Making Language Learning Meaningful

As I spent the last hour outside shoveling, I couldn't help but reflect on the idea of making language learning meaningful. Again, we live in a small town and there really is no immediate opportunity or NEED for students to learn a foreign language, but, there are a few resources out there like the Mexican restaurant. And, there is one out there that you may not have thought of...

I don't know about your schools, but, mine has at least three or four foreign exchange students a year. My school counselor knows that these students are my prized commodities! As soon as one registers for school, I want to meet him/her and I offer support, a friendly smile AND either Spanish classes (if it is a student from a non-Spanish speaking country) OR English language support in EXCHANGE for Teaching Assistant help.

Here are a few of the benefits for my students:

• It gives them another on-site expert--Not only do they have me as a resource for help with the language, but they have someone else they can ask questions to.
• It brings another perspective in the classroom in terms of culture. Who needs a textbook when you have someone that LIVES that culture day in and day out IN your room!!?!
• It allows my students to hear a different accent other than mine.
• It gives the kids someone THEIR age to speak Spanish to
• It opens their eyes to the world around them. They get an opportunity to meet someone very much like them, that appreciates language learning and has made it an integral part of his/her life

Here are a few of the benefits for the foreign exchange student:

• It gives him/her an opportunity to be an expert in a class and increases confidence 
• It allows him/her to look at his/her own culture from a different perspective
• It gives him/her the opportunity to teach his/her peers further strengthening his/her own knowledge of both Spanish AND English
• It helps him/her make some new friends that he/she may not have met before
• It gives him/her extra English vocabulary practice throughout the period.
• They can get extra support from me on their assignments from other classes.

Again, I don't only take foreign exchange students from Spanish-speaking countries. I encourage students from other countries to TAKE my class, as well.

A few of the benefits for him/her:

• It gives him/her the opportunity to learn Spanish---WOOT!
• It gives him/her the opportunity to start on the same even ground as the rest of his/her English speaking peers 
• It gives him/her the opportunity to get in some extra English vocabulary/grammar practice
• It provides a truly warm atmosphere for conversation and socialization
• It allows him/her the opportunity to look at his/her own culture from a different perspective

Over the years, I have had Teaching Assistants from Mexico, Colombia and Spain. (I even went to visit my Españoles last year!)  I have also had students from Sweden, Denmark, Korea, Germany, Slovakia and Finland. I would be amiss if I didn´t point out that I have learned a lot from them too. But, alas, we learn from all of our students, don´t we!?

Experimenting with Google Voice

Every year I have my students create a family tree as a project along with detailed descriptions of at least 5 of their family members. Over the years I have seen big posters, family trees in the shape of trees, posters with REAL branches and leaves on them, Prezis, PowerPoints, videos and the occasional one on lined notebook paper with stick figures.

That being said, MOST of these guys are REALLY REALLY excited about their product and they want to show it off. So, in the past, I have asked them to present their trees to the class. The problem with this, however, is that with a class of 23-28 kids these days become VERY boring and often take up more than one class period. 

This year, I am going to try something a little different. I have told my students that each one of them will be presenting their tree THREE times. The first two times will be practice runs with a friend who will peer assess with a rubric encouraging growth. The third time will be a more serious run with an assigned partner who will be taking notes.

The notes will then be used for a subsequent assignment in which students will describe their PEER'S family to ME via google voice.

They will need to:

• ·         Greet me
• ·         Introduce him/herself by saying his/her name and how old he/she is
• ·         Tell me who his/her partner (pareja) is
• ·         Describe the family of his/her peer along with at least TWO family members
• ·         Say good-bye

     Ultimately, this will ensure that each student has MULTIPLE opportunities to practice vocabulary and speak, as well as ensure that they will have a captive audience that is listening intently to the details of the speech.

    Furthermore, because I will have the written descriptions in my possession from the turned in tree, I will be able to check for accuracy on the voicemails if something seems amiss and I will have recordings that I can play back to students when they are wondering about mistakes.

    In the end, it will be a hefty couple days of grading, but, with the rubrics I have created, should be manageable! 

A Pirate's Life for Me

Weeks later and Teach Like a Pirate is still inspiring me to keep my lessons different and exciting.

On Monday, I set the copy machine to print and left to get a coffee while it slowly spit out sheet after sheet. When I returned, I found a sticky note like this stuck to the machine.

