Let's get organized - Organizing your virtual classroom

The hardest part of planning for virtual learning is trying to organize information and assignments so that it will be easy for students, parents and me to keep up with the class information. In the spring, I just utilized Google Classroom and grouped content and assignments together week by week. This worked, for some but there were still some that were confused and used it as an excuse to give up. I knew I needed something better.

I have seen all the Bitmoji love, and was reluctant to jump in because I know how much I love the chance to be creative and thought I would get lost down the rabbit hole. So, I decided to go with an online bulletin approach to keep things simple. I think this makes is clear for parents and students and is easy to follow. Best of all it was pretty easy to create. I started a new Google Slides presentation, chose a transparent background, drew some shapes, inserted text boxes, and linked everything. And yes....I did update my Snapchat Bitmoji to Spanish and used it a little bit. 

My plan is to post this each week to Google Classroom and send it home via email to parents. As for the actual assignments, I am going to create a Topic for each week and then add this board and the assignments for the week as well as the recordings of the live class under that topic individually. This should simplify the view for students so there is no confusion about what is due each week.

Here is a picture of the landing page. I still have a few things to do, but the ideas are there. I am excited to record myself saying all the vocabulary we will be using so students can refer back to it. I worry about connectivity issues when everyone is streaming live, so I thought this was a good backup.

  

I added another slide for each class day. (We are going to alternating blocks with Friday for extra help.) With the block, Monday and Tuesday are together and Wednesday and Thursday are together. I made sure to have the Unit Goals and the State Standards just as I would for lessons in my classroom. You never know when an administrator will pop in! Those are both Google Docs. 

I decided I am going to list assignments for the day and provide links to Google Classroom. Originally I was going to link to each assignment and then I realized how much updating that would be on my end, and decided against it. By using the list, parents can follow up with students about each specific item.

It is not fancy, but clear and simple. I think it will work well and really help keep me, students and parents on the same page. If you want the template, or have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you.

Check out the whole board live here. 

Ready for Virtual Open House

Virtual Open House is a great idea that is long overdue. It may be one of my favorite things brought about by COVID. My past experiences with Open House have shown that it is not the most productive thing teachers do. Virtual Open House give students and families the opportunity to get the basic information quickly and easily. There is great collaboration going on everywhere online about how to make the "perfect" presentation. I encourage everyone to remember there is no "perfect" presentation or video. We all want to make a good first impression, but don't stress out over it more complicated than it needs to be.  

I started small with just a video and then went a little further because technology is in my wheelhouse. All in all it took me about 1.5 - 2  hours. I might have been done sooner than that if I didn't have to keep saying, "Do I really look like that?" (Seriously those COVID pounds need to go....but I digress.)

Basic intro video:

• Keep it short. You just want to be welcoming, introduce yourself , and convey excitement for the new year.
• Use a recording tool you are comfortable with - that can be your phone, screencastify, camtasia, google meet, or any other tool you love. 
• LIGHTING...LIGHTING .... LIGHTING  - One thing my (selfie queen) daughter has taught me is how lighting makes all the difference. Good lighting makes you look happy and healthy, and bad lighting makes you look like you will be teaching from prison. I recommend outside if at all possible. 
• Make sure you look at the camera. It is so tempting to watch yourself....but looking at the camera is more welcoming for your students. 

Ok - Here is my basic video. It gets the job done and only took 4 takes.

Now after I did that, I wanted to do a bit more....so I looked at sample videos with all the cute stuff. Made this little Hola video using Snapchat. I did it that way so I could easily share with my daughter (the selfie queen), but you can just record it on your phone as well. Truthfully this one took about 15 takes until I was happy. 

Once I did this I wanted to make it loop, but after lots of searching, I couldn't find a way to make it loop in Google. Sometimes...you just have to let it go. 

I found this video that I liked, so I decided to adapt some of the ideas (and simplify).  I could feel myself going down the rabbit hole. Here is the final presentation that I made. 

If you want to do something similar - I used "insert shape" then changed the fill color to match our school colors and then "insert text box" on top. There are details about linking pages if you are unfamiliar with that in the YouTube video I shared.

Remember you don't need something complicated. You only need to briefly introduce yourself and convey your excitement for the new year. I would love to see your videos in the comments!

Student centered class through flipping

With the class time I have gained since switching to the flipped class, I am able to better meet the needs of all of my students. Before the flipped class, I would stand at the front of the class and lecture, then have students practice, then go over work and lecture some more. What I found was that I had three types of students in my class - the "Got It" which was about 30%, the "Almost There" which usually was about 50%, and the "Never going to get it" which was about 20%. 

Each of these groups present their own problems when lecturing to an entire class. The "Got It" kids often get bored and tune out as you try to help the "Almost There" group understand the material. The "Never going to get it" kids then start to feel hopeless because now you have explained a concept multiple times and they still don't understand. So this group will pretend to understand so they don't have to ask questions and put themselves on the spot. I just wasn't able to find a way to meet the needs of all of the students without some students being bored or frustrated. That is why I wanted to try flipped class - I needed to find a way to reach all of my students.

When I flipped my class, I was able to move the majority of the "lecture" to video. This way students could take as long as they needed to take notes. No one missed something because we had moved on and they were afraid to ask to go back or have something repeated. This meant that each student ended up with the same base of knowledge to work from when we started applying the lecture to the classroom activities.

Then, by changing the structure of my class time to allow every student an opportunity to work on assignments in a more self-paced manner over the course of a week, I found that students worked at different paces on different types of assignments. Some students were great readers, but struggled with listening. Others could write with ease, but couldn't put a sentence together in a conversation. So, by making classwork assignments assigned in a weekly time frame, rather than on a day-by-day basis, students were able to allocate their time across all of the activities and amazingly were finishing the week pretty much all in the same place. Students that needed to read a passage five times to gain the comprehension necessary could do so because they only had to do a listening selection one time to get the gist. This structure gave students a bit more freedom with their class time and I really saw an improvement in their comprehension of all of the modes of communication for all of the students. 

When the students could work individually (or in small groups) on tasks, I was able to better monitor students as they worked which enabled me to be able to see errors students make BEFORE they had made the same errors repeatedly. This also allowed me to do mini-lessons on an ongoing basis to address students needs, as well as able to give students the consistent encouragement that they need to be able to have to confidence needed to keep trying. 

Additionally, I have been able to use reading to be able to help students of different abilities all continue to improve. I love being able to work with students as they read and the make the connections with everything we have been learning and continue to make gains not only in their language proficiency but in their self-confidence. 

This year I am working on incorporating more Google Forms to help students get the additional help they need when working on classroom tasks so I can better meet the needs of each and every student. With Google Forms, I am able to give remedial instruction right away to students as they are working on formative classwork which (so far) allows them to more quickly realize and correct mistakes. I have just begun to work with this, but so far the results have been promising. 

