Easy Story activity: Secret input!

I thought I would share the #1 go-to activity that I use if I have a little bit of time to prep.  I love this activity because...
1) It is a "secret input" activity.  Students think they are doing a writing (or speaking) activity- but secretly they are reading!  Plus, if they are writing they are copying directly from the text, therefore are writing accurately!
2) It is based on the student's own work- either acting or drawing.  They are so completely engaged when they are on stage.
3) It's easy and totally flexible and adaptable.  Reading a novel? Use this as a review.  Asked a story and want more reps?  Yep, this works great for that.  Did Reader's theatre and want to spice it up the next day?  Also works for that.

Step 1: Have students create the images.
You can do any of these activities to get the pictures/scenes you need: (These are just the ideas I can think up in 10 seconds- there are many more)
Acting: Freeze Frame, Reader's Theatre (with frozen moments), etc.
Drawing:  Cooperative Mural, individual mural, drawing scenes/comics while listening to retell, Running Dictation with Drawings, etc.

Step 2: Make sure you capture the drawings/scenes.
One way I do this when I use actors is that I give one student my phone and they get to chose which scenes (with help from me) to get pictures of- based on the "Queso" (cheezieness) factor.  Or, quickly before the next class comes in, I snap a photo (or several) of the mural on the board/individual white board and save it for later.

Tech tip: If you have google drive installed on your device, you can take a photo and upload it directly to drive from the phone without having to fuss with moving photos from iPhoto or anything like that.  Easy.

Step 3: Create the activity. 
 I use google slides because it is even faster than powerpoint, but the process is basically the same.

Create a slide show.  Insert directions on the first slide.  My directions are in English because I am very specific about them (and my level 1 kids are not ready to do it in Spanish).  They read
"Write the best sentence from the story to describe the following pictures.  You must use your copy of the story."

Then insert a slide for each image.

Tech Tip: If you do a cooperative mural or comic and have a Mac, you can quickly break that one picture down into several smaller pictures.  Or if the pictures overlap you can quickly separate them out into separate ones.  (I don't have any examples because I just save the individual pictures in the mural.  Sorry!) Open the picture in whatever application you prefer, and use the shortcut [Option Shift 4] to grab a screenshot of where ever your cursor is.   Make sure you know where those screenshots are saved (usually desktop, but you can change it).  This makes it super fast to insert into google slides because you can drag directly from your desktop to a slide without having to go through the whole import photo step.

Pick hilarious images, vague images, and images that will get you the reps that you wish for.

I also usually pick some image from Google Images that has something to do with the story...but that's totally not necessary.  Just fun and usually takes an extra 10 seconds.

Step 4: Provide students with a paper copy of the story/scene, whiteboards, and markers.  (Or, paper, or do it verbally with partners. Really, the options are limitless.)

Step 5:  Students write the best sentence from the story.
They may not all agree- that's ok.  In fact, that's an opportunity for more repetitions and PQA.

I have done this activity with as few as 3 images, and as many as 10.

Here is one full slideshow that I made.


Here is another one:  I am also going to try an extension activity where they speak and then...answer questions about the text.  (I am using who/what/where questions and some why to get that higher order thinking discussion.  I am also going to do the activity orally because I think they need to be social.)  If you want to see the questions appear, look at it in "present" view and click through.

Sustained Silent Reading / Free Voluntary Reading: it begins!

I started a FVR/SSR program with my Spanish 2 (8th grade) class this year.  I am SO EXCITED to report that it is a smashing success.  Kids ask for more, say thank you, and have a palpable sense of excitement when I announce it and a sense of disappointment when I ring my chime to indicate that it is over.

I researched and read a great deal about how to do it, and pulled in my background as an elementary reading teacher to set up a program.  Here is (roughly) what I did to ensure success.

If you haven't read everything that Bryce Hedstrom has written about FVR and reading, stop reading now, click here, (scroll down to Establishing a free voluntary reading program)  and read it. All.    Bryce has assembled a vast collection of truly useful resources (for free, for other teachers, for the good of the kids) and I can not overstate the impact his teaching style and philosophy has had on mine.Then come back to read how I applied my learning.

 Assembling a FVR library: 
Thanks to a generous grant from a parent, I was able to purchase a LOT of books.  I leveraged my grant and waited until a conference special, and bought as many books as I could carry.  I also used the conference attendees as a resource.  Brilliant teachers such as Karen Rowan and Alina Filepescu both made incredibly helpful suggestions in the moment as I was purchasing.  I love this TPRS community!

I also print out copies of each and every story that we create in class and have been doing so for two years and have those in page protectors.

Many TPRS teachers offer their stories for free on TPT and/or through their blogs, and I always take advantage of printing those up and adding them.

Newspapers, magazines, phone books,  and other community things get scooped up and added, and I inherited a bunch of stuff from another teacher.

Last, careful selection at Scholastic warehouse sales and Goodwill have earned me a good number of affordable non-fiction and very easy fiction.  Remember though: most children's books are written at an intermediate-mid level or higher, so they aren't necessarily a great fit for novice readers.  

FVR library organization:
Bryce Hedstrom and Mike Peto both have great resources for FVR library organization.

I approached the challenge of library organization like I did when I had an elementary classroom reading library: it neeeded to be organized, inviting, easy.  I decided to remove all the bilingual books *for now*.  I sorted children's books into very easy categories and used a simple bin/numbering system to keep it organized.  This way it is really easy to see where books go back and it stays relatively organized.  

