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
Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts
Thursday, July 13, 2017
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.
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
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.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages 2016
Over the last few years I have attended numerous conferences for world language teachers (PSMLA, NECTFL, and ACTFL) and hands down this year's Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages that was held in Columbus, Ohio, on March 10-12, was easily one of my favorites.
Some of the highlights were:
1) GRANT BOULANGER received the CSCTFL Teacher of the Year Award! Congratulations GRANT!!!
I am confident that everyone that knows Grant, will agree that he deserves to be recognized and celebrated for his passion for teaching Spanish with the belief that ALL students can be successful. It's exciting that this award will provide Grant with additional opportunities to share how he connects with his students and starts them on their way to proficiency in their second language.
2. John De Mado was the Keynote Speaker. He didn't deliver the one-two punch. He delivered the one-two-three-four-five.....ninety-nine, one hundred, etc. punch. His straight talk about education, the illusion of education, the perceived literary problem, etc. left me wishing that ALL educators, not only world language teachers, could hear his message.
Several truths from John de Mado's Keynote were:
- Literacy begins with Comprehensible Input.
- Telling students what they need to know to say back to you on a test is NOT education. It's an illusion of education.
- Computer programming is NOT a culture.
- Textbooks were NOT designed to be the curriculum!
- Where languages are celebrated, literacy thrives; where languages are atrophied, literacy declines.
- One cause of devolving language is high-stakes testing ill-conceived mandates.
- Standardized testing is killing us. It's killing our minds. It's killing our literacy.
3. The sessions and workshops! There were between 16-21 sessions happening at one time, not to mention the 3-hour workshops that were also offered in the mornings and afternoons.
A common problem for me was which session to attend because there were usually several sessions that I wanted to attend scheduled for the same time. When there was a conflict, I decided to attend sessions of presenters that I had never heard present before and/or presenters that may not be presenting at the next conference I will be attending, IFLT16 in Chattanooga, TN.
Below are my notes & reflections and presenter comment's on the sessions that focused particularly on Comprehensible Input and Reading. (The reflections are listed in chronological order.)
Craig Klein @profeklein aka Spanish Cuentos
Exhibitor All Star Session: The Power of Comprehensible Input and Storytelling
Craig started the session by sharing his journey from teaching college students to his move to teaching elementary students. He quickly came to the conclusion that he needed a different game plan. After observing another teacher whose students were comfortably speaking in their second language, he analyzed what words they were using and realized that they were using a core vocabulary which was sufficient for their communication needs at that level. This led him to search information from available online resources, such as blogs, videos, Twittter, etc. about teaching with stories and with comprehensible input.
He apparently is a quick learner! He shared many videos of his students acting in class, retelling stories, and telling their own stories with props they created at home. I wish everyone at the conference could have viewed those student videos because there would be NO doubt that storytelling is powerful in second language acquisition.
Additional comments by Craig and/or ideas from his classroom:
- Teaching with stories and CI