ACTFL 2015 reflections

As I am on the plane on my way back home, I can't stop thinking about all of the great sessions and conversations I was a part of at ACTFL. There is something so special about being together with thousands of World Language teachers who, like me, are looking for ways to continue to improve and be a better teacher for our students.

The best place to start my reflection is from the most basic question, which was posed by Amy Lenord in her session this afternoon - "Why should we teach in the target language?". The question sounds so simple, but was really a fantastic way to revisit why we were all there. What are we trying to accomplish? How can we best accomplish our classroom goals? Why is it important to never give up on reaching for that 90%? The answer to her question was clear - students cannot and will not learn a language in a vacuum. It needs to be modeled and encouraged by us, their teachers.

I am thinking about the yearly goals I have my students write down at the beginning of the school year. They can write anything, they just need to focus on what they want to do, not a grade they want to achieve. I then post what they write in the wall. Their comments are all about communication. They want to speak more fluently, they want to be able to talk about their past, they want to be able to communicate with someone when they are on vacation in México. Nowhere did the student write they want to learn perfect grammar, or they want to be able to translate sentences. As a teacher, I know what they want. The question then is, what am I doing to ensure that they are getting what they want and need? How am I facilitating their learning. Am I encouraging true language learning that will follow them as they leave my classroom? Am I giving them the tools they need? Or, am I encouraging their most basic desire to just memorize and get through the assessment? Am I teaching students to parrot vocabulary I have chosen with concepts I have chosen? Am I spending their class time teaching them they way they will learn best, or what worked for me as a student in the "old days"?

As I write this, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We do lots of great things that get the. Students excited and using the language and encouraging them to learn things that interest them. However, I also believe there is way too much "I" in some of the decisions I make about my class. With this honesty fresh in mind, how am I going to change?

Luckily, there is so much inspiration available at ACTFL. There were great sessions that can help me find new ways to increase the target language use in class, engage my students, and make the class more meaningful for my students. Here is a list of some of those ideas.

1. Use more pictures - in Mira Canion's session, she described how pictures can be used to get students to use the language that they know and push for more acquisition. Show a pic upturn and have students describe what they see. Have a series of pictures to help students tell a story. Use a vanishing cloze (where words disappear from a story) to encourage students to think about what is missing. Have students create and retell stories.

2. Lose the Vocab List - in Amy Lenord's session there were tons of ways to move away from vocabulary lists. One great example was to use logos of known companies and products to help students acquire words faster. Give students verbs already conjugated with English translations to help jump start conversations and get kids speaking right away. Have students create their own vocabulary notebook with their own lists of new words. Focus on production with vocabulary rather than a specific word list. Who cares what specific words our students use if they can express themselves on a topic. Don't say "Describe you house" ask "How is your house comfortable/welcoming".

3. Authentic resources - Sara-Elizabeth Cotrell's session was full of great ideas to make authentic resources "just right" for different levels. Use Edupuzzle to cut down videos and add questions to help students comprehend listening selections. Choose selections carefully to meet students' interest. Don't expect students to hunt for a great resource if you know it might be challenging. Give them three resources to search and choose the one that they think is best. Use target language Brain Breaks. Best of all, Sara-Elizabeth has begun a document for teachers to share their great authentic resource activities. Please check it out and add to it!

4.  Start with culture - This is going to sound like a shameless plug, but this is from my session Flipping for Global Competence with Sara-Elizabeth Cotrell and Meriwynn Mansori. Find a cultural tidbit that will interest students and lead them to inquire more. Use real world examples to make your point about a desired topic. Get the students interested and they will WANT to learn more language. Use authentic resources that are in English for the flipped portion and then students have the base information about culture to apply what they know for the in class activities.

5. Use movies - sometimes I still forget to factor in fun. Movie Talk was a great session from Noemi Rodriguez with tons of video resources. Use movie clips, commercials, silent films or clips with no sound to get students to tell a story in the language. I know that all of my students in levels 2-4 would love to do movie talks and the resources that she has provided will help me (and you) get started.

And of course, my favorite part of any conference is being able to have those meaningful conversations with the fantastic members of my PLN (personal learning network). They help me to take my thinking to the next level, remind me that feeling like a failure is important for real growth, and just fuel my desire to continue to improve.

If you like these ideas, want to hash out some of the things I wrote, or have comments, lets chat. Email me, comment on the blog, comment on Twitter (@srawitten) or Edmodo. I am always looking for more people to join me in my quest to be the best language teacher possible and it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

CCFLT Conference - Colorado State FL Conference

This weekend was our state World Language conference. This conference was special because it was the first one I have attended as a Board Member. I knew it was work to put on a conference, but I hadn't realized just how much. Luckily we have so many fantastic Board Members that the conference came together and was a great success!

The sad part about working the conference is that I was only able to attend bits and pieces of sessions. However, the ones I saw were full of great ideas. This year at the conference we also had presenters share their materials online, so I can share information for lots of great sessions that I couldn't attend!