Each book is tagged with our school's name, a bin number, and if it is a specific TPRS novel, the level (according to Bryce Hedstrom's great resource for leveling novels, click above and scroll down).
Here is a link to the bin categories and the labels that I use to label them.  Velcro on the bins (bins from the dollar store) + velcro on the labels means that the bins can be reorganized easily as needed.  Plus, you get a new book? Just figure out what number bin it goes on, label it, and add it.  Easily expandable!


Introducing FVR
Day 1: I showed students this slideshow, courtesy of a brilliant Latin teacher, adapted from a similar slide show.  The presentation is intended to show what 98%-95% comprehensible reading really is, and how the jump from 95% to 90% is really enormous.

I also showed some quotes from Bryce's excellent resource about reading; mostly quotes from Dr. Stephen Krashen, an influential researcher about second language acquisition and the power of reading.

Next, as a group, we looked at the library, discussed organization, and I had a couple of kids model browsing for books and taking them out.  This last step seemed silly, but someone had suggested it (I am so sorry that I forgot who and can not attribute!) but I think it really helped.

Each kid got a bookmark and wrote their name on it; they can check out books (click here for my check-out form) overnight but they can also just leave their bookmark in the book and I won't let that one leave the building until it is read.

 I gave the kids the expectations.  They need to read, just read, and read.  There is no accountability other than to list the books that they read.

Finally, I let them pick books and read.  For 4 minutes.  It was SO hard to stop them, but I wanted to leave them wanting more.

The following week I gave them 8 minutes.  They were so happy and asked for more.  The next week, they got 10, and yesterday, 15.  I also am reading, per Bryce's great suggestion, and it just feels so very, very good.

I hope these resources are helpful to anyone else who wants to try FVR/SSR.

Interactive Notebooks: Year 3 and Lessons Learned

This is my third year using interactive-ish notebooks and I still love them.  The way I use them has not evolved a great deal from my first blog post, but the way I ask my students to use them has.

I realized that a) I really don't believe in any homework other than comprehensible reading, and b) I better give them the resources to do that reading if I want them to do it.

So my notebooks continue to be the place where everything- target structures, translation activities, song lyrics, stories, readings, and assessments gets glued in.  I do let my kids take a tiny handful of notes- usually just when introducing target structures, and at the end of class in a vocabulary organizer of their choice.  But there are a lot more readings.

The biggest changes that I have made are:
1) I ask students to write down the day of the week and the date at least once a day when we put something in their notebook.  I HATE doing "calendar" type of activities in middle school, so this takes care of that.

2) I have increased the number of comprehensible readings I give them.  This includes my attempt to create a reading (embedded or traditional) for every movietalk we do.  They are really time consuming to write but I am getting faster and the payoff is...more comprehensible readings! I also almost always include a comprehensible reading (short and sweet) with every song activity, and if we are doing discussion questions that I know ahead of time, I often have them glued in as well- because re-reading questions is still input, even if they answer them as output.

3) I moved the index to the first three pages, and included a bunch of class procedural stuff in the front of the notebook.  Everything from "what do I do if I am absent" to my office hours to my grading policy to reading, writing, and general level of proficiency rubrics are now glued into the front few pages.  (Not that anyone reads it, but at least I can respond with "Why don't you look that up?" in a friendly tone of voice rather than my "I have told you that 10 million times already!" screetch that any teacher is familiar with.)

Grading the notebooks continues to be super fast and easy.  Students can make up work and notes if they need to, but I do not allow them to make up any of the points on the "Visual appearance and organization" part, as I explain to them that the work is what is important for them to do and for me to spend time looking at; the other stuff is important but not Spanish related.  For my 8th graders, I use a rubric that I created in my on-line grade book (Canvas, if anyone cares)  and I just click click click through to be finished in minutes!

Deskless Year 2: thoughts and ideas

On sharing a classroom:
     I share my deskless classroom with a desk-full classroom teacher.

     I never in a million years thought it would be as easy as it is, but it is fine.  She has tables that stack like a very complicated jigsaw puzzle in one corner.  She has one wall of whiteboards and when the tables are set up, she orients toward that wall.  There are windowsills for storing her stuff, and a couple of small tables- like coffee tables for her overhead projector and computer.  Each that she teaches, the kids come in, un-stack the tables, and set them up.  She stops about three minutes early and they re-stack, then set up the chairs for my class.  It is pretty seamless.
     My only minor complaint is that if I have left something in my bike bags, I can't easily get to them because the tables are pushed right up against my bike!  But really, that's just a matter of me being more organized and taking stuff out of my bag before her class starts!
     It also means I see another adult regularly and, as this teacher is also the middle school director (and therefore my direct supervisor) I have the opportunity to observe her and learn from her.  It's really pretty great.  Last year, when I was hyperventilating about having to move my classroom and having to share, I never would have thought it would be this easy.

On why I went deskless: 
I recently had a conversation (ok, a messaging conversation via a social media website) about going deskless and why I did it.  Here are some highlights:
How did you get to the point that you knew you needed to make this transition? 
       I was constantly feeling stifled by the lack of space- I wanted kids to move and act out stories (my first year with TPRS) and I wanted to move around to the kids, but I was super constrained.  Plus, I was constantly tripping.  Especially with backpacks!
      When I had the opportunity to keep my desks in the hall for a week due to testing, I tried it and felt like I could do so much more to make my class feel different- more language acquisition than language memorization and grammar.
      I think my class sends a powerful message to kids: memorizing and spouting facts, grade grabbing and ignoring the teacher don't work out here.  Being present, laughing, being yourself, and listening to understand are the values.  If that means we sit with stuffed animals sometimes, or a group of " toros" runs after the people to demonstrate runs from and runs to, then so much the better!    I also hate taking time to do things like seating charts and cleaning desks and stacking chairs...I think that I should be spending my time planning awesome lessons or recovering from my challenging job!

