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Title: Resources for the End of the School Year
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The end of the school year is approaching (for some, summer vacation has already begun). Here are some ideas for closing on a good note:
It's a good time to get feedback from your students to help you make adjustments in the coming year. Here is a post from SpanishPlans.org about surveys for your students: https://spanishplans.org/2018/05/21/end-of-year-feedback/
For more survey ideas and a teacher's reflection on her students' responses, see this post at La Maestra Loca: https://lamaestralocablog.com/2018/05/14/the-power-of-positivity-from-the-mouths-of-babes/
Here are some end-of-the-year ideas from Secondary Spanish Space: http://www.secondaryspanishspace.com/2018/05/ideas-for-last-weeks-of-spanish-class.html
Here are more ideas from the Comprehensible Classroom blog: https://martinabex.com/2018/05/14/teacher-exhaustion/
The Edublogger shares ten end-of-the-year blogging activities in this post: https://www.theedublogger.com/2018/05/21/end-of-year-2/
Worried about the summer slide? Here are some ideas for sources of target language input for your students, from the Fluency Matters blog: https://fluencymatters.com/summer-input/
Here are more summer ideas especially for immersion students: https://addalinguablog.com/2018/05/15/addressing-the-summer-slide-for-immersion-students/
Source: Various
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Title: Building a Workshop Model in Spanish 1
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From http://2spanishteachers.weebly.com/
Are you interested in setting up a readers'/writers' workshop in your language class? Looking for ways to incorporate choice reading into your curriculum? Here's a nice blog post introducing the nuts and bolts of building a workshop model in an introductory language class: http://2spanishteachers.weebly.com/blog/building-a-workshop-model-in-spanish-1-the-nuts-and-bolts
Source: 2SpanishTeachers
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Title: Article: Classroom Management – Redirecting without Escalating
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Phillip Taylor has written the first of a three-part series about behavior management with difficult students. He writes, "If you have any experience in teaching, you’ve learned by now that keeping some of those kids who are already on the wrong track in class is a lot more challenging than it seems. Too many students don’t respond predictably to redirections. Many of those wonderful ‘techniques’ we learned in our classroom management classes just don’t work the way they’re supposed to! So many students have the frustrating habit of denying their behavior when you try to redirect them, and often try to find a way to turn a polite redirection into an argument[.]"
In this post, he describes how to enter into an interaction with challenging students in a way that is less likely to lead to an argument. Read it at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2018/05/21/guest-post-classroom-management-redirecting-without-escalating/
Source: Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
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Title: Four Games for Vocabulary Development
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From https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk
In this blog post, Larry Ferlazzo describes four low-prep games that reinforce vocabulary: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/larry-ferlazzo/four-games-vocabulary-development
Source: British Council
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Title: Adapting Tasks with Authentic Texts
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From https://passion4theprofession.com
Learn some techniques for adapting responses to authentic texts to different proficiency levels within one class in this blog post: https://passion4theprofession.com/2018/05/18/tiering-tasks-for-authentic-text-to-meet-the-needs-of-all-learners/
Source: passion4theprofession
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Title: We Teach Languages Episode 53: #langchat Stories with Diego Ojeda and Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell
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In Episode 53 of the We Teach Languages podcast series, Diego Ojeda and Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, two of the founding moderators of the #langchat Twitter professional development network, invite us into a conversation about how #langchat got started, some of the challenges of engaging professionally across differences, and other topics related to every language teacher’s favorite online chat.
Listen to the podcast at https://weteachlang.com/2018/05/18/ep-53-with-diego-ojeda-and-sara-elizabeth-cottrell/
Source: We Teach Languages
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Title: Activities to Teach a Lesson on Fashion and Clothing
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From http://teachinginthetargetlanguage.com
Here are fourteen activities, generally ranging from interpretive to interpersonal to presentational, that students can do to become more proficient at talking about clothes and fashion: http://teachinginthetargetlanguage.com/14-activities-to-teach-a-lesson-on-fashion-and-clothing/
Source: Teaching in the Target Language
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Title: Determining the Complexity of a Text
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In this blog post, Martina Bex and Mira Canion five characteristics of a text that teachers can look at to determine what proficiency level the text is most appropriate for, with a special focus on novice learners. The elements are time frames, topic, density of vocabulary, syntax, and text structure. Read the full blog post for a full explanation: https://martinabex.com/2018/05/16/is-this-text-really-level-1-which-factors-contribute-to-text-complexity/
Source: The Comprehensible Classroom
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Title: Ten Ways to Talk with Your Students about Their Weekend
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A great way to use the target language in meaningful ways is to talk about what you all did over the weekend. Your InterCom has a few favorite structures (weekend activity Bingo is one of them), and fortunately for all of us, Martina Bex has written a blog post describing ten different ways to foster interactions around what everyone did over the weekend.
