have trouble conceptualizing spatial information. I watched the beginning of the tutorial several times and drew out charts of the fingering, but couldn't get all the chords to sound right. I re-tuned the ukelele a few times, downloaded a app for chords, watched the video a few times. I eventually realized I was holding the ukulele in the wrong hand. I needed to grab the white-out and start over several times. I needed to be okay with making mistakes and reassessing what I thought I knew in order to keep going. Once I fixed my hold on the ukulele I could correct my diagrams and actually practice the cords correctly, trying to cement those abstract diagrams into muscle memory.

How does this apply to my teaching?

Students need to have some basic language skills before collaborating and using those skills for a project. This is why this year I'm making sure I focus on skills and proficiency and not sacrificing all of our limited class time for projects - as much as I believe in project based learning as the best way for students to learn, students need proficiency. Especially as we develop and increase our K-5 language program, by middle school students will have both the language skills and the confidence needed to complete real-world projects in the language classroom. Focusing on authentic, engaging language tasks is a way to incorporate the concepts and values of PBL without sacrificing proficiency.

Teaching students a growth mindset and not to be afraid of making mistakes is crucial. Building a safe, supportive environment where students feel safe making mistakes allows them to show up and actually begin the hard work of language learning. For me, a big part of letting kids be vulnerable is letting them see me as a learner as well. From the perspective of a Spanish learner now teaching Spanish, I'm able to share with students my own struggles with the language, and strategies I used to study and remember. As a gringa guiri language learner turned teacher, acknowledging my status as a learner is important - especially in a community that includes native speakers. I often ask native speakers for regional variations or obscure words, and we look up words together frequently. Taking a descriptive rather than prescriptive view of language (lo siento, Real Academia) is also important, since I want students to recognize and respect regional variations as it is used - not just language from a book or the variations I happened to encounter in Spain. Finding the best way to support and challenge my native speakers is an ongoing area of growth for me, but the importance of beginning with a respectful and supportive relationship is one thing I'm already sure of.

Why educate? Why innovate?

What do you see as the purpose of education?  Why might innovation be crucial in education?

Asking myself why at the beginning of the school year feels pretty important. To begin the school year this year, our new administrative team asked us to share some #whyiteach moments. The why question has been an underlying thread in these first few weeks of school, as I establish routines and big-picture plans with my students. I'm asking students why, too - middle school students are starting the year by creating zines to answer the question "Why Learn Languages?" Before we can learn we need to know why we are doing this, and before I can teach I need to know why it is important.

There are so many reasons education is important, and why I've decided to make a career out if it. Today it's hard to ignore the reasons looming in the headlines and my newsfeed. It's easy to feel powerless in the face of the violence, hatred, and injustice both far away and uncomfortably close to home. At its worst, education can prop up and strengthen structures of injustice, but at its best it can dismantle them. Education is a way to help fix what's broken in the world, and to create a better future. It is not the only way to fight injustice and heal wounds, but for me personally education is the way I can be invested and involved in a better future. I have the next generation in my classroom, and the skills, ideas, and the abilities for empathy and critical thinking that they learn with me can help shape their future.

Innovation in education is a relatively new concept to me. As a foreign language teacher, my focus has been on proficiency and how to get students to use language authentically. This is my 3rd year at a project based school, and I've had to shift my mindset a bit. Innovation is a huge part of PBL. I think innovation is critical because it innovation empowers students. Education is my key to improve the future, and the key to successful education is students who are empowered to take control of their own learning. If students are engaged and involved and have a voice, they will learn and they will make amazing things. I feel so grateful to be working in an environment where innovation and student curiosity is valued and prioritized. I love passing by classrooms every day where students are excited and curious and can't wait to show me what they are making. In my own classes, one big success marker is if I see that light kindled in my students' eyes. I've seen that a few times this year, while students are making zines and preparing to share them with an authentic audience.

For me, the big question I'm still wrestling with is how to encourage innovation and authentic exploration without losing sight of proficiency - or rather, how to create situations for that innovation and exploration to happen when students are not yet at an adequate level of proficiency in Spanish. I am optimistic, especially working with 5th graders this year who I have had since 3rd grade - we can do more things in Spanish, so we can talk about more things in Spanish, so hopefully we can explore stuff and make stuff in Spanish. I'm hoping that this exploration of innovation can help me find ways to make that happen.

This is the first blog prompt for #IMMOOC, a professional book club I'm taking part in with George Couros' "The Innovator's Mindset." 

I've been doing a lot of exciting things so far this school year, and I'll try to share more of them here soon! I've been a lot more active on twitter recently, so feel free to follow me @kennedyspanish

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!)

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!