Can you describe what some of the challenges are with being deskless? Parent/admin by in? Challenges with students?
     Admins were behind it, parents either like it or have no opinion.  Again, it helps set a different tone.
     Challenges: some kids hate having to lean down and get their stuff.  (They can only bring in pencil case, notebooks, and whatever they need for the next class.) so they whine.
     But, as soon as I let them spread out and work where ever they want, they stop whining.  I also have a couple of TV trays I got at a thrift store, and one table that the kids can use if they are doing independent work.  They manage it themselves - for the most part.  Really, I can't think of any real challenge with it.
And- no desks: fewer germs, so I have been sick a lot less since I went deskless!

Do you start the year deskless or transition?
     I start the year deskless. I hand out these laminated character cards  and tell them to find the seat that matches their card.  From then on, that's how it works.
     I also teach them to line up outside my door so I can greet them each day, give them their card, and hear the password.  Then, they come in, find their seat, and get to work on a starter.

In short, I can not imagine teaching with desks.  Ever again!

Brandon Brown Quiere Un Perro- teaching it again and rockin' it! - Activity suggestions for Chapters 1-4

BRANDON!  

I love teaching this book.  It is SUCH a blast.  I have gotten so many resources from other teachers, so I thought I would share what I do here.

Please note: Due to copyright concerns, I do not feel comfortable actually posting my materials.  Most of the materials I created are taken directly from the teachers guides, and I want to honor and respect the work of the authors.  That being said, it has taken just a little bit of time to create the activities, so I think it is worth sharing. Seriously- low or no prep is the best!

This is not a complete list, just activities that I have added for my Spanish 1A  (8th grade) class that are outside of the teacher's guide.  If you are thinking of teaching this novel, buy the teacher's guide.  It is worth every penny, even if you teach high school.

I should say that one activity that I am doing for each chapter is that I read it out loud and ask students to act it out.  Every time.  I think that the first time, they need to hear me read.  I usually ask them to re-read it a second time, either with a partner or alone.  Then, I move to review activities.  I also do almost all of the reader's theatre activities that are included.

Chapter 1

• Review: Kahoot Quiz using the questions and responses from the comprehension questions.
• Pre-teach: Asked kids to email me pictures of their pets and a brief bio.  I put them into slides and present a new one every few days.  Super engaging.  

Chapter 2

• Review: I used the comprehension questions  in Spanish and the numbered heads together strategy to have teams find and write the answers on whiteboards.  This activity never goes as well as I want to, but they read parts of the chapter about a million times, so it got the repetition in!  

Chaper 3

• Review: I made a chain reaction game out of the comprehension questions and answers to review.  Teacher tip from my elementary years: In order to make this game re-usable and keep it organized, I do the following: Copy on card stock.  Take colored markers and color code (by drawing a line, an x, or the quickest way possible) on each sheet, making sure each card is marked.  Mark the same number of envelopes with the same colors.  Cut in stacks with your paper cutter.  Then, quickly sort each card by color (or have a helpful kid do it!).  I always label the envelopes with the color name in the TL and remind the kids to keep them organized by color.  Super smooth game making and it goes quickly!  
• Pre-teach: I also found a list with pictures of all kinds of household chores and created a people-find activity to review ¨tiene que" (since we targeted that structure last year) and talk about household chores and responsibilities.  
• Pre-teach: Because we haven't learned lleva and recoge (carries and pick up), and I thought we needed to review ve and va (sees and goes), I created a story about a student who was in his room,  in bed, when someone famous calls him, and he has to go to a place, pick up something, and carry it to someplace else.  When he arrived, the famous person asks him when he was going to return home.      Underlined words are new or recycled vocabulary.  It was a smash hit!  
• Pre-teach: I used the story I asked and did a Paper Airplane reading.  (I did individual airplanes, not teams, because my kiddos did not need the partner support, but I gave crummy directions and they all picked the first sentence.  I also didn't assess.  I let kids throw planes at me, at selected volunteer from the class, and at each other.  Super fun.  Next time, I will give better directions.  However, what a FANTASTIC Friday afternoon -last class of the day- activity that is also a "secret input" activity.   

Chapter 4

• I used the "Charades" game as suggested in the teacher's guide, and then used the cards for a very simple game.  Directions: Spread the cards out on the floor, either English or TL facing up.  Use the word in a sentence (TL) and one student has to find the English word they heard.  Give the TL word and someone else has to find the English.  
• Top Eight (I did eight, not ten, for time). I had kids in groups of four pull the top eight events then we decided, as a group, which were the most important.  That part never goes as well as I want it to though.  
• Use the top 8 for Running Dictation .  I am always looking for engaging activities to do with this particular group on a Friday afternoon, so this seems like a good one.
• Gallery walk / cut and paste:  Now, I think this group still needs MORE INPUT so I don't think they are ready to read questions and write accurate answers. I created regular page size sheets with questions.  They will be posted around the room.   Students will cut apart the many answers that I provided them (including 5 or 6 incorrect answers) and match them to the correct question.  Yep, they can just see what other kids paste on, but they are still getting the input!  (This is one of those activities that took me about 10 minutes to create.  They will do the cutting as their starter, so I don't take up too much class time for that.  

I hope this blog post is useful.  Remember, you can use almost any of these activities for almost any reading!  

Helping learners learn how they learn...or how I am turning my classroom into a sensory OT experiment

Many elementary teachers know that some kids truly need supports to learn.  These supports are frequently written into IEPs and 504 plans.  Many parents and OTs are the ones who get these supports written in, and good teachers incorporate the fidgets, lap weights, earphones, etc. into their classroom without a blink.  Other teachers can't get over the idea that "fair is not equal."