Overall the flipped class enables me to focus on the individual students. Although I still struggle to find the time to have the individual conferences I would like to have with students on a quarterly basis, I have found more and more ways to help reach each student at their level and keep them engaged in class and language learning. Best of all, I see way more smiles now than the frustrated sighs I saw when I began teaching. ;)

Utilizing Google Classroom to be the teacher I want to be

I am always in search of the best way to run my class website and help organize student assignments. A couple of years ago our school became a Google school, and I started using Blogger to organize class. However, it wasn't quite doing everything that I wished, so I started looking for another solution. When I started hearing about Google Classroom, it seemed like a natural step. I began using Google Classroom for my school website last year, as a test to see how it would work. 

I found that I really loved Classroom, even though I wasn't using all of the available features. Students were able to easily get on the site, access assignments, and complete them. I could create an assignment in Google Docs or Sheets and have a copy created for each student. I loved that I could make students load presentations in one place that was easy to access quickly when they were giving in class presentations. No more flash drives, emailed presentations, the "I emailed it, didn't you get it?" That feature alone was a huge time and sanity saver. 

I found great sites that work with Google Classroom to make assignments even easier. EdPuzzle is my favorite for listening activities. Quizlet also works with Classroom so you can assign vocabulary practice. I also found some Google add-ons that are helping me better utilize students time and research. My current favorite is Insert Learning, which enables me to take a live web page and add questions, notes, and even word/phrase translations to make it comprehensible for all levels. 

This year, I have more consistent access to computers, so I am trying to incorporate even more online. I have created Google Forms for practice and quick mini-formative assessment checks. This will enable me to set up automated grading so students can get instant feedback. I am also using Forms for student goal setting and reflection for each unit, semester and for the year. I can schedule everything to make sure it is delivered on time. 

All of this will hopefully give me more time for what really matters, one-on-one time with the students. I want to be able to not only more purposefully help students, but also to be able to better monitor their work, especially conversations. I also want to be able to have individual meetings with students quarterly to discuss their progress and make plans to help them to continue to grow. Basically, I am hoping that I can focus on what I should be focusing on, helping the student move up the fluency. Updates to follow.

Every teacher struggles, even me.

My 2014-2015 school year was probably my worst. It has taken me a long time to write this. Even seeing it now, I feel like a bit of a failure. Don't get me wrong, kids learned, papers were graded, I had parent conversations, worked with peer teachers. I think that only now that I know I had a good year am I comfortable enough to really write this post.

However, I was trying new things professionally (not in the classroom). Our school had lost its focus after a search for a new principal came up empty. We operated the whole year with no principal. I knew that the curriculum needed revamping.....I have the blog posts to prove it. But, I didn't do it. I usually work hard over the summer to make tweaks, find PD and improve the curriculum. However, two summers in a row, it didn't really happen.

I coasted in the classroom, which is not like me. It is so upsetting, even now, to think that I let it happen. I have always driven myself to succeed - as much as I like gold stars, it is intrinsic motivation that keeps me going. I have thought and thought about it, and I can't pinpoint where it all went wrong. I think it was just lots of little things that I let slide by. Was it the 7 year itch? Was it time to move on?

As confirmation that it was not my best year, enrollment in the upper level classes was down for the 2015-2016 school year. The students that I did have were more difficult to motivate to work independently and to strive for continued growth because I had let them slide the previous year. I did make some changes to the curriculum for this past year to help motivate the students. However, it seemed like it was too little too late.

Thankfully, it was my Spanish 2 students that inspired me to get it back in gear. I had some great students that really love the language. Students that started to find ways to take it further without me. I was also fortunate enough to be able to attend ACTFL last November. Being able to get ideas from sessions and have some great conversations with superstars like Amy Lenord, Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, Kara Parker, Mira Canion and numerous others helped me find my spark again.

So I have learned a humbling lesson. Every teacher struggles and can lose their way, even me. I wanted to share this because I am betting that I am not the only one who has felt this way. The key is to realize it is happening. Acknowledge the "slump" and find a way out of it. Find inspiration again in your students, your peers and make the turnaround. I did it, and so can you.

Evaluations, goals and reflection tools, oh my!

Nothing makes me happier than having to do my teacher evaluation. I know pretty much every teacher feels the same way. This year has been very different for me because I was evaluated by our new principal. Not to delve into all the details, but it was so nice to have a frank and honest conversation about my performance. It really inspired me to find the way to move forward and continue to improve. There are elements of the evaluation where points were lost not because I didn't do things, but because I didn't have the artifacts to support that it is done. There are also places where I definitely need to improve - most notably in having students create goals and do reflections.

Goal setting and reflection is something that I always try to do, but the process is very time consuming and by October I always seem to let it fall away. So, now, I am searching for a solution to make the process easier and allow the students to do their portion more independently. I have written out what I want this document to look like, however, I am struggling with finding the right tool to create the form. I am hoping for something user friendly and "pretty". Here is a basic outline of what I am thinking for students to complete:

Yearly Goals

• What will I do?
• What do I need help with?

Unit 1 goals

• PreAssessment results
• Use to create Unit 1 goals
• How will I meet?
• What do I need help with?
• Formative assessment 
• Peer review
• Student reflection
• Teacher feedback
• Goal adjustment
• Unit summative 
• Peer review
• Student reflection
• Teacher feedback (with rubric)
• Goals met?
• How to remediate (if necessary)

So, now all I need is to find the tech method to be able to make this all happen. I want students to be able to complete and me to be able to give my feedback and comments without bringing piles of paper home. I have fixed it so I have to figure this out this summer because I have also told my principal that a tool like the one I want for my students would be a great way for teachers and admin to share artifacts, to collaborate and to help make the teacher evaluation process simpler for everyone. I promised this knowing that I would make sure that I found a workable tool this summer.

I thought it would be easy once I figured out what I wanted, but alas, it is not so. The problem is I can't find the right tool - I was thinking I could create something on Google Docs, but that isn't working. I have searched for ideas online and am not finding what I want. That is why I am throwing this out to my fantastic PLN. Do you know of something I can use? Have you used a good tool in the past? Any ideas and comments would be greatly appreciated!

Planning for more!

Reflecting at the end of another school year is one of my favorite things to do. I have been working hard to revamp my curriculum (so happy to have a school district and principal that gives me that freedom!) to make it have a more communicative focus. I want students to have more interest in the topics that the units cover and therefore be more interested in learning the content that goes with it. Most of my work this year was done in my Spanish 2 curriculum so this summer I am focusing on how I can build on that with a revamped Spanish 3 curriculum.

