Resources and Links for Movie Talks Resources

For those attending the iFLT 2017 conference that were at my presentation, Movie Talk, Beyond the Basics, I have attached the link below to a document that has the links to the movies I discussed and to resources of where you can find videos for Movie Talk.

 Resource Document

Pre-conference Professional Development at iFLT2017

It's July and you know what that means: it's time for meaningful professional development at iFLT! I'm writing this from Denver, Colorado, where 500+ language teachers will converge on Tuesday to kick off the first official day of iFLT. 

My first day of iFLT started on Monday because I am serving as a coach this year.    

Coaching 4 Coaches workshop
Teri Weichart conducted a Coaches 4 Coaches session on Monday to train the coaches and

attendees that signed up for an extra session on coaching, before the start of the conference. After hugs and greetings to other members of our Coaching Tribe, we got down to business. 
Teri put 5 white poster sheets around the room and we wrote a skill on each of the posters. Later, in small groups, we discussed each poster. Below are several answers that stood out to my group that are beyond what you may normally think one would answer. 

1. Comprehensibility
Students may not recognize cognates they hear until they see them written. Don't assume the students understand you when you are using cognates.

2. Keeping Things Interesting
Skills: 
- vary energy and voice level
- go "off rails" to follow student interest
- pause to add suspense
- always give students a choice (Ex: Do you want to discuss in groups of 2 or as a whole class?)

3. Storytelling Skills
- "If it doesn't flow, let it go" - if you are telling a story and you realize it isn't interesting and not working with the students, drop it and move on. Give yourself permission to "let it go".

4. Connecting to Students
- Recognize what each individual student's engagement looks like. One student is engaged when they look directly at you, while another may be as engaged but he is looking down. Student engagement looks different for different students.

5. Other
- incorporate music, brain breaks, and CI games
- Be present in the present (show up to class in the present, not focused on the past)
- Encourage students and build up their confidence
- Accept that students' skills are where they are, not where you want them to be

Coaching Teacher SkillsLaurie Clarcq played the role of coach when Kirstin Plante taught the teacher "students" Dutch. Both of them were amazing: Kirstin on making the language comprehensible by going slowly, using gestures, writing the words in both languages in two different colors, engaging the "students", pausing and pointing at the words, expressive, etc; and Laurie with her gentle and encouraging method of providing feedback to Kirstin. (Btw, if you see Kirstin, ask her to demonstrate her version of a giraffe walking to the store.)

Then we returned to our small groups and took turns playing the roles of teacher, coach, student, and observer in the coaching format. Each role is a powerful learning experience and helped prepare us as coaches for the attendees that will visit the coaching rooms in the next few days.

Stephen Krashen talked to participants in the Fluency Fast classes and others about the power of reading and its role in language acquisition.

After the training and the Krashen talk, I'm ready for iFLT to officially start!!!


Personalizing experiences before and after conference hours

I've attended many conferences throughout the last few years in which I failed to schedule time to actually see the city and surrounding area in which the conference was held. But this year, I arrived in Denver before 9:00 am on Sunday, and spent the day with the talented Nelly Hughes (Spanish teacher from Ohio) and her family hiking at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. The park is beautiful with spectacular views. Of course, my conversations with Nelly were often related to teaching. 


At the end of the day, I bumped into friends from Pinellas School District in Florida and we went to a local restaurant, Casa Bonita, where the food was ok but the conversation was GREAT!

Suggestion: If you are able to extend your stay at a conference a day or two before or after the actual conference, DO IT.  You never know when you'll be in that city again so make the most of your time and financial of attending the conference by setting aside time to explore the area.

   

Donkey-Jote: Helping Students to Stay in the Target Language

Donkey-Jote listens for students that don't speak TL

When I attended IFLT15 in St. Paul, Minnesota, this year, one of the sessions I went to was presented by Darcy Pippins (@DarcyPippins on Twitter) on how she prepares her students for the AP test, outlining the books and curriculum starting with level 1. In her presentation (find more information about her session and others HERE), she mentioned that she uses La Rana de Vergüenza to encourage her students to stay in the TL. La Rana de Vergüenza (the frog of shame) is a stuffed animal that "hops" to a student's desk if s/he talks in English rather than in Spanish.  The frog stays on that student's desk until another student talks in English, and it then "hops" to that student's desk.  The goal for the students is to NOT have La Rana de Vergüenza on their desk as the end of the class period.

Donkey-Jote was cold :-)

I liked this strategy as soon as I heard it and planned on implementing it with my Spanish 4a & 4b* classes.  Our classes started on Monday (Aug. 24), but I hadn't mentioned the frog to my students, until the third day of class when I heard more English from my students than I cared to hear.  In the middle of class, I stood up and walked to my closet that has stuffed animals, and a variety of other handy items used in class, and started searching for a stuffed frog. I found a stuffed bird, a stuffed turkey, and then, ahhhhhh I saw him - Donkey-Jote. Donkey-Jote is a stuffed donkey (from Shrek) that I used about nine years ago for a special project when we read Don Quijote. 

I put Donkey-Jote by my chair (we sit on chairs in a circle, without desks) and explained the "rules".  The expectation in Spanish 4 (4a&4b*) is to speak in Spanish unless the student has asked for permission to speak in English.  If a student speaks in English without permission, Donkey-Jote sits on their lap or by their chair.  Donkey-Jote remains there until another student speaks in English without permission.  The student that has Donkey-Jote at the end of the class period earns a point.  After earning 3 points, the student needs to make an appointment with me during academic prep (study hall) or after school, to talk to me in Spanish for 10 minutes and at the conclusion of the 10-minute conversation, the 3 points disappear.

There are several beautiful benefits to using Donkey-Jote or La Rana de Vergüeza:
1. The students have an extra incentive to stay in the TL.
2. The students, not the teacher, are the ones listening intently for someone to slip out of the TL into English.
3. To clear the points, the student speaks with me in Spanish for 10 minutes, about whatever we choose: what's happening in the news, what's happening in school, the college the student plans to attend, the student's pet, etc, .... which is real, normal conversation in the TL.

After two days of Donkey-Jote joining our class, two different students each have 1 point. Interesting enough, I think both of the students were the first ones to talk in English and after Donkey-Jote moved to sit with them, no other students "slipped up" the rest of the class.  Small donkey - big impact.

Thank you DARCY PIPPINS! 

Update: Check out Dustin Williamson's (@dwphotoski) new addition to his class - Donkey-Jote!
  

This is Haiyun Lu's Shameful Caterpillar (see her blog post HERE for more information)
 
  



 

This is Kristy Placido's "el chavito".  He is "the tattle tale. He has been trained to sniff out use of English and alert on the person who uses it."