I'm not here to judge.

I am here to say that in every english - speaking classroom that I have taught in, there has been a huge sign saying "Fair is not equal."  I taught a series of lessons around this idea: that if Johnny needs (glasses, crutches, a cast on his arm), than it would be silly if everyone in the class also needed that support for it to be fair.  Or...more to the point, if Jane is allergic to chocolate, than to keep things fair, no one should be allowed to eat chocolate.

That's usually the point where kids nod and agree with me: how ridiculous.  Fair is not the same as equal.  They get it pretty quickly, especially once it's normalized.

Now, I can't do everything for everyone but I can do my best.  I can do my best to differentiate, to personalize, to make learning relevant and interesting, and to help kids learn what they need in order to learn.

You see, secretly I have had a lot of experience and training with behavior plans,  observations and tracking of behavior, identifying and data-keeping for IEPs and 504s, and that sort of thing.  I have been incredibly fortunate to work with amazing school psychologists and occupational therapists who have supported, mentored, and guided me as I tried to make my classroom equitable as well as a place for learning.  Those skills are not ones I have had to draw on too much since I moved to my current school.  Truly, I get to focus more on teaching and building relationships with kids, and less on behavior and/or meeting kids' basic needs.

I currently teach in a middle/high income independent (private, not parochial) school.  We do not have IEPs or 504s.  Some students have as many learning needs as in any of my public school classrooms, but our school doesn't have a strong culture, especially in the middle school, of trying to help kids meet those needs with more unusual accommodations.  That's not a criticism.  It just is.  Independent schools work differently.  We work as a staff to meet individual needs in different ways and we do have a culture of making traditional accommodations and modifications.  Both approaches are valid.

http://www.codeshareonline.com/plan-b.html

  But this year, I have been confronted by groups of kids who really struggle with impulse control.  To the point that in one class, I have gone to Plan B a bunch of times.This form is one of my favorites for this kind of formalized data keeping.  I can not recommend it highly enough.) I realized that I needed to go back to some of the strategies that I have used before.  Because there is no reason not to try.
 Seriously frustrating and boring for all!   After watching the kids for the first few weeks of school and thinking deeply about what their behaviors are telling me,  (

I spent a few hours re-reading notes from other accommodations, plans, and searching the web for DIY OT sensory kits.  I realized that many of my most challenging students are sensory seeking (chewing, touching, bouncing, etc.).

As I told them when I started discussing this in class, all those behaviors (not Behaviors!) are well within "normal" human range.  In fact, I am sensory seeky myself: I asked them if they had ever counted how many times I put on chapstick or check my pocket to make sure that it's there.  (One observant student pointed out that those behaviors happen about every 5 minutes.  I think she was being generous!)

I made a plan, a budget (which got a little out of hand...that's what happens when a sensory seeker goes to put together a sensory toolkit!), and a shopping list. I was going to get fidgets, make some lap weights, and whatever else I could find to make my classroom a sensory seeker's favorite place.

I hit up the thrift store, dollar store, winco for bulk rice and beans, and a party supply store just because it was near the dollar store. I ended up with a huge variety of squishy, hard, textured, and soft items.

Best scores:
coiled keychains for chewies (party store) + ziplock bags to keep them personalized
beads, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks  for small fidgets
a bin and vertical magazine storage thing to store it all in
a great Frozen fleece sweater that was repurposed into lap weights - both non gendered and fuzzy!
a huge variety of squishy balls and critters from the dollar store
a variety of pet toys (soft, soothing), duster mitts (textured), and massage tools (hard, pointy), also from the dollar store
lengths of rubber from Amazon for chair fidgets

Homemade weighted lap belts-very popular! 

Tool check out system- very high tech

I knew I wanted some sort of accountability for students to use these "tools" so I also bought some clothespins, and wrote numbers on them (each kid has a number in my class) as well as"Tool check out".  When they check out a tool, they simply move their numbered clip to the correct bin.

I am introducing the tools slowly- and with great success.  The lap weights are the biggest hit so far, followed by some of the squishies and the chair fidgets.  I will follow up this post later...once the magic has worn off.
My biggest take away after two days with them are:
1) Students lit up when I asked them to try something (like a chewy, or a lap weight).  They knew what they needed- they just needed to be told it was ok to need it.  Seriously, the love was overwhelming.
2) I said that I was going to try this so all students could have a chance to learn the best way possible- and maybe other teachers would come on the journey with me if it worked out.  One student told me "well, you are way ahead of the rest of them.  Thanks!"  I reminded her that we are all on a different journey- this is mine, and I don't mind a little contained chaos.

Transitioning a department to TPRS/CI ...my first thoughts

So, at the end of last year, I saw a need.  I'm the kind of person who, for better or for worse, tries to solve problems.  One problem I saw was that our language department was not working as well as it could.  I knew that TPRS/CI was one solution that had the power to a) bring the overall level of the students up in the long run, b) make teachers happier, c) make our program better.

There were two Spanish positions opened and my administrators were on-board for interviewing TPRS-Friendly (or already trained) teachers, if possible. I presented a budget and plan, along with a letter to educate them about what TPRS/CI is and why it is in alignment with our school.   I budgeted for training 2 full time teachers and the purchase of K-5 curriculum to supplement our 6-8 curriculum that we already own.

 (Aside: our school is increasing its focus on project based learning, student centered classrooms, integrated projects, and other initiatives.  This is a whole other post, however, making TPRS seem like a 21st century pedagogy (student centered, highly personalized, and not your parent's grammar class) was a really easy sell.)