For example, in Spanish 2, we always do a unit on food (as many WL teachers do). Instead of just another boring food unit, I changed the focus to living a healthy lifestyle. This enabled students to ave a focus for choosing their own vocabulary - we did this as a class for the first time (I was inspired by Amy Lenord, but have to find a better way for this because it took almost an entire class period!). Students chose many words and activities that I never would have thought of putting on a list. It had the added benefit of having each class have different lists so the cross-class copying for practice couldn't continue. ;)  We then did a variety of activities, interpretive reading with infographics. Like this one and this one. I also used this Coke commercial as a CI listening introduction to the unit.

What I found was that by changing the focus of the unit to a question - "How do you live a healthy lifestyle?" - Students naturally wanted input on vocabulary and activities. They also always had an opinion and had something to say so conversation practice came more naturally. They were at first freaked out by some of the TL activities because they didn't know every word and in some cases, couldn't even find a translation for words and had to use their brain to figure out what some words meant. The summative for this unit was open to student choice. They did a presentation about healthy lifestyle. For some this meant demonstrating how to play sports, for others, a cooking demonstration of a healthy recipe, ideas to replace junk food with healthy alternatives, etc. It turned out to be one of the best units I have ever planned and some of the best work from the students. As if I didn't know that things went better this year, my enrollment for Spanish 3 tripled for next year. Yea!

Of course, in hindsight, I realized we never talked about ordering in a restaurant and asking about items on a menu, which is something "real world" that students want to be able to do, but next year, I will make sure to add an activity to help them practice this as well.

So, with this success, the question is how to I work on the other units to make them as engaging for students? I have long wanted to change my Fairy Tale unit in Sp 3 and really need to make my Future life and decisions unit better, but how.? This is part of my summer homework.

The best part of flipping

When I began using the flipped class, I thought the best part was that I would not have to do direct instruction of grammar. The next year, I was sure that being able to allow students to practice listening exercises at their own pace, as many times as they needed was the best part of the flip. The following year, the best part of the flipped class was being able to group students by ability to be able to better structure their learning.

It has occurred to me that through my years flipping my class, the one thing that was the BEST thing that happened was that the students became the center of the classroom universe.This has taken many forms, and has looked different as time has gone by, but the fact remains it is the student-centered aspect of the flipped class that has made all of the difference in my teaching and their learning.

What does student centered learning look like in my class?

1. Students have the opportunity to choose their own personal vocabulary to learn in each thematic unit. 
1. In each unit, students must choose 15 - 20 words that they want to know. For example, in the house unit, when students are creating their dream house, these words should be included. (ie - the gun room, the horse stall, the arena, mud room, etc.)
2. Students can allocate their time to activities that they feel need the most attention to obtain proficiency.
1. If a student is an excellent writer, but struggles with listening activities, they can spend more class time on listening activities and less on writing activities. 
2. Students can also be directed by me to repeat activities to ensure comprehension as many times as it takes for them to obtain proficiency. 
3. Students have the choice between different activities and assignments whenever possible to spark their interest.
1. For example - projects about books must show comprehension, but can be presentations, posters, written assignments, cartoons, art projects, etc. depending upon the students interests. 
2. Students can adapt written practice depending upon their level. If a student can demonstrate knowledge of a concept after 10 practice sentences, they don't need to do 25. If a student needs more than 25 to demonstrate knowledge, that is what they need to do.
4. Students have the responsibility to make sure they understand the concepts presented. 
1. If a student does not understand, they must make the effort to redo assignments.
2. If they need additional help, they are responsible for speaking up and asking questions. 
3. When students are assessed on the can do statements for the unit, if they cannot successfully complete the activity outlined by the can do, they need to go back and redo it until they can demonstrate comprehension.
5. Students can ask to demonstrate their proficiency with an assessment I did not propose. 
1. If a student has another idea of how to demonstrate their proficiency of a concept, they can propose it and use that as an assessment. 
6. Students can become teachers of their peers.
1. When a student teaches another, that is when they truly understand the material. Whether it be word choice, word, order, pronunciation, or colloquial phrases students are empowered to support their peers through peer instruction. 

The freedom that the flipped class gives the students to control the class can be overwhelming at first. However, it is the best way for them to understand their learning needs and increase their proficiency in the language. By continuing to keep the focus of the class on them, the material is relevant and inspires them to learn. 

Revealing student feedback

As promised, I began all my classes with a discussion about last semester and how to improve this semester. Sadly many of my students just stared at me when I asked them for feedback, but some of my level 3s had some good thoughts as to what they need to work on. Many of them carefully avoided eye contact as we talked about how copying the beginning practice work of a unit didn't help the, when it came time to apply their knowledge. Many now understand that by doing that, they end up struggling on the benchmark assessments, summative assessments and the final.

However, as testament to our poor start, many said direct object pronouns are confusing, or I still struggle with the past tense, rather than the application of that knowledge. I was hoping to hear....I still really need to work on improving listening skills, or I still struggle expressing myself while speaking. This mindset is something I have to change. There is still too much focus on grammar. I feel like we spend more than 2/3 of each unit working on application of knowledge but with this feedback, there is still too much emphasis on it.

With that in mind, I have created a weekly calendar of our focus for each day. I have tried this before, but it I such a struggle with the alternating block. It is even more of a struggle in the Spring semester with days off, testing, etc. but I am determined to make it work and have enlisted the help of the students. (I know they love to tell me when we get off task.) I have written the weekly schedule on the board - Monday-writing, Tuesday-conversation, Wednesday-Conversation, Thursday-reading, Friday-listening. So the plan is to begin each class with activities with the appropriate focus. Then students will move on to their assigned work, which also includes these activities.

I also am going to do more one-on-one feedback with the students with their homework phone calls and journals. When I grade them, I almost always give comments to the students, but I know the majority of them don't really look at it. So, every week, I am going to have a mini conference with the students about these activities. My plan is to divide the class into groups of 5 or 6 so I can get to everyone once a month. With the 3s phone calls, I am thinking that after our initial feedback session, I am going to email them their audio and have them evaluate their own speaking first, and then we can go over it together.

Hopefully these things will help the students focus more on the communication, and less on the grammatical portion of speaking Spanish.

New Year, New Classes, So Many New Faces

Wow, I can't believe it has been two months since I have posted. Things are crazy with the start of school, getting my oldest off to college and three preps this year. I am also working on a curriculum job (in my spare time) so I guess my poor blog has been neglected. Never fear, I have some great plans for the blog this year including posting some new videos and how to information.

