The Power of Stories in SLA

Recently, I have become more aware of the Power of Stories. Storytelling is a tool that ALL of us have available, at any given time, to help our students acquire a second language. One reason that makes Storytelling so accessible to all is that it requires absolutely no technology. In fact, in my experience, a story told using technology tends to lesson both the student interest and the impact of the story. To improve the storytelling experience, ditch the PowerPoint! Try it and watch the change in your students' listening behaviors and engagement. 

If you are hesitant to part with your your pre-made PowerPoints when telling stories and using Story Listening, then maybe an email I received from Marta Yedinak will make you reconsider. Marta asked her students to write suggestions on how to improve the story listening experience for the students. The quote in the box was written by one of her students. He clearly states that listening to the teacher tell a story, aided with a PowerPoint, is not as interesting as having the teacher draw during the story. 

Although pre-made PowerPoints may be easier for the teacher to use, it is NOT what engages the students and it's not personalized to their class. If you are serious about keeping students engaged during a story, don't take the easy way out with a PowerPoint because it will most likely lower student engagement.

Three recent experiences have made my appreciation grow for the positive impact that Storytelling (*or Story Listening) has on second language acquisition.

1. Last month, Marta Yedinak, a Spanish teacher and my good friend from Wisconsin, and I did a presentation at ACTFL entitled, "Listen UP! Engaging Students in the Story Listening Experience". The evening before our presentation, Marta shared with me in detail, how she told a particular story to her class, along with photos of the sketches she drew on her whiteboard during the story. 

The following day she did a mini-demonstration of the story in the ACTFL presentation and, WOW! I was using Story Listening with my students with newspaper articles, personal stories, Cuentos de Ensalada with felt characters, and other stories. By watching Marta give her mini demonstration, I saw areas in which I could improve.  One way that Marta engaged the students was to have them do motions with her at different parts of the story (with se lo llevó). How cool is that? I'm presenting and learning at the SAME TIME from my co-presenter - love it!

Marta's white board after telling Martina Bex's story about a squirrel

2. The first Friday in December, Krista Kovalchick (the person that has helped me improve as an educator more than any other person I know, a result of our daily conversations about teaching methods, second language acquisition, classroom management, and the list goes on forever...) and I drove to Downingtown, PA, to attend a Tri-State TCI meeting. The topic for the meeting was Story Listening. 

Krista telling a Latin legend 

Krista gave a 20-minute demonstration in Latin on Story Listening, followed by Q&A. I do not know Latin, but days later I remembered a LOT of the words she used in her story.  The power of Story Listening for language acquisition was undeniable. Krista spoke entirely in Latin, kept the pace slow for those listening to the story, wrote keywords in both languages on the whiteboard, drew sketches to clarify meaning, and used gestures and facial expressions which not only helped us to understand, but was engaging (and entertaining). After several minutes of telling the story, she paused and instructed us to tell the story to our partner in English.

3. This week I told a Guatemalan legend, Quetzal no muere nunca, to my two upper level classes. When I started teaching at PHS, I found a dozen of well-worn books, dated 1987 with the school stamp (shown to the right). The length of the stories are perfect for Story Listening.  I read and reread and reread again, the legend "Quetzal no muere nunca" beforehand to become familiar with it. 

When I told it to my classes, I put extra emphasis on slowing the pace and writing words on the board for visual support during the story. Throughout the story I provided time for students to retell the events in English to their classmate(s), as Krista had demonstrated with her latin story. As often happens, I did not set aside enough time to complete the story, so in both classes I was unable to finish the story.   

The following day, since there had been at least one student absent in both classes, I did what I usually do when someone has been absent for a story; the students that were present the previous day had to tell the story in Spanish to the student or students that were absent. The students that were absent and I are the only ones that can talk in English. It is the job of the rest of the students to tell the story in such a way that the listener(s) understands the story and can tell it to me in English. 

The students took random turns retelling parts of the story. As I listened to their retell, I  was amazed at the vocabulary and grammar structures that they were able to use in the retell after only listening to the story 1 time! In one class, when I moved away from the front of the room and sat among the students, several of the students went to the board to sketch while retelling the story. (I was so impressed with their retell and their engagement that I was hoping the principal would walk in to witness the positive effects that Story Listening has, but that didn't happen.) It was the same type of growth I felt when listening to Krista's story. The best part about both stories was it required little effort on the part of the listener, other than staying focused on the person telling the story and it was FUN for the teacher. 

The need for Story Listening Demos
The first two experiences helped me realize that maybe the best way to demonstrate the power of stories in SLA is for teachers to experience it themselves - listening to a story in a language they do not know, told by a teacher experienced in Story Listening! 