If you want to check out the presenter materials that were posted, check them out here on LessonPaths. A few of the highlights that I saw are:

• From Shannon Ruiz, our TOY for 2014, get students running to class. Create a "hot seat". The last students to arrive to class get the "hot seat" where the class can ask them any questions they would like in the TL. I think this might solve some of my habitual tardies, and is a cool way to kick off class in the TL.
• From Real World Interpersonal Speaking - this was a session I wish I could have spent more time in. They brainstormed interpersonal speaking for various themes. Some of the ones they came up with were - Relationships - gossiping girls, first date. Restaurants - students look at a menu and discuss menu items,what they like, what they don't like. 
• From Noah Geisel's session some interesting new tech tools. Some I have heard of, like the Aurasma app, and Class Dojo. He also showed some new apps - Kindr is an interesting way to share nice notes, but by far the most interesting for me is Sanderling . This is a new website designed for educators. It is a similar style to Facebook or a blog, but instead of following people, you can follow projects. So for instance, if you are working on plans to read Pobre Ana, you can search for Pobre Ana and see the other projects and assignments other teachers have created. This website is still in its infancy so you may encounter a few bugs, but the creators are very responsive and anxious to make the site a success. 
• I was also able to have a great conversation with the dynamic presenter and author Mira Canion. She has written a new book called Fiesta Fatal. It is set around a quinceañera that goes awry. It is written for level 2 with loads of preterite and imperfect. I snapped up 25 to read after Spring Break with my 2s. I am going to read it with another idea I got from Shannon Ruiz called "Pop up Reading". Students are each given a word from the  most challenging vocabulary from the book (conveniently Mira has included the list in the back of the book) and have to define the word and come up with an action for the word. Then when their word is in the story, the student "pops up" and defines the word and does the action.
• Jon Valentine was the Keynote Speaker and really did a great job. He spoke about how crucial World language is in creating the workforce of the future and gave some great ideas to help teachers find more support for their programs. For example, call your an appropriate consulate for your language and ask to be partnered with a sister school. Many of the French teachers were surprised to learn that in France, all schools are required to have a sister school. I wonder if it is not the same in other countries? He also suggested finding a local company with a global presence to seek their support and work on opportunities to include how important WL knowledge and international travel is to these companies. He recommended a new ACTFL publication that makes can do statements that align with the proficiency levels. It is called Can Do Statements and is available on the ACTFL website.

Overall it was a great conference and there was an energy throughout the weekend that was inspiring. I loved seeing so many teachers excited about their language and their learning. 

My favorite Saturday sessions at CCFLT

The last day of the conference had some fantastic sessions, but two stood out as my favorites. First was The Essential Question presented by Yo Azama. This session followed his great keynote, and was packed. (As a side note, when I first read the title of this session, all I could think about was Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.) this session was a great follow up to e session on mode assessments from Friday. When I create my thematic units, I have "essential questions" done, but I realized that I need to expand those questions for each of the different modes. He showed some wonderful examples of projects that he has done in his class with the assignment sheet outlining the summation and formative assessments for a unit. I am going to work on recreating the template for these assessments and one that is completed with an assessment. (Look for them soon in the Helpful Docs tab.)

The summative assessment that he outlined was for his technology/inventions unit. For the summative assessment, students create a new product that could be sold in Japan and the US and create a commercial for their product. For the interpretive, they need to explore Japanese and American products and commercials - demonstrate an understanding of the gist. The interpersonal summarize assessment was for the students to email product ideas to gather market research. The presentational was presenting their market research and their commercial. Lucky for me, this is the last unit I do in level three, so I think I will be "stealing" this idea!  **Check out my recreation of this doc in the Helpful Documents Tab)

Again, Yo is a great presenter, and is someone I would love to have a long chat with about how his class runs. I found the video samples that he showed impressive as well. Guess that is is why he is ACTFL's Teacher of the Year!

My other favorite session of the day was the last session of the day, and I was glad that the snow held off so I didn't miss it. "Three vocab strategies that change how kids communicate" was presented by Mira Canion and Ya-Wen Chang. Now anyone who has been to a language conference in Colorado has probably seen Mira. She has given fantastic presentations about getting kids reading, and I was so happy to see that she was presenting something new this year as well. The presentation centered on how we need to be teaching vocabulary, which even though is the crux of any language, there is so little time devoted to this topic. To demonstrate the technique, Ya-Wen taught us some Chinese (with some help from her friends). They presented words and sentences on the screen with pictures to illustrate what they were teaching. They also used props, like a basketball, chocolate, and a hamburger as well as exaggerated gesturing to convey meaning. They taught us some simple Chinese words and phrases, which I was pleased to realize that I still remembered today. They reminded me that the focus needs to be on healing students acquire the vocabulary, and it was our job to present it in a manner which would interest them and had them using the words right away so they could start adding them to their working vocabulary. After doing a basic presentation of new words and phrases, they suggested that we use them (orally) in a story as well since the brain is wired to remember words in a story.

I am ashamed to admit it, but after participating in this session, I realized what a disservice I am doing to my students. I have thought about new and different ways to introduce vocabulary, but it has never been something that I truly focused on. I had talked about playing games, having discussions, and other ideas for introducing vocabulary, but I haven't followed through. So, thank you, thank you, thank you ladies for making me realizing that I need to get with it and make this a TOP priority.