The new year has brought me many new faces. Our Spanish I teacher retired and the decision was made not to replace her. So, I have larger classes than I have ever had before. I still have my small 4 class, and my 3 classes are about the same size, but I have 3 Spanish II classes that are all between 27-30. Now I know many people have classes even larger, but I haven't seen so many kids in a classroom in a while.

I spent much last week struggling trying to get all of these students logged on to computers, set up new email passwords, explaining the blog and how to get to Moodle (where my videos and assignments are posted). So, this week has been full of watching the students and getting an idea of where they are and what they have retained from previous years. I have done this with some worksheets (cringe), listening and writing activities that they students are working on independently. We also began reading short readers in my 2 and 3 classes. My poor 2 students are having small heart attacks because the pace of my class is much faster than their previous 1 class.

We have worked on reading Piratas (by Mira Canion) in level 2 . In my 2 class, we have read the first 3 (of 10) chapters together taking turns reading. This has given me a chance to see where we stand with reading ability and pronunciation. It is slow going because we read basically a paragraph at a time and then students take turns giving me a one sentence summary of what we just read. I am trying to train the students to read like that themselves rather than trying to translate every word (which is really what they want to do). For some, it is tough going, but the majority seem to be getting it done getting the gist of the plot. After each chapter, they have a 3 column chart that they complete. After we completed chapter 3, I turned them loose on chapters 4-6 to complete on their own or in small groups (no more than 3). At the beginning of next week, I will do a comprehension check and then we will read chapter 7 together and then they will finish the rest on their own. When the book is completed, they will complete project(s) of their choice to achieve the desired amount of points. (I have adapted these from Kristy Placido's).

We are doing a similar process with the level 3s using Robo en la noche (by Kristi Placido). I read the first 2 chapters with them, and then they are on their own to read the rest and complete similar choice board projects. The best part about this book for 3 during this review period is that it is that the full story is written in the present tense and then if you turn the book upside down, is written in the past. So I have the students read half of it in the present and half in the past. It doesn't really interfere with their comprehension and allows them to review the past tenses in context so it comes back to them so much faster. ;)

Adjusting to the flipped class has come easier for some students than others. I do have quite a few 2 students that really struggle with the idea that they have a week to get things on a list done. This week, I had some do everything on the first night for homework, and I had others that didn´t complete their work at all. I am giving them all this week as an adjustment period, so if work was not completed, I am giving them half credit and they can earn the other half back if they show it to me at the beginning of the next class completed. Then, there will be no late work accepted.

I am trying something new with the grading of the classwork, and I am curious to see how it flies. I am only giving grades for the work at the end of the week, and it is one grade. This is different than I have done it before where students got one grade per assignment. I was just finding that I was spending so much time putting grades in for students, and the high amount of points was interfering with the grades coming out in a more appropriate fashion. So, for example, I had students that were C students that were ending up with a B- just because they were completing the class assignments. I want grades to be primarily based on what they are able to do on the formative and summative assessments, not the practice class work.

So, we will be beginning week 3 of school on Tuesday, and I am hoping we can get all the norms really established and settled before Homecoming, which is the week of Sept. 15th. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to do Speed Dating with a class of 30......

Challenging Students - Ideas appreciated

I have been working with a few specific students that are experiencing some different challenges, and I am struggling with the right way to help them. Would love any input or ideas from my great PLN.

Student 1 - This young man is a good student. He always gets his work done and always does his homework. However, he likes to work with a group of students that are some of the higher achievers in the class. The kids in this group are his friends, but he takes a little longer to process information that they do. As a result, he is trying to think through a question or a reading passage and the others in his group shout out the answer and then he just stops thinking and just writes down what they say.

I have spoken to this student one-on-one about this issue. He says he is just dumb (which he is not), and I tell him that he just takes a little longer to process, that doesn't mean he is dumb. I have moved him to other groups with similar, or even slightly lower ability in the hope that he will be forced to think for himself (and heaven forbid, maybe even be a leader instead of a follower). However, this doesn't seem to have had the outcome that I had hoped for.

In our last conversation on Friday, I was discussing his latest test. He had made notes at the top of the page about vocabulary (that were correct) but was unable to use the vocab in his writing (which was the assessment). This young man has said that he thinks he really has a learning disability or something....I am not an expert but I am 99% sure that is not the issue.

What do I do now? Apparently he has this slower processing issue in some of his other classes too. He is getting the material, so it isn't as though he isn't learning. Ideas? How else can I help this kiddo?

Student 2 - So, for as personable as Student 1 is, this young lady is not. Last semester she was getting by because she was working with another student and copying work, not doing her own work. As I look back through her work last semester, I would bet she was cheating on some of the written assessments. She struggled through speaking assessments, and bombed her final exam. She ended up with a low C last semester.

This semester, she and I began by having a chat. I explained to her that she had to do her own work to be successful. She was going to need to study and really practice in order to succeed. She got off to a pretty good start under my very watchful eye. She was doing her own work, and I was not letting her get away with the "I don't know anything" excuse. For the first written assessment, she stared at a blank quiz as I positioned myself near her corner of the room.....for a good 20 minutes. When I had to leave to answer a few other student questions, and to circulate, her test was miraculously complete. When I graded it, she had gotten a C, but I was suspicious.

A little over a week ago, she did a presentation with a partner which was given with a Power Point. She was only able to read the Power Point, and for the way she read it, it could have been in Italian or Greek. It was like she had never seen it before. Although her partner refused to throw her under the bus, I have seen enough of these presentations to know she had no part in writing it.

For the last assessment, I was keeping an eye on her. I had everyone move all of their belongings to the front of the room. I moved kids around to separate them.....and to make sure no one felt picked on, I moved A kids, F kids, etc. I kept my eye on this young lady, and she was doing some weird things with her hands, so at first I thought she had written on them. However, upon more careful looking, I noticed her phone (in the neon case) between her legs. So, when I took it from her I found she was using a translator app (don't get me started!) to translate a question on the quiz.

Now, I really hate when kids cheat. It makes me question myself, the test, the material I am teaching, everything. The only thing I hate more than that is a student that has no (and I mean ZERO) remorse when they are caught. After the test, I spoke to this young lady in the hall and she looked at me and said "Well I have never used my phone before to cheat in your class." Was that supposed to make me feel better?

I actually did something I have not done in a long time....I made her call her dad right there. Seriously she did not even look sorry or remorseful when she spoke to him. We had another conversation about how I would help her anytime, but she had to do her work and initiate the need and desire for extra help. She just continued to say how she hated Spanish and how she needed the class for college. Why don't students get that if they get poor (or failing) grades, it isn't really going to help them get into college?

I did follow up with her dad yesterday. He was upset (much more so than his daughter) and was surprised to hear how much help I had offered and that I had even let his daughter borrow my iPad during her Study Hall to try to help her take notes and get work done. Again, I am at a bit of a loss at what else I can do here. Can I do something to make her want help?