It not only caused a full blown belly laugh that caused me to temporarily be short of breath, but, it made me really excited to get over to room 106 to see what was going on. Truth be told, Room 106 is not only the hostage site of my copies, but home to one of the most amazing, dedicated, hard-working individuals I know. No joke, this guy is the type of educator administrators dream of. Above all else, the success of his students are of the utmost importance and because of that, I look up to him and am constantly inspired to do my best.

When I got to his room, with dulce de leche filled chocolate owls in hand, he returned my stack of papers. Though we had a good laugh, I sat there staring at those sheets thinking how the end result was kind of "blah". I mean, yes, I had great intentions. I spent at least 30 minutes coming up with guided notes about possessive adjectives that had examples that applied to my students. But, a presentation about possessive adjectives hardly sounded like something a fourteen year old would be riveted by--and, then it hit me. 

The following day, I walked into my classroom with a different plan. I started my class period by telling the story of my copy thief (which prompted the comment ¨Sweet! We don´t have to do it!¨) 

I followed the story up with a bellringer, vocabulary flashcards and a vocab puzzle. As the kids were working on the puzzle, however, I walked around the room and started taking things from their desks and putting them in a backpack that I keep in my classroom. I took textbooks, water bottles, IPods, cell phones, pencil bags, pencils (right out of the hands of kids that were using them) and really just quietly made a little scene. Some of them didn't even notice, others were appalled and to those that asked me what I was doing, I would respond by saying "¡Trabaja!¨.

When they finished the activity I loudly pulled a desk to the front of the room and plopped my backpack on top. I said ¨Amigos, Tengo que confesar¨ ¨Soy una ladrona¨ ¨I then pulled out a textbook and said ¨Este libro NO es MI libro....¨  A few snickers resulted. I started asking kids ¨¿Es tu libro?¨ When we finally figured out who it belonged to, I could say ¨No es MI libro es SU libro¨

Same with the water bottles...I took two in each class so I was able to say ¨Son SUS botellas¨ and then when they were paired next to mine, ¨Nuestras botellas¨ and so forth. They all sat there staring in bewilderment over how many things I took, wondering if something of theirs was in my bag. Without the use of a worksheet, I could get the kids in my room to start working on possessives. Not only did I ¨steal¨ their possessions, but, I stole their attention as well. In the end, that´s what we all should be striving to do, hooking our students and luring them in to be passionate about their learning.

Using Movie Clips to Help Narrate the Past

Since my last posting, my students and I have been working diligently on the past and I am super pleased to say that for the first time in my seven years of teaching it they are HAVING FUN with it as opposed to being afraid. I am attributing it to the fact that my approach has been far more differentiated than it has been in previous years and we have examined it in a variety of different aspects.

Of all of the activities that we have done, the one thing that is really working and keeping kids engaged is examining the past through the use of movie clips.

Animated short films or cortometrajes are great for this. Oktapodi, Lifted, La Luna, Presto and One Man Band are among some of my favorites and can all be found on YouTube.

Call me nerdy, but after teaching narration of the past for the last seven years, all I see is preterite vs. imperfect when watching a film like that. As I explain to my kids, it pairs quite well. When narrating a scene in the past, all of the background stuff that is going on that you generally glance over in a movie is the imperfect. It sets the scene, it makes things interesting, and without it it is hard to fall in love with the characters, and to get emotionally invested. The best animated short films pay really close attention to that and then jam in as much preterite into a short amount of time as possible to keep things interesting. From my perspective, the preterite is all of those things that avert attention from that pretty background and those cute little characters. 

Take the movie Up for example, when Mr. Frederickson´s house is flying over the city, you see a big, beautiful house floating through clouds, hanging from balloons of every color over the rooftops of skyscrapers and so forth when all of the sudden you hear the crack of thunder. No longer are you processing that scene-- it becomes secondary. All of your attention is focused on the action. (the preterite)

This particular unit we have vocabulary related to family gatherings. I really wanted my students to be able to synthesize both their new vocabulary with their new grammar, so I chose to show the following clip of the ¨Top Five Disney Weddings¨

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0ykxKbNTgo

In English, we narrated #5 and discussed which conjugation we would use and why.  As a class we narrated #4 in Spanish together and then they were given the choice to narrate #1, #2, or #3 on their own.

As a challenge, I told them not to share with their peers which clip they were narrating. If they narrated it well, we should have been able to figure it out based on their description.

A few tootsie rolls up for grabs, and all of the sudden this writing was fun.It gave them the motivation they needed to make sure that their writing and description was thorough as opposed to thrown together and vague.

I'm excited to see the progression the rest of this year, and I hope that they continue to embrace it with a growth mindset.