 We ended up having a rough time filling one of the positions (hired in late July or August) and, due to enrollment, hiring two more part-time teachers.  (Yay! Enrollment!)   So, with four new hires, it is now my task to help them along: using the curriculum, understanding TPRS, etc.  And wow, this is a tougher job than I thought!

First, we started the year with no training of 3 of the four new teachers.  (The other middle school teacher attended NTPRS16 and completed the beginner track- it was awesome to find an open minded colleague who was ready to learn!) I gave a 30 minute "What is TPRS" explanation and showed them the curriculum.  And that's all they got, until last week.  We brought Von Ray and TPRS Publishing in for a one-day workshop in-house for all the language teachers (and a couple of other local teachers).

Now, experienced TPRS teachers know that a one-day training is barely dipping in your toes.  It's barely long enough to develop a common vocabulary, and not nearly long enough to start to shift a traditional teacher's mindset to a more CI approach.  But, it's a start.

So, for all those who are trying to do the same thing, here is my letter/proposal to my admin team.  Feel free to share and distribute.


And, as this journey continues and I keep learning (because I keep saying to myself and others: 3-5 year process), I will keep reflecting.

Back to school nights

BTS nights are pretty challenging, I think. This year, when I was at the school for 14 hours, certainly was! The way we do it at our school is very challenging too: each teacher has five minutes to present, in one group space, to parents of each grade. Then you run to another grade level, and do it again. You do it twice for families that have kids in various grades.

However, I think it's so important for my students' parents to see what I do and why. I did not do BTS night last year since I was so very injured and on medical leave, and the first year...well, I didn't really know yet what I was going to do. (I cringe to think about it now!) This was my first time trying this and I am sure I will keep it.

My goals were this:
- short demo in the target language
- brief biography
- answer to "how you can help your child at home"


I prepped a poster with these structures:
éste es (ésta es) -this is

un hombre- a man
una mujer- a woman
o- or
sí- yes no no

I also prepped a couple of stuffed animal cognates (dragón, unicornio). I told parents that instead of talking about what class is like I would just do it, and all they needed to do was answer yes (pause and point) and no.



I demoed for about one minute, going slow, using parents and the stuffed animals to compare and contrast. Then I asked them if they understood everything, and explained that in my class, their students understand everything too.

 Then, I did my big grammar talk:
1) I asked parents who had taken two or more years of language to stand.
2) I asked them to remain standing if they studied grammar (conjugation tables, etc).
3) I asked them to remain standing if they were functional in that language now.
 (One or two were left.)

Reenactment of "Grammar Talk"- no one is standing.

I went on to say "that's why we don't teach that way!" Then short bio, and a quick reassurance that they are already great language teachers since their kids speak English, and that I will be providing their students with tons of input in class so the best way to support them is...to send them to class.
This year went incredibly well and parents were pleased and surprised. I got applause at the end!

More sub plans: Brilliant No Prep Sub Plan

Brilliant No Prep Sub Plan
This amazing sub plan is from Scott Benedict.    If you haven't yet explored Teach for June, I highly recommend that you do so.  His workshop on grading freewrites this year at NTPRS was a revelation for me.

This single  page and a master class list is all I am going to leave in my emergency plans this year.
He has graciously given me permission to repost, so here is the Brilliant No Prep Sub Plan (my title).

Sub plans...ugh.

Sub plans really challenge me.  I mean...they REALLY challenge me.  I was a sub for 3 years and suffered many, many poor plans, challenging classrooms, and humiliating days.  So I am super picky about sub plans, and you know what?  It NEVER works out.

Sub plans in the foreign language classroom are even more challenging.    On a recent SOMOS Curriculum Collaboration facebook group post (wow, what a title!), someone was wondering about sub plans, and it got me thinking.

Read and Illustrate 
A plan that I really, really love (but only works when you have a few familiar stories under your belt- so better for the end of the year) is the "read and illustrate" plan.  I wish I knew how I came up with it or who to credit.
1) Copy each typed story and post on the walls.  For multiple levels, I print the stories in different colors so students know to only read their class color.
2) Students "read the room" and fill out a short sheet with space for an illustration and caption for 4 (or 6) of their favorite stories.

3)  Then, they get into groups and illustrate the stories on 4" x 4" computer paper.  
When I return, I can either make books using this storybook template  or just select the best pictures and glue them and the original story on 11 x 17 paper, folded in half, and add them to our library.

Here are the directions I leave for the sub:  Sub Plan: Read and illustrate the room 
Here is a I leave for the sub to project for the students: Example instructions for Read and Illustrate the room
Finally, here is the sheet I have them fill out when they read the room: Student Response Sheet: Read the Room

Being a Student and the Importance of Pause and Point

Note: This is a series of posts about my takeaways from the NTPRS2016 conference.  It was life changing and teacher-affirming.

Conferences can be overwhelming.  TPRS can be overwhelming.  How do you even begin?  New people, new ideas, hotel rooms, whirlwind schedule, and more.

A few years ago, I presented at a National Safe Routes to School Conference on teaching bike safety to kids.  I had never been to a conference before and a wise colleague of mine suggested that I try to get one great aha moment out of the conference and just enjoy myself the rest of the time.  Good advice.

At NTPRS2016 I got a lot more than one great aha moment, but I also decided to focus on one discreet TPRS skill for myself.  I attended three coaching sessions as a teacher and several others as a student or observer, and tried to really pay attention to how the skill was used.

The skill: Go Slow.  (Corollary to Pause and Point).
Why: So many others have written about why we should go slow...how can I add to their brilliance?
Suffice it to say that taking Japanese with the incredibly talented Betsy Paskvan after a full day of conferencing was challenging.  And I am a fast processor!  Her speed (or lack thereof) really supported me and made me feel confident.  I also noticed that when she sped up and I couldn't understand something I got really anxious.  It was a great lesson for me about why going slow makes a huge difference.