Final Notes
I almost always find a way to reach all of my kiddos and help them be successful, but these two are really a struggle for me this year. I know that they are both more than capable, they just have to get out of their own way........

Positive Progress - and a great surprise!

The second semester has been off to a great (albeit cold) start both in my Spanish II and III classes. We have done some written assessments and it seems most of my students have finally come to this startling conclusion - If you do your work, practice and study, you will do well! Shocker, I know.

I had decided that rather than pushing my III classes forward, we would go back and review (again) the past tenses. I realized after trying to engage them in conversations about their vacations that they were still really struggling. After much deliberation, I decided it was better to make sure they finally (hopefully) got it before we moved on to the subjunctive.

The tricky part was how to get the students to review and really practice something that they feel like they spent all year last year on. So, I revisited one of my old ideas, the skit/song/game. The students created one of their own skit/song/games to help teach preterite conjugation or the difference between the preterite and imperfect. I got some great results and many of the kids commented on how much they felt that they had learned doing this activity. I realized how many great singers I had in my class. I got lots of great games based on jeopardy, monopoly, and some fun race games where students had to run to conjugate verbs. As usual I have a few students with some great video editing skills that I am pleased to share here.






Obviously I am partial, but I thought they were really good. Even better, when I assessed the students they did really well. I am hoping that this success will carry over to their conversation skills next week!

My great surprise this week was a Senior that I had in Spanish III dropped in during one of my III classes when we were working on circle conversations. She is a student that did not continue on to IV, and since we had an odd number in our conversation, offered to jump in. She was not a super A student when I had her, but we were both happy to see how well she did. She really held her own in the conversation and even initiated some great topics even though she hadn't spoken a word of Spanish in almost a year!

Moments like these make me glad to be a teacher. Some days, like many other teachers, I wonder why I teach and if I am getting through to some of these students at all. I am so thankful that when these feelings come, somehow something happens to reinforce the idea that I am doing a good job. I can only hope that every one that reads this is just as fortunate!

Frustrations follow-up

First, I wanted to thank everyone who responded and commented to my earlier post about my frustrations with Google Translate and in particular one of my students. I was really at the end of my rope and it was wonderful receiving so much support and great ideas from so many teachers. Now that I have had so time to reflect on everything (and calm down), I am ready to rationally think about this issue.

So, my school does have a cheating policy. However, since most administrators aren't familiar with World Language classes, it can be a bit tricky. When these issues occur, I have learned to try to handle it myself as much as possible. I employ some of my parenting trickery, and ask students not "Did you use a translator?", but "Why did you use a translator?". Then, it eliminates a lot of the angst and we skip right to the tears. I always reiterate to my students that I never give them an assignment that I don't think they can do......that I have prepared them for. Usually, students confess that they didn't really work on it like they should have and were in a panic at the last minute.

The real question is how am I handling the translate issue going forward? It is clear that it is not going away, and since I encourage students to use all the resources available to them, am I doing a disservice to them by forbidding translators? And for me, the important question is why are they using translators? In the past, students have reached for these resources because assignments were too hard and/or they were desperate to be successful. Is this still the case?

Here are some of the issues, both mine and my students:

• One of the issues remains that students are still trying to write in English first. This results in students trying to match their level of Spanish to their level of English, which for most of them is not possible. So, how to address this issue?
• Students are overwhelmed by high expectations and the idea that they need to always put forth their best effort to be successful in class. Are expectations too high?
• Students are not understanding the expectations of the assignment. They are not understanding that I know their ability level and I want them to push themselves, but I want their work. How can I fix this?
• I am unwilling to spend entire class periods dedicated to students completing a writing assignment because a few students can't do the assignments themselves. I hate punishing the masses for the mistakes of the few. How can I show my students how to achieve success without having to waste tons of valuable class time?
• Have I been so worried about including more listening and speaking in class that I have overlooked the time I need to spend teaching students how to write?

So, I think solutions require some real thought, not just about how to prevent the use of Google Translate, but knowledge of the students and why they feel that GT is an acceptable way to complete assignments.After some great feedback about my earlier post and really thinking about what some of sources of the problems are, I have come up with a few solutions that I am implementing in class.

1. I am going to give more feedback on all of the writing that my students do. This is going to be time consuming, but I am hoping that this will be a good way to reach more of the students and make them understand that using translators to complete any assignment is not acceptable. I am going to use online feedback and writing conferences to make sure that the students hear me.
• I am really focusing on my online journal assignments with this one. When I read them and know that students used translator, not to look up one tricky phrase, but to complete the majority of the assignment, we will be having a face-to-face chat. My hope is that if I call them on it enough, they will get the idea that they have no hope of using a translator and I won't know it.
• In addition to the conversation with the student, I will be contacting parents. By working together, I think we can put an end to the consistent translator use for the completion of assignments.
2. I am going to go back to graphic organizers. I always hated having to do these when I was in school, but I know that for many, they are a valuable organizational tool. This will be due well in advance of the assignment, and even though I may not give "detailed" feedback, they are another tool to make the students think about the assignment early and give their writing a more organized layout.
3. I am going to require students to write the first paragraph of every assignment as a formative assignment. By putting this work in their usual packet, they won't be as focused on it as a separate, "valuable" assignment and therefore are less likely to use translators to write it. 
• I am going to grade and give feedback on these paragraphs and have students re-write and submit them prior to the final writing assignment being due.
• In talking with the students, many of them turn to translators because they have left the assignment to the last minute and are trying to write it at midnight the day before it is due. Hopefully by having completed part of the assignment in advance, this will have them on the right track to completing the assignment on their own in a timely fashion to avoid the "last minute bad choices".
4. Honestly, I am not sure what else to do about making the students more aware of the expectations of assignments. They do not seem to hear me when I go over the directions and rubrics for an assignment, and they seem to never read any written directions on their own. Where I can, I am going to give them more samples of projects and writing to help them understand what I am expecting from them.
• On the final exam last semester, students had to write a letter. As a quick review this week, I had students (anonymously of course) read letters written by their peers from the exam. I had them decide what grades they should have received and then correct and rewrite the letter. It was a shock to many not only how bad the grades were that they gave on the letters, but how bad some of the Spanish was. (It really quieted the few that thought I graded them too hard on the final as well!) The rewrites were better, and I saw some great peer review conversation going on about how things were worded, conjugation, word choice, etc. I think I need to create some of these "bad" writings and have my students evaluate them and correct them more often. Maybe it would help them see the errors that they are making in their own writing.
5. I do think students need to have the freedom to choose what they need to work on during class. I am planning on having more preliminary steps for students to complete as well as using class time to do feedback sessions with students to help them achieve more success. I do think that I have maybe been focusing too much on trying to get every mode of communication in every unit, which has resulted in being able to do more but not doing it well. I think the students need a more comprehensive session on all the modes to really reinforce what they have learned and the expectations I have for them and their writing.