I repeat, because this is key: to experience the power of Story Listening, teachers need to experience it themselves, listening to a story in a language they do NOT know, told by a teacher experienced in Story Listening! 

I wish there were Story Listening demonstrations at the national conferences. (Hey Keith Toda or Krista Kovalchick, I think you should submit a proposal to demonstrate Story Listening in Latin at one of the national conferences!) 

Give it a try!
If you haven't tried Story Listening (or Storytelling) why not give it a try? Since we are close to Christmas, you could find a story that happens at this time of the year. As I continue to grow in my Story Listening/Storytelling skills, I found that legends have a special pull for students.

If you experiment with Story Listening, things to keep in mind are:

1. Select a legend or story that you believe will be interesting to your audience/students.

2. Become very familiar with the story. Read it several times. Practice retelling the story so as not to miss any important details

3. Write notes for yourself on an index card that you can use when telling the story. 

4. Preplan what sketches you will need. If your'e not sure how you will sketch something, google it to give you an idea. Keep it simple!

5. Use cognates when possible but remember, some students won't be able to hear the cognates so be prepared to write the words on the board.

6. RELAX when telling the story. This will help your students to relax and set the stage for acquisition of the language.

7. If you decide to ask questions during the story, keep them SIMPLE. The students' main job is to LISTEN.

8. Do not ask your students to take notes on the words used in the story. Instruct students to listen with the intent to understand.

9. After several details of the story, instruct the students to tell their partner, in English, what they have understood about the story. It gives the students a mini brain break, allows the teacher to listen to what they understood, and students feel like they have received a little treat because they can speak in English.

10. Decide if you want students to read a script of the story when finished or if you want to write a short version of the story together.

11. Ask your students to retell the story the following day, but NOT for a grade. The students will be surprised with the new words they hear themselves saying during the retell.

*Story Listening - When I mention Story Listening in this post, I am referring to the teacher telling a story while the students listen to the story. I am NOT referring to the method which requires ONLY story listening as the entire curriculum. 
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ACTFL 2017 - Reflections and Strategies

ACTFL 2017 has come and gone, followed by a busy week of in-service, a pie-baking fundraising event at my house (70+ pumpkin pies made by students, another teacher and me), Thanksgiving preparations and the crazy Black Friday frenzy. Finally, things have calmed down and I have time to reflect on ACTFL and to ENCOURAGE you to go to next year's conference. If next year doesn't work for you, I listed the upcoming ACTFL conferences. Maybe you'll find one closer to you. 

2018 - New Orleans, LA
2019 - Washington, DC
2020 - San Antonio, TX
2021 - San Diego, CA

This was the 5th time I attended ACTFL and my strategies to make the most of the conference have evolved throughout the years. Below are my ACTFL17 reflections and strategies on how I tackled ACTFL17. 

REFLECTIONS:

Conversations: it's not all daisies & rainbows.
Professional development comes in many different forms. ACTFL, and other conferences, provide teachers with an organized format with sessions that cover a multitude of topics. There are hundreds of opportunities to learn at sessions from experienced teachers that have prepared hour presentations with what they deem worthy to be shared. 

ACTFL roomies and friends, Krista & Marta

However, for me, the most powerful PD is interactions and personal conversations with other teachers. For the last two years, I have attended ACTFL with two of my colleagues, Krista, who teaches at my school, and Marta, who teaches in Wisconsin. Our conversations during travel to and from the conference cities, walks or transportation to the conference centers, lunch breaks, and evenings are often centered around the sessions we have attended and discussing the value of the information from the presenters and how we currently use those strategies or how we want to incorporate them into our classroom instruction.

On Thursday night of the conference in Nashville, Krista, Marta, and I, ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and shared our classroom experiences with story listening and story telling. The growth during those conversations was spurred on by the ability to stop the one speaking and ask for clarification, ask "what if" questions, and ask for advice when not all of us were experiencing the same results.

I may be going out on a limb on this thought, but one HUGE benefit of small group conversations, one that seems taboo to mention, is the safety and freedom to share our failures and frustrations in the classroom. How many times have you heard someone present on "X" topic and how it has been the answer to all their teaching challenges. You look around the room and see many attendees nodding their heads in agreement, but you have not had the same experience? Right then, surrounded by other devoted language teachers, you make the false assumption that you are in the minority. Believe me, you are NOT! ALL teachers have challenges, even if they don't admit them.

Truly powerful personal conversations, include and embrace learning from others' mistakes and failures and challenges. Are you serious about growing as a professional? Then be honest with yourself about the areas in which you struggle and the strategies that have not worked for you, and include them in your conversations. 