Read the post at https://martinabex.com/2018/05/22/weekend-talk-language-class/
Source: The Comprehensible Classroom
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Title: Using Assessment When You Don't Have To
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By Lindsay Marean, InterCom Editor
Imagine: you get to teach a community language class! No administrators or regulations or different-thinking colleagues to make you do anything other than whatever you want with your students. This situation is common in indigenous language revitalization, extracurricular heritage language initiatives, and volunteer-taught classes serving immigrant communities.
Continue to imagine: you get a good response to the posters and announcements you put out, and your first class (basic introductions and greetings) has 20 students. The second class has 25, 15 from the first week and 10 new people (re-teach introductions for the newcomers and start on new phrases at the end of class). The third has 5 from the first week, 5 from the second week, and 5 newcomers (teach introductions for the third time and ask the “veterans” what they want to learn next). Soon your numbers have dwindled to only 4 students who attend regularly; you hear from others that people felt that they weren’t making any progress because you kept re-teaching the same content, or else because the class was moving too fast.
At this point, teachers and programs try lots of strategies: serve a meal in class to entice more students, break into “beginning” and “advanced” groups, offer incentives for regular attendance, play more games, and so on. But what if (cue the Keanu Reeves meme) you incorporate assessment?
For starters, have learners assess their current proficiency. The NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements are a good place to start. The process of self-assessment increases learner engagement, which may help with retention. Once you’re aware of the different proficiency levels of your students, you can create more appropriate activities and know to what extent you need to differentiate your instruction. Finally, consideration of Can-Do statements or similar specific language indicators can help you and your students set goals together.
Next, take time each class for students to reflect on growth. This may be a simple “ticket out the door” activity (something I learned, something that was challenging, something I want to learn), a language journal, or a bit of time updating a language portfolio such as CASLS’ LinguaFolio Online. An advanced student won’t worry so much about newcomers slowing down the class if she can see her own progress; the newest student in class won’t feel bad comparing himself to more advanced learners if he can instead compare his own proficiency to what it was a month ago.
Finally, try some large assessments at key parts of your program. For example, Green’s respondents requested a set of Can-Do statements tailored to each of their communities’ indigenous languages to measure when a learner could be considered a “speaker” of a language (Green 2017, p. 79; read the full report to see how proficiency assessment can be integrated throughout interconnected revitalization programs for a variety of purposes). Sʔímlaʔxw and her cohort of language house residents recorded a series of videos at different points on their journey and posted them on YouTube (available at https://youtu.be/KVj3vpCf6JE, https://youtu.be/3DxQb_Lr1rw, and https://youtu.be/O7fFMN-KSa4). She writes, “I did not set out on the path of Indigenous language assessment; I set out as a language learner in search of successful learning strategies.... After much reflection, I came to accept that assessments are one of several second-language acquisition techniques that are critical to the success of Indigenous language programs....” (Sʔímlaʔxw, 2014, p. 150).
World language teachers in traditional classroom settings are used to a context of mandated assessment. When the context doesn’t require assessment of any kind, teachers and planners often leave it out. However, without assessment, learners have a hard time perceiving their progress, teachers struggle to match content with learners’ needs and desires, and programs lack clear evidence of what works. I encourage you to incorporate assessment into your teaching, even if -- especially if -- you don’t need to.
References
Green, Jeremy (2017). Pathways to Creating Onkwehonwehnéha Speakers at Six Nations of The Grand River Territory. Report funded by Six Nations Polytechnic and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Available at https://www.snpolytechnic.com/sites/default/files/docs/research/pathways_to_creating_speakers_of_onkwehonwehneha_at_six_nations.pdf.
Sʔímlaʔxw, Michele K. Johnson (2014). yaʕ̓tmín cqwəlqwilt nixw, uł nixw, ul nixw, I need to speak more, and more, and more: Okanagan-Colville (Interior Salish) Indigenous second-language learners share our filmed narratives. Language Documentation & Conservation 8, 136-167. Available at https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/4622/1/johnson.pdf.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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