I love the kids, and I hate getting a paper that I know they did not write. I think I need to spend more time working with the students individually on their writing (or maybe in small groups) and having them understand that I am not expecting the same quality of writing as their English teachers. I will continue to try to drive home the point that they need to write the paper in Spanish, not English first. Hopefully by implementing these strategies, I will avoid the frustrations that I have felt about the students using translators because they will understand that I know how they write and that they will only improve when they do their own work.

**I am looking into how to use Google Translate as a tool. I am interested in the idea that students use GT for colloquial phrases and then input them into a class Google Form not only to share the knowledge with the class, but to document that they have used GT to find the information. -------but that will probably not materialize until next year. ;)

Frustrations

I am so frustrated right now. We are in the final stretch of the semester (final exams begin tomorrow!) I am not sure what the issue is with some of my students, but I am very upset by the overuse of Google Translate. I am not sure what the problem is.......or how to fix it. I have never had a group so reliant on GT before.

My current frustration is a student that wrote his three paragraph fairy tale for the summative assessment for the fairy tale unit. The minute I looked at it, I knew there was trouble. The writing was far superior to anything he had ever done before. As I read the three paragraphs, my eye was drawn to three misspelled words, one in each paragraph, in English. This pretty much confirmed what I had suspected all along, that he had used Google Translate to write the story.

Now, against my policy and my usual mean "teacher" self......I spoke to this student, and after he confessed to using the translator (and he broke down and cried), I decided to give him the opportunity to write the story again....IN HIS OWN WORDS!! I reassured him that I would not have given an assignment that I didn't feel that all of my students were capable of doing and that dictionaries are fine, but translators are not. Students have to use their own brain to show me what they know.

So, today was the deadline for him to give me his rewrite. (I gave him an entire week, which I thought was rather nice of me.) What did I get for all my niceness? I have a paper, that is almost word for word EXACTLY THE SAME as the original paper he turned in!!!!! He did fix the words that he misspelled in English and translated them to Spanish.....and he also added his own sentence to the end. Now to ensure that I knew exactly what had been done, he made sure he gave me back the original with the new version.

I am so upset I could spit nickels.....Now, I have to call parents and explain that I gave their kiddo a second chance and that he still chose to use the translator. I don't know how to be more clear about translator usage. Please.....please......help me!!!!

The Ah Ha Week

The last week of October always is a big week in my classes. We are at the halfway point in the semester, students really understand what my expectations are, and they understand what they need to do in order to be successful in class. I like to refer to this week as the Ah Ha week.

This year has been very different from my previous years, and I have found that although fewer students object to the flipped class, more and more of them are trying to "manipulate" the system to make things easier for themselves. Both of my Spanish III classes keep trying to convince me that Google Translate is ok, they don't need to use a dictionary. It is so frustrating, and I hate constantly arguing with them. So many are determined not to try to use their brains, but to look up answers to everything that we are doing, even though I know that they can do it on their own.

But this is the week where the students are finally realizing that that doesn't work for them. They are receiving points for daily work, but if they didn't use their OWN brain- if they copied, translated, or looked up everything, this is the week where they finally realize that it isn't working for them. I can't tell you how many of my students during the first week of November have said to me,"Maybe I should watch the video, take my own notes, and do my own work." Shocker! When they do this, they do a better job with assessments, discussions, etc.

The real question is, why does it take so long? Are students so accustomed to using these cruthches at the lower levels that they just can't let them go, even with lots of encouragement? What can I do as a teacher to help?

First, I believe that even though I hate assessing students a lot at the beginning of the school year, I think it needs to be done. I think students can't give up the "crutches" because they are afraid of failure. At every level, students need to be challenged, but also be able to be successful. Too late this year, I realized that the only listening practice my level three students got last year was through music. Now, don't get me wrong, songs are great learning tools, but they can't replace practice listening to native speakers having real conversations. I also learned that the teacher who taught level two last year (who is no longer at my school) artificially inflated grades so students are confused why their grade is not as high as last year,and this is also a cause of their reaching for those crutches.

So, I am rethinking what is going on in class. I have reassessed my goals for my students, and realized that they need to receive more practice and more interactive activities where they can feel some success so I can continue to challenge them......and they will try and succeed......without the crutches.

Flipping out with 31 Spanish II students

Although I have been flipping my classes for a while, this is the first time I have flipped a Spanish II class. Admittedly, I was nervous because there is a big difference between giving Juniors and Seniors freedom in class and giving Sophomores freedom. The first two weeks of class have certainly been challenging. My plan has been to spend three weeks doing review and assessing to establish where all of the students are on the proficiency scale. We are doing lots of reading of a simple novel to not only help me assess the students, but give them the opportunity to see more grammar and vocabulary in context since I knew that many of them did little or no reading in Spanish I. The reading also has the added benefit of being a "tech free" activity, so any issues with technology in the first weeks would have minimal impact.

After the review unit, I want to have a conversation with the Spanish II students to see what their feelings are about the flip and what changes I can make so that the class has the best flow and highest, achievable expectations. Many of my Spanish II students had experienced the flipped classroom in their Algebra I class last year. Depending on which teacher they had, they seem to be either very receptive to the idea of flipping Spanish, or completely opposed to it. After addressing some concerns and explaining that the video watching was less "intense" than in the Math and Science classes at the school, the kids were more willing. However, I thought one thing I wouldn't have to worry about too much was the access to Moodle, which is where we house the videos and assignments. However, I couldn't have been more wrong. The tech team decided that since some students might not remember their passwords, they would reset everyone's passwords and make them start from scratch. I don't know how it worked for other teachers, but even taking class time to go over how to do it, repeating usernames and passwords numerous times, and asking at the end of every class if everyone had access did not keep me from problems. As I was checking work on Friday, I had two separate students telling me they couldn't do their work since they didn't have access to Moodle. I was not a happy teacher.

With some of the tech issues, I gave students more time on the assignments for the first week. As I began checking work on Friday, many were surprised that they would be receiving 0's for work not completed (even though it was on the syllabus and clearly explained). This caused lots of focused working in class, which I hope will continue from now on. In the end, very few 0's were actually given out. I think one of the biggest struggles for all of the students in a flipped class is the autonomy that they have in class. I had thought that by giving the students the basic overview and then monitoring them as they worked, the class flow should be apparent, but clearly I needed to give more direction.