When you do this, one of two things will happen: 

1. The other person will open up and tell you what obstacles he (or she) overcame to make the strategy or method work for him. He will tell you about the difficulties and the times he was ready to throw in the towel. He'll share how he felt when a lesson flopped or when administration questioned him on his techniques. Then, eventually, he'll share how he worked through those challenges and what he found to be helpful, AND how he continues to face challenges with students, or colleagues, or parents, or administrators. He is careful not to make a general comparison your classes with his classes because he knows he is not comparing apples to apples; your school situation, students, community, curriculum requirements, etc. are different and need to be taken into account.  
This type of conversation with honesty and openness, is a precursor to tremendous growth for both you and the others in the conversation. Group growth - now that is powerful and impactful!

OR

2. The other person will suggest what you can do to be more successful. No mention of, or severely limited discourse on, struggles. End of conversation, move on to another subject. Perfectly good intentions on the person's behalf, but not the in-depth, tell it like it is answer from which you would most benefit.
You can learn from this conversation, but the growth is limited and may even have an "expiration date". (I'll leave that, as is, for you ponder upon.)  

Hmmm, this makes me wonder if there needs to be a session at ACTFL named, "Plan C, What to do after Plan A and Plan B bomb." 

The second night of the conference, Marta, Krista, and I accepted a

Photo credit: Annabelle Allen

dinner invitation for those that were helping at the Fluency Matters booth (thank you Carol). Once again, surrounded by other language teachers from the US, there were many mini-conversations related to teaching and our favorite sessions thus far at ACTFL. Saturday evening was yet another gathering of language teachers in a less formal setting at an airbnb (thank you Jim), and you guessed it, more conversations related to teaching, and music by some very talented language teachers.

Make it work for you.  As I was waiting for an ended session to clear and charging my phone, I saw Leslie Davison on her way to a session. Because her phone needed juice, we had the time to chat a little before heading off in different directions. She gave me advice that I followed later in the day. 

I had several great CI sessions that were on my list to attend, but for various reasons I was looking for additional options (for example, I had heard one of the presentations at least one time before). Leslie said that often she finds sessions that are not specifically targeted to CI teachers. Then she takes the information from the presenters and changes them to fit into her style of teaching. After I had the mindset of doing what Leslie does, it made my choice for a session later in the day much easier. 



Strategies for a successful ACTFL experience

Make a list of sessions to attend. At ACTFL there are hundreds of sessions with 60+ sessions at each time slot. When ACTFL published the online program months before the conference I started planning which sessions to attend. To find beneficial sessions to me in my teaching journey, I searched for presenters in my PLN that have similar philosophies about teaching, and searched for keywords such as: comprehensible input, CI, 90% target language, acquisition, etc.   

Those hundreds of sessions means EVERYONE will benefit by going to ACTFL. Not only do the teachers benefit, but their students also benefit when their teacher receives solid professional development and returns to the classroom and with newfound knowledge and eager to practice skills in their classrooms. 

The ACTFL app. I used the ACTFL app to add a few back-up sessions to attend in case my first and second choices were packed with no seating, standing, or floor space remaining, or if after a few minutes in the session I discovered the session was not what I had expected. (When I need to leave a session to search for another one that will be more beneficial to me, I do so quietly and respectfully.)

Check the Twitter feed, #ACTFL17.  Every year there are sessions in the same time slot and I have to make a decision between several great topics. What to do? Choose one and check the twitter feed to find information on the one 
I missed. If you have a friend attending that is also torn between the same two sessions, split up and take notes for each other. Also, check the ACTFL site for uploaded handouts that the presenter(s) may have shared.

Take time to show/voice your appreciation. Presenting at a National Conference, such as ACTFL, can be intimidating, especially if it is your first time (or second, or third, etc). If you enjoyed a session and plan to implement some of the ideas presented during the session, let the presenter(s) know! 

I attended a session of 4 presenters that (I think) was their first ACTFL presentation. They had a packed room with an overflow of attendees standing along the wall, at the back of the room, and many on the floor. With the number attending, it made some of their planned activities less successful, but the overall presentation was not negatively impacted. They shared what they were doing in their classrooms and demonstrated several of the activities. 

At the end of the presentation they listed their emails which made it super easy to shoot them an email to tell them I enjoyed the session. If you have presented, then you know how much that type of feedback is appreciated and may be the difference for someone to submit a proposal in the future.

Find the Treasures in the Exhibit Hall. I have an obsession with novels and readers that provide comprehensible input to my students, so every chance I have at conferences, I seek out new books to buy for my students. 