In coaching, I found myself starting slow and then getting really excited (because let's face it, I LOVE teaching with TPRS and want to do it all, right now) and going too fast.  Slowing down, focusing on one structure, and using the time to walk over and POINT to the written word all helped my "students" feel encouraged.  Let me say that again:  for me, using the time to walk over to the board/poster/sign and POINT to the written word was a game changer for me.

Let's see if I can put it into practice now!

Diego is my mental image for GO SLOW.  He only has one speed: dignified, slow, and with penchant for belly rubs.

NTPRS! NTPRS! NTPRS!

So, as the title implies, I just got back from NTPRS 2016.  I feel like a different person.  NTPRS is one of the national TPRS conferences put on by the great folks at TPRS Books.  I have had the great privilege to attend a two day workshop previously, but five whole days of "experienced track" TPRS teaching was an incredible gift.  I took Japanese, Romanian, and Latin classes and every day experienced the feeling of being a novice student and completely clueless.  I met some amazing, dedicated teachers who are trying to repair the world, just like me, through language teaching (and oh so much more).  I made some great friends and found a whole new community to inspire me.

I have so many blog posts rolling around in my head and feel inspired to actually write them.  But first and foremost, I want to say thank you to everyone who came up to me and said that my deskless classroom helped inspire them.

I LOVE YOU.

I leaned so much this week that I can't even begin to process it.  Since I tend to process by writing, I plan on using my next few posts to process some of my aha moments and huge takeaways from the different workshops that I attended.

Suffice it to say that I was reminded just how important my work is, and that I am not alone.

Also, here's me with all the books I bought spread out on the floor of my office....I am most pleased.

When they scream for a story...

Quick post between meetings because something REALLY COOL just happened:

Several of my Spanish 2 kids had to leave for a cross country meet.  Instead of introducing new subject matter to only half the class, I decided to do a review. Of something.  Um, what?  I had nothing planned.

They begged for a story.   I didn't have a script and I didn't really think I'm confident enough to just do a story.  Plus, we are working on preterite verbs and talking about the past, because I'm still learning how to not shelter grammar.

I'm new at this!

But what I could do was take a story from another class that I know really, really well and quickly put it in the past tense.

I put the past-tense structures on the board and went for it.  We ended up with a usual silly story (a friendly elephant, a shark, and the reasons you don't see leprechauns in Ireland any more) and another easy, fun 30 minutes of Spanish used naturally.  I don't even think they realized how much language we just used...And as a bonus, I got to work in some structures (indirect object pronouns, tener + que) that I've been meaning to review with them.

Good day.

When accuracy counts: Using a simple text, oral input, and student choice to improve output

At some point with intermediate level students, output becomes a little bit more important.  Not a lot. Just a little.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how best to teach a very easy novel with my faster-paced 8th grade students.  For reference, students with a "B" grade are more-or-less intermediate-low Spanish speakers/readers/learners and "A" students are intermediate-mid.  I knew I wanted them to experience an oral novel, read by a native speaker.  I knew I wanted them to do some self-directed activities that they could chose (within limits, of course).

I decided to create a series of 10 activities using resources from the Comprehensible Classroom's products, specifically the Independent Textivities and Discussion Questions.

Due to copyright concerns, I can't post the activities here.  However, I can discuss what I did and how (well) it worked!

The book: Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro

The Menu of Activities:  I gave the students a menu of 10 activities that they could choose from, plus one extra.  The activities were a mix of challenging and easy, in English and in Spanish. I intentionally included a couple of very easy activities with the knowledge that kids could select the activity that was best for them at that time.  I don't always offer a lot of choice in my classroom so this was one way to really put them in charge.  I did not use the format from the Comprehensible Classroom for a menu; I created my own and had the kids paste the activity directions on their paper.

Grading: I decided to grade on a very simple 1-4 scale:  4- Advanced, 3- Proficient, 2- Developing, 1-Emerging, 0- No Evidence.  Completeness of response, spelling, grammar, syntax, and legibility were considered.  However, students who didn't get a proficient score were encouraged and allowed to come in and re-do it.  Most did, and that gave me an opportunity to really spend individual time supporting them.

However, I also decided that since the text was very easy, they would be required to be accurate in their language.  Usually when I grade their freewrites I don't really consider accuracy in spelling and accents and I am forgiving about conjugations, articles, gender agreement, etc.  At least to a point.  But for this project, I upped the game.  Spelling, accents, punctuation, gender agreement, articles, etc. would count.  At first, they were very frustrated, but after about 2 weeks, they started turning in careful work that was accurate.  Some of them had to try three or four times, I admit, but since I rarely give homework, I felt ok about it.

The structure: Fridays were novel days.  I usually started class with a para empezar taken from the previous chapter's discussion questions or quiz questions, to review from the week prior. Then I'd put the audio book on, one chapter per week.  We'd listen to it once, then I'd offer the kids the option to hear me read it or to listen to it again by the narrator.  At first, they chose me to read.  After about the 4th week, they chose the narrator.  They took notes but didn't have to; they could use the paper copies of the book for their activities.  I usually lead a short discussion to make sure they understood key points, but the text is relatively simple so they didn't struggle too much with it.  Then they had about 15 minutes to start the work.  In those 15 minutes, I returned work and met individually with kids who needed extra support, or made appointments to follow up.  Then they had the weekend plus a school night to complete the activity they chose.

The payoff: When I asked the class if they felt the independent activities and novel study were valuable, they all agreed that it was.  They liked having the choices and gave me some feedback on what activities were more helpful vs. less helpful in terms of their learning.  Their overall accuracy in written language has improved a hundred fold, and their confidence in understanding seems to be greater.