One of the problems is that the class is large, so it is nearly impossible to be on top of every kid at all times. I was really surprised by how much more difficult it was to find the one-on-one time with all of the students, especially last week. I thought I had been doing a good job, but if I didn't know that two students weren't on Moodle and not getting that work done, I clearly need to step up my game.

Next week, now that I have a better idea of the levels of the students and which students clearly cannot work together well, I am going to structure some groups to better enable students to focus on work rather than other "distractions". I wish I knew them all a bit better before I jumped into this, but I think that with the large class and the "excitable" nature of my Sophomores, this will make for a better flowing class next week and in the future.

The bottom line is the flipped class is tougher with a larger class and with Sophomores, but I think with some tweaking and a few more limits the class will run well.

Let's talk World Language flipping

Are you interested in flipping your World Language class and have lots of questions? Are you already flipping your class and would like to connect with other World Language teachers that are also flipping? Mark your calendars for the first #fliplang chat on Wednesday, July 31 at 8EST. Please complete the following form to help us tailor the chat to best meet your needs and expectations.



Don't have a Twitter account? Have you never participated in a chat on Twitter? Don't worry it is very easy! I had never used Twitter before when I started participating in chats. If you do not have an account with Twitter, create one. People and companies are identified by the @ symbol before their name. For example, I am @SraWitten. There are no spaces in the user names. To find someone on Twitter, just go to the search box and enter either their real name or user name if you know it. Then when you are sure you have the right person, click on the follow button. Now, every time that person posts to Twitter, you will see what they say.

To follow a conversation, you use hashtags. Hashtags are the number sign followed by a phrase, with no spaces. So, to follow our chat, you would use #fliplang hashtag. Keep this in mind when responding because you are only allowed 140 characters.

When you are participating in the chat, the moderator usually begins by asking everyone to introduce themselves with their subject area, grade level and where you are. Then questions are asked by the moderators to start the and keep the conversation going. Questions are usually numbered in the Q1, Q2 format and answers would begin with A1, A2. This helps to keep things organized and make the chat a little easier to follow. It is not necessary to reply to a specific person about the general questions.

Hopefully this helps those of you that have never participated in a chat. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me, or ask questions here and I will respond to you.

We are looking forward to this and can't wait to see you on July 31st.

Reflections & AATSP recap from 6/10 & 6/11 sessions

Sadly the AATSP 2013 Conference is now over. I am sitting in the lobby of my hotel enjoying a margarita and reflecting on the great sessions I attended, and maybe even better, the connections I made with other teachers. The conference was wonderful and challenging for me. I was not prepared for most of the presentations to be in Spanish, and all the great conversational Spanish. I have to admit, by the time the Spanish part of my brain kicked in, the conference was practically over.

My biggest complaint for the conference is not a complaint about the conference at all, but an admonishment to myself for being so lax this summer. How can I expect m students to practice over the summer, or at least do a little listening and reading over the summer if I am not doing the same? Yes, I am reading an Isabelle Allende novel in Spanish, but other than a little "Dora the Explorer" Spanish to m three year old twins, I hadn't spoken Spanish since the third week of May. This is something that needs to change. So, I am asking my Spanish speaking friends out there to help me. When you write, send me emails in Spanish. If you talk to me, make it be in Spanish. Sure, I may have to think a bit more before I speak, but wild that really be a bad thing? ;)

Now to the sessions.

I did take it easy on the 10th to gear up for my presentation. I had planned on the AP session, but sadly, I found that I was so exhausted, I just couldn't get there at 8am. I was pleased with how my presentation went and had many good questions from those in attendance. I also found that I was now known, not as the "flipping woman", but "that woman with the blog". Strange to think that my musings here are how people think of me. (I must be more careful about what I write!)

At the end of the day, I attended a session I was happy to find as a last minute edition to the program - STEM in the language classroom. This is something I was very excited about because with. The new Colorado teaching evaluation, I need to find ways to incorporate Math in my classroom. (Yes, it terrifies me!)  the session had a small but mighty audience and we were presented with lots of ideas for incorporating Science and technology in the class as well as some Math. As often happens in these sessions, my fellow attendees had some fantastic ideas as well. Here is a list of ideas and websites from the session:

• Puzzle of the day - Math word problems translated (possibly taken directly for lower level may classes)
• Temperature conversions- use in conjunction with weather and clothes. (Explaining temperature to a foreign exchange students with proper attire.)
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar book - incorporate life cycle of butterfly
• Magic school bus - I had forgotten about these, which are often very scientific in nature - not sure about this for high school, but elementary or middle could use this
• Using current scientific happenings - volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, etc. in various countries
• Planets with days of the week - planets are aligned with days
• El Niño/La Niña - weather cycles which originate with Ecuadorian fisherman  
• Correlation between space station and houses - different parts of the space station owned by different countries - The space station idea is really cool because it can also include time, clothes, body parts... Check out http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/
• Incorporating constellations and astrology in superstition unit with horoscopes, calendars, etc.
• Globe Program which has resources for data reporting and experiments for things around the world. 
• Nighttime lights of the world shows the world map as it is seen at night with lights. This map is a great way to talk about culture - why are there no lights in some places? Why are some lights highly concentrated? Which  countries have the most lights? How does electricity, or lack of it, effect the life of the people into those places? These are all great higher level thinking questions.

Basically, once I really started putting my mind to it, there are many ways to incorporate STEM in he language classroom the best point made was that we need to try to surprise our kids and help the. Think about some of the basic content on more unusual and fun ways. Why not teach body parts and clothes with an astronaut?

Flipping Spanish your way - Good presentation by Ruth Valle, a college and high school teacher from Tennessee. She highlighted many video tools such as Jing, www.duolingo.com as well as the iPad apps Show Me and Markup. 

I then attended the Bridging the Gap session about writing in the target language. much of the information, although obvious, is good to hear periodically. We must work with our students on HOW to write. Students need to be reminded to stay away from complicated techniques they use in English. we as teachers also need to remember that many of our students struggle with writing in English, so how can we expect them to excel in the target language? Two highlights from her presentation were 1) to always keep in mind what you want to convey and 2) how you want your audience to react. This is great advice for video creation to help keep on track and focused.

My favorite idea from this session was making reverse outlines. Although the presenters suggested this as a tool for learning how to create an effective outline, I was thinking that this could be a good technique for an interpretive activity. It would show if students can choose the main idea and supporting points from an article. It was also suggested that students should not be given any content to read which would take them longer than ten minutes. This would be difficult in 4 and AP, but I see the value in this for the lower levels because when authentic reading takes longer than that, the students tend to get frustrated and want to give up.