Those books are my treasures at ACTFL, but there are many other treasures. You can talk to the authors and creators of products that you use in your classrooms. Publishers often use ACTFL as an opportunity to debut new products. For example, before the conference, Sr. Wooly announced there was a special something waiting for ACTFL attendees that others would have to wait until next year to obtain. I investigated that and discovered it was Gorro, (Billy la Bufanda's friend) and I promptly bought a Gorro hat.  

I have to mention the snacks throughout the exhibit hall. Exhibitors are well stocked with small gifts and sweets to those passing by. We hit the jackpot when Concordia Languages had real snacks and coffee for attendees on Friday, just the ticket to keep your energy level up throughout the day.

And so, ACTFL came to a close on Sunday. I arrived home late on Sunday evening after two flights, a long wait in baggage claim, and a 90 minute drive home. I was exhausted, but glad I had some high quality professional development in November and ready to hit the ground running when classes resume after Thanksgiving break.

I presented at ACTFL again this year, but it was a new experience because it was the first time I presented with Marta Yedinak. My plans are to write a short blog post about our presentation, Engaging Students in the Story Listening Experience.

CI Sessions at ACTFL16

ACTFL16 in Boston, MA, is close to 3 months away.  The 3-hour, half day workshops begin on Thursday, November 17. The opening session is on Friday, from 8:30-10:00, where the new ACTFL TOY will be named. Three of the five regional TOYS in the running for ACTFL TOY are Grant Boulanger, Darcy Pippins, and Michele Whaley, all of which teach with CI. There's no denying the power of teaching with comprehensible input!

Three days of hour-long sessions, on anything and everything language related, follows the opening session.

For attendees searching out sessions based on teaching with comprehensible input, you will be glad to hear that there is a long list of presenters from which to choose.  

I compiled the list of sessions on comprehensible input below to help to help you to start planning your schedule at ACTFL. If there are other sessions that fall into this category that are not mentioned (or other errors), please let me know and I will update the documents. A link to the document is HERE.

What a line-up! And don't forget about the professional development that awaits everyong in the exhibitor hall and in the evening conversations with other teachers.  If you are still on the fence on whether or not you will go to ACTFL in Boston this November, click HERE to access ACTFL'S online program to see what else ACTFL16 has to offer!

 I hope to see you there.  :-)
  

Post ACTFL - Time to Read Blogs!

Last week many of the nations second language teachers converged in San Diego, California, for the national world language yearly convention hosted by ACTFL. I, unfortunately, was not among those teachers. (Maybe next year.)

If you are like me and missed out on this professional development, no worries. There are many bloggers that I am sure will be sharing their newfound knowledge from the sessions they attended, as well as comments in those sessions that made them step back and rethink about how they teach vocabulary, culture, and other aspects of their language.

Martina Bex, from The Comprehensible Classroom, has already posted her first blogpost inspired by ACTFL on Language Chunks and Target Structures. She first explains what language chunks & target structures are and then gives examples of ones that she has used in her classes.

I'll be checking the following blogs of Grant Boulanger, Laurie Clarc, Carrie Toth, Kristy Placido, Alina Filipescu & Haiyun Lun, Nikki Totthingham, and Michele Whaley in the next few days in hopes of finding more shared notes and thoughts on the sessions. 

If you know of bloggers that have shared ACTFL notes, please let me know!
Thankfully...my Thanksgiving vacation started today and I'll have from today until December 1 to catch up on my blog reading.  :-)  

I CAN Statements

One regret of attending ACTFL14 is that I was unable to stay for the Sunday morning sessions.  I had an early Sunday morning direct flight, (at an unbeatable price), which meant I had to miss the last 1/2 day of the conference.

However, there was one Sunday morning session that I was able to hear BEFORE it was presented on Sunday.  It was  "Helping Students Navigage the Can-Do Statements" by co-presenters Michele Whaley and Mira Canion.

On Saturday afternoon, Michele Whaley, Krista Applegate, and I were debating which session to attend.   After several minutes of searching possibilities, we admitted that we were feeling a bit weary from information overload. It was then that Michele asked if we wanted to help her by listening to a practice run through of her Sunday presentation.  Of course I said yes!  We found a quiet area and Michele proceeded to deliver her "practice" presentation on I CAN statements.  Her presentation was informative and helped me to better appreciate the usefulness of I CAN statements.

I returned home from ACTFL pondering how to incorporate I CAN statements in a way that would be beneficial for my students.  In the language department at my school, we don't teach what many refer to as well-defined "units".  It's easy to visualize how I CAN statements fit into traditional units, but not as clear for a curriculum based on high-frequency words and structures. 