The next steps: For the last trimester, I have about 9 weeks and 10 chapters of Nuevo Houdini, told in the past tense.  I am doing something similar but instead of 1 activity per chapter, I gave them a menu of 6 activities; they have to do 5 of them total, plus some on-line practice quizzes.

I want them to see the structures of past tense over and over and over again, so the quizzes are in Spanish, but open-book.  If they can't remember something, they can go back and read it again (and again) in the novel.

During class, I plan to use a similar format as before, but pay careful attention to their comprehension.  I started last week but I read the first chapter and asked lots and lots of comprehension questions along the way.  On a scale of 1-5, 5 being "I totally got this, Señora", they all rated their understanding as a 4 or 5.  So, I'm feeling good about it!

Looking ahead to next year, I think that I will probably use the same format again but do a different book for next year's 8th graders.  Maybe Esperanza?  Or maybe Agentes Secretos because it's so fun!

One other benefit for me that was totally unexpected: to have my first class on Fridays be led by an audio book was truly brilliant- a little bit of breathing room when I really needed an extra 10 minutes!  Knowing that they were still learning but giving myself a little break: priceless.  The students liked the routine of it too- on Fridays, they get stuffed animals, listen to someone read, then work independently.  Predictable and yet still interesting.  Win-win.

Spring Rush!

 My goal to write once a week has fallen desperately by the wayside.  Progress reports, parent-teacher conferences, 7th grade 3-day snowshoe/yurt camping trip, and winter sports days...all claiming a lot of my personal bandwidth.  Sorry.

So I will instead share some gems that have been shared with me over the past month:

"Señora, I just wanted to tell you thank you.  I scored 5th out of all the incoming freshmen for Spanish.  I know it is because you are such a great teacher."  -8th grader

"Señora, I wanted to say thank you.  Our son was placed in honors Spanish and we are so thankful for everything you have done for him." -Parent of 8th grader

"A group of us were singing your praises; all our kids got into honors Spanish."  -Parent of 8th grader.

"I didn't even realize we were speaking Spanish!" -7th grader after a particularly great PQA day, when I asked them to estimate how many minutes we spent speaking Spanish.  (The estimate was 52 minutes.)

I think that I should note that these happy 8th graders (and families) were never taught to a test, and have had minimal exposure to grammar over the past 2 years, primarily through quick notes and readings from Martina Bex's grammar notes.  So, TPRS does work.  Duh.

What else?  Oh, I wrote up a 6 page document to educate and advocate for TPRS/CI  as the pedagogical approach for teaching Spanish at my school.  It included a comparison table, an examination of why it is a great fit for our school,  and a breakdown of costs for training and materials.  It was very well received.

I planned a 5 week trip to Costa Rica to continue to grow as a language learner for the summer.  I will be traveling with my 70 year old father who will also be taking classes.  My mom and my husband will be joining us at different points during our time there.  I'm sad not to get to go back to Guatemala this summer, and also to not get to go to India (for my 40th birthday, as I've been planning for a decade), but this is going to be amazing.

Lastly, in my personal life, I was elected the chair of the city's Bicycle Advisory Committee.  It's a very exciting time for me!

The evolution of an assessment

Last year, my school sent me to a 2 day workshop on differentiation. It was a great workshop and I came back all fired up with ideas to try to apply in my class. One big take-away for me was the idea that I don't have to have each unit differentiated perfectly right now. In fact, the trainer suggested picking one unit and focusing on one activity or assessment to re-create, and test drive it. This dovetails nicely with Angela Watson's suggestions for planning units (scroll to number 5) without losing your mind and spending too much time planning.

One idea that I really wanted to try with a unit was a RAFT, a type of writing prompt that lets students choose their perspective or topic, and directs them on what to write. So I wrote a RAFT for a unit that I felt that my students would enjoy. The idea was that they would pick the perspective of a parent of a participant, an item of clothing, or participant in one of the human tower building teams in Tarragon, Spain.  (This is the Castellers unit from Martina Bex. It's a great unit.)  I spent a lot of time on the assessment rubric, ran it by the trainer of the workshop for a second pair of eyes, and taught it.

Big flop.

The learning that was demonstrated was...well, it showed me that even if it was fun, it wasn't a very good activity in terms of comprehensible input. For example, it's an output activity. It isn't a novice activity either. I taught it 3 times, refining it, trying to make it work if only because I put SO much time into it. It didn't really work. The students did love it and did some creative things with it, but...it wasn't a good activity for the levels I teach.

It the whole process made me think about output, writing, and assessment in a whole different way. I got really exited about assessment and spent a lot of time thinking about what I was really trying to assess, and in that way, it was a great activity for me. I might even try to use it with my highest level group...at the end of the year.

So this time around, I decided to take the main idea- writing from different perspectives using target vocabulary, and change it up.

I printed and found pictures to represent the different perspectives, and wrote up prompts. I posted the prompts around the room and gave each kid 5 sticky notes. They had to write one or two sentences on that sticky note and stick it up, gallery walk style.

I then led a discussion, reading their answers out loud with extreme drama and student actors, reframing their language to be correct. (I want to point out here that a year ago I would have read the previous sentence and not been able to understand it nor actually do it. So I am making some of my own progress.)

Finally, they wrote their student numbers on each sticky so I had them collect their pile at the end. Bam- super easy formative assessment. It could have been a summative, but based on the language that I saw, they have not yet internalized the target structures, so now I can give them some feedback and use their errors to hopefully inform my teaching. Since I already had a rubric that was specific (from the abandoned RAFT) to the language, it is easy to adapt it to give them specific feedback.