The last two sessions for the day were the most exciting for me. First, there was a session on Incorporating Proverbial Language. I loved the ideas for using proverbs to help teach vocabulary and grammar points. My favorite idea was to teach a few proverbs to the students and then have them write a story where the proverb was the moral to the story. This would really help me include more authentic language and culture in my Fairy Tale unit. I am thinking that I will teach two proverbs a week during that unit and then have students choose one when creating their own story. First, I will need to acquire a few more proverbs myself! (Here is a site with some good ones!) It was suggested that for teaching purposes, short and simple proverbs are used. Some of the longer ones get very difficult for students to remember and use correctly. In my AP class I think this would be very helpful for them on the exam where utilizing colloquial language where appropriate can help to boost scores.

The final session of the conference was my personal favorite - Interpreting Art in Spanish. This session brought me back to my college days where I spent many hours learning about art in the Prado Museum. I teach an art unit in Spanish IV, and this session was a good refresher for many of the terms and easy ways to explain art in Spanish. **On another note, in the depths of my basement this summer I also found my books from the Prado which are written in Spanish and will be a great resource for my students during the art unit. ** The presenter has a "museum day" where students dress and pose like various famous works of art for students to discuss similarities and differences to the real piece. This idea may be a great addition to my art unit and I may include this as a choice for the final assessment.

I enjoyed all the sessions, and wished I could have attended more sessions. I was sad that I was unable to attend the first day of the conference, but it is difficult to be away from home for too long with four children. If anyone else has thoughts on these sessions or others from the conference, please share them!

If you are looking for more information about flipping in the language class, check out the new book Flipping 2.0. Ordering information is available at the top of the blog on the right!

EUKENMAV333Z

Reviewing the past and looking forward to the future

This week I celebrated my birthday. I have always found that birthdays are a great time to look back over the past year and reflect on what I have accomplished and look forward to the new challenges that the new year brings. (I never seem to have the time for this reflection at New Year's!) I also just wanted to take a moment to thank my family for all the love and support that they have given me over the past year. I have been so busy with teaching, blogging, presenting, interviews, and writing, and I could never get it all done without a fantastic family standing with me supporting me all the way.

Over the last year, I have done four webinars with the help of Sophia and the Flipped Learning Network. I have been interviewed for three articles as well as an interview for a podcast with Troy Cockrum with the Flipped Learning Network. I did a presentation for my school district about the flipped classroom and another presentation for my state foreign language conference (CCFLT). I have also been elected to the Board of CCFLT. I have also been fortunate enough to have great conversations with many teachers not just from across the country, but around the world about the flipped class. These teachers have provided valuable insight, suggestions, and a sounding board that enables me to keep my sanity! (My husband likes it too because I have other people to talk to about the flip besides him!) I am also very excited about the new Flipping 2.0 book which is available for pre-order now! Being able to contribute to this great book with so many Flipped Class celebrities has made me feel awesome!

Although all of that has been wonderful, for me, the best part of last year was the success that my students felt in my classroom throughout the year. So many of my students did things that they never thought they could and surpassed not only their own expectations, but mine as well. There were still some things that did not go as planned, and as always, there are changes that I am making for the next year. However, I believe that if I ever stop thinking that I need to evaluate and make changes to the curriculum, it is probably time to find something else to do!

I have been fortunate to be accepted to speak and the AATSP and the ACTFL conferences this year as well as helping to organize/present a Flipped Class PD at CU in Boulder. I am also going hoping to present again at the CCFLT state conference as well as the Flipped Class Conference in Mars, Pennsylvania.

Looking towards next year in the classroom, I am working on moving all of my thematic units to a more "Essential Question" approach. I love the idea of focusing on interpretive, interpersonal and presentational aspects for each unit. Some of my units are already using this method (unintentionally) but I want them all to be incorporating all of these elements. I am also (this was a goal from last year) working on incorporating more PBL in my classroom. I am doing a bit of this, but I struggle with how and where to have the students present the work in the "real world". I am hoping that as I present and attend AATSP next week I will have some more great ideas. Nothing gets my creative juices flowing like a good conference!

In particular I need to work on my Spanish IV curriculum. In the past I have been a little looser with this class and moved from topic to topic as the students showed interest, but since my class has grown to 17 this year, I need to have a slightly more formal structure while still allowing the students to explore their interests and continue to increase their conversational skills. My planned units are Technology, Environment, Short Stories, Superstitions, Current Events, Ancient Cultures and Art. I am adding Technology to the Spanish IV curriculum because I did not get to it last year in 3, and I think it fits better in 4. I am adding the Ancient Cultures unit because I have already had some students show some interest in the theme, and I am thinking about a unit in conjunction with Math about Mayan math and culture. After going through the new state teacher evaluation this year, I am exploring ways I can cover some Math in the class without having to actually teach tons of math. (Scary stuff!)

In Spanish III, I am doing some tweaking and moving the Environment unit down from IV. After seeing what many other teachers are doing, I think it makes more sense in the lower level. I am also working on a collaboration project with Math for this class as well. I am still working with Steve Kelly and Zach Cresswell, but so far I am thinking about a statistical comparison of US culture with a Hispanic country (student choice) culture.

Although it is only July, I have so much to do and I am so excited about the new school year. I only managed to take about a week or two off from thinking about school, but I think I am ready to jump back in and see what cool things I can come up with to make this year the best yet. Stay tuned!

PS - If you will be at AATSP in San Antonio, let me know! I am looking forward to meeting lots of you face-to-face. Contact me here, email, or via Twitter at @SraWitten. I will be posting about the sessions I attend at the conference for those who can't be there next week.

Must read Hispanic novels - Could these inspire my students to read more?

I am a big proponent of reading. I believe that reading, in any language, helps you to learn immense amounts of vocabulary and grammar structures without a single lesson or quiz. I am an avid reader myself, and I am always looking for new books for my classroom. I have begun my class library with shorter readers which the students can work through and comprehend. However, one of the challenges is that these readers are often abridged and can be a little choppy and confusing. The other issue the students have with these books are that they are boring. It is difficult to find interesting reading material which is on a doable level for the students. Even the mystery stories lack the plot depth that they crave. But seriously, in a 75-90 page reader, how much can you really expect?

Like many of you, I spend a good portion of my time over the summer trolling the Internet for great ideas and resources. While doing that today, I found a great list of 50 must read Hispanic books. Sadly, the majority of which I have never read. So, I am committing to read them all and then make them a part of my school library for the students to read. If you have any thoughts on which I should start with, let me know!

Maybe I am underestimating them, maybe if the novel was interesting enough, they would plod through the beginning to get the knowledge to make it through the book. I am going to finally really begin the SSR in class, and maybe some will go for the tougher books, not just the easy books! We shall see.....if I can say nothing else about my students, I will say that they often surprise me with the amount of work they will do if something sparks their interest.