It quickly became evident to me that I CAN statements fit hand-in-hand with Backward Planning or Understanding by Design. (Check Carrie Toth's blog "Somewhere to Share", especially this post, for an explanation.)  I looked at what I wanted the students to be able to do and then wrote I CAN statements that matched those goals.  After the statements were written, it was easy to align the class activities and stories to match the statements. (Michele Whaley wrote a blog post this week with an example of how she is implementing the I CAN statements with her students.  Find it HERE!)

On the first day of school after Thanksgiving break, I greeted my students at the door with the above paper of I CAN statements.  Each day I remind them to check the paper and sign any statements they can complete.  Today as I circulated through the class as the students were working in groups, I noticed a student's paper with her signature in several cuffs.  It was evident to me that students are using the statements to monitor their progress. (Note: The I CAN statements pictured above are guiding the students to pull together what we've been working on for the entire semester as they look ahead to the final exam which is less than 20 instructional days away. My future I CAN statements will be more specific to relate to our "units".)
 
This is only the beginning! I have ideas bouncing around my head in other ways to use the I CAN statements, and when I have time...(hopefully soon), I'll write additional statements for our "units".

ACTFL Presentation: Increasing TL Communication w/ Film Shorts & Comprehensible Input

Last Saturday, at the ACTFL 2013 convention in Orlando, FL,  I presented a session entitled "Increasing TL Communication w/ Film Shorts & Comprehensible Input".  A copy of the handout is available to view or for download below.  It's not as visually attractive as the powerpoint with embedded videos, but the information is the same.

Thank you to those that supported me by attending the session.  It was reassuring to see members of my PLN from #langchat in my session that I met for the first time at ACTFL.  It was my first time presenting and their support meant the world to me. 

  

ACTFL and 90% TL Goal

Last week at our World Languages Department meeting, we had a discussion on the percentage of time we teach in the target language. I challenged my department to ask one of their students to tally the time spent in English and the time spent in the TL for a class period.  I took this challenge during my Spanish 2 class period today and asked for a volunteer to track my use of English.  Let me first say that knowing a student is clicking the stop watch as soon as you speak English is a great incentive to stay in the TL.  It's possible that the results may have been slightly higher due to that motivation, but I didn't feel like I was conducting class any differently than usual.  The results: she timed me for 64.5 minutes: 2.5 minutes in English and 62 minutes in Spanish = 96%.  She handed her time stats to me at the end of class and I noticed that she even included time intervals of 10 seconds; no mercy! I'm sure the percents vary from day to day, but my goal is the 90% mark or higher.  

If you are a member of ACTFL (American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages), you may have read the article in the October 2012 issue of The Language Educator, written by Douglass Crouse, regarding "ACTFL's recommendation that communication in the target language comprises at least 90% of instructional time."  The article provides several educator's perspectives on how they accomplish this goal and a list of resources to learn more and connect with colleagues about teaching in the target language and language acquisition.  (You may even notice a familiar face in the article.☺)

If you are not a member of ACTFL, you can access this article on the below link in which they make several sample articles available to non-members.
October 2012 - The Language Educator - Going for 90% Plus: How to Stay in the Target Language.

In one part of the article, Crouse states that the 90% goal needs to be accomplished through Comprehensible Input.  I found this to be true in my teaching.  Several years ago I was feeling good about the fact that the 2nd semester started in January and I didn't speak any English to my Spanish 1 students until the end of April or beginning of May.  Looking back, I now realize that I was missing a key element - Comprehensible Input.  It wasn't beneficial to the students if I was speaking the TL if the students weren't comprehending it.  After a great deal of reading about different strategies and methods on Comprehensible Input and attending several workshops and conferences on TPRS, I have a better understanding on how to accomplish this in my classroom.   My goal of speaking in the TL through Comprehensible Input is one of my top priorities this year. 

Someone once wrote, "there are two times that students are not learning the language: 1-when you are are not speaking in the TL, and 2-when they don't understand what you are saying in the TL.  

Several nights ago I saw the following tweet with the #spanishteachers hashtag that reminded me how frustrated students are when we don't make the language comprehensible.  I'm posting his tweet on my blog to remind me that the type of teacher the student is referring to in the tweet is what I need to guard against if I sincerely want my students to understand what I'm saying and enjoy acquiring the language.

  

   This semester I have two Spanish 1 classes, one Spanish 2 class, and 1 Spanish 4 class.  Tomorrow I'll have a student keep track of the TL in the level 1 class.  I know I should check that on a regular basis to keep myself accountable with ACTFL's recommendation.