So, for your enjoyment, here are the prompts and rubric.  For pictures, I just used creative commons images from Google Images.  (I used search terms such as "enxaneta, castellers, tourists, scarf, and parents")

Click for downloads.
Rubric
Writing prompts
Directions in English

5 ways to use stuffed animals in class

Here are some of the ways I use stuffed animals in class:
1) story props- especially if I need to limit suggestions for stories. My particular favorite animals are, of course, cognates. Pengüino, dragón, cangarú, jirafa, koala, llama, tigre, delfín, and so on, but since the visual of a stuffed animal is so strong they tend to learn the names quickly. I am always amazed at how quickly they learn words like bat and spider, because they want to!
2) Special day rewards- once a week, my level 2s listen to an audio book, and they get to sit with their favorite stuffed animal. It's so simple but it makes the day feel special. And these are 8th graders. When I do my version of Kindergarten day, everyone gets a stuffed animal friend.

3) Story retells- it's much more fun to talk to your favorite animal than it is to talk to the wall or to your hand. It just is. It makes retells feel special too.
4) A couple of stuffed dogs are great if you are teaching Brandon Brown Quiere Un Perro, for comparisons, for actors to use, etc.
5) Modeling and practicing indirect object pronouns- in The Comprehensible Classroom's ¡Siéntate! unit, students are introduced to the structure le grita. However, I want them to hear that structure in a variety of forms, and to try to use it in a variety of ways. One of the many ways we practice the difference between le grita and les grita, le gritan and les gritan, is by making stuffed animal tableaus. Because the animals are mostly cognates, groups of kids work to show different forms of the structure with their animals, then give me great sentences about them. In order to reduce confusion when talking about "I" and "you", I simply put name tags "yo" and "tú" on the animals and we use those forms as well.

Teaching formal language

When I started at my current job, I was surprised that little attempt had been made by previous teachers (or teachers of younger grades) to teach or use the formal, or Usted form. If you don't speak Spanish, all it means is that to refer to someone in the second person, the "you" form, you use either a informal tense or third person if it's formal. Ok, so it's a little confusing and we have no equivalent in English. The kids got the idea but couldn't apply it, and the lessons I found were, well, legacy teaching and had no sticking power at all.

Enter the great TPRS listserv and the Best Idea Ever for using Usted in context, every day, and making it a natural part of language. I wish I knew who to thank, but whoever you are, I am grateful.

The idea is that every day, you choose one or two kids to be the king/ queen (dictator, Jedi knight, principal, etc.) and as your are going through the normal day's activities of asking questions and eliciting opinions, you constantly refer to that kid in the Usted form. I make a big deal out of self-correcting (ok, sometimes I just forget who it is, then remember after the words have left my mouth) and rephrasing the question in third person.

When I started this, I would always stop and do a grammar pop-up: "why am I using this verb instead of that? What am I asking the king?" And so on. Very quickly it became ingrained in the students that there is formal language and that they already know how to use it.

How do I chose the kid? I read about having a thrift store tie or plastic crown, which are awesome ideas, but I just put a silly plastic toy randomly on a chair each day. That's it. Sometimes, if kids get it two days in a row, they give it to someone else, or if I know that it's someone's birthday, I hand it to them at the door.

Also, the king or queen does have some special privileges if the time is right. For instance, I often let them choose music to listen to, or whether or not we have a dance break, a game break, or a water and bathroom break.

The one thing that I want to improve over the rest of the year is getting the kids to refer to the king or queen in the force form, but I think that will come with time and lots and lots of modeling.

How do you teach formal language? Any tips or tricks left in the comments would be appreciated!

Letting them do the work and dealing with absent kids- updated

Updated 8/25/17: I added the paperwork that I actually use!

Update 7-12-17: I have heavily modified what I do for absent students.  While the overall system is the same, the actual activities I give my students are based on a series of co-created activities based on the SOMOS curriculum that a group of dedicated teachers (including myself) created. See more about that below. 

I teach 4 levels of Spanish and I also co-teach a service learning elective class. Keeping track of materials, absent kids, assignments...sometimes it's hard! Especially at the end of the day, when I am trying to find that one piece of paper that is tiny and probably buried under 100 other identical tiny pieces of paper.

One big challenge that I decided the kids could help me with is keeping track of what we do each day on a written form, and collect any assignments or notebook items for absent kids. Since kids are expected to come see me during office hours, (at the end of the day, before I get a chance to clean up and re-organize), this simple document has been a lifesaver.

I decided that students who are absent have 3 tasks:
1) Come see me during office hours and check what they missed and get any work that they need to make up.
2) Check the class web page for anything I might have posted.
3) Pick one (yes, just one) item from the Absent Student Make Up list that was recently shared to the TPRS Listserv.  Thanks to Ben Lev for generously allowing me to share this document! 
3) Pick one activity that the curriculum collaboration group created.  (These documents can be found in the Collab Drive, accessible for members of the [free] Somos Collaboration Group on Facebook.)

For tracking daily activities, I created a form called Absent Student Tracking (super original, I know).
Two kids get to trade off the work during class to keep daily notes in a binder, and when someone comes in to make up their absence, all I have to do is open the binder and the notes and handouts are there.

Each class has a section with a folder in the binder, and each section is color coded as well.  So far, it has worked incredibly well and the kids have really appreciated both the chance to have the note-taker job as well as my improved efficiency and organization.  Win-win.

Enjoy and modify. (Don't forget to attribute! See the fair use notice on the lower right hand side of my blog.)

Absent student tracking: a form for students to fill out during class


Click for an editable document.



Old Option:

Absent Student Make-up Work- 33 options
(Modified from Ben Lev's original document)
Click here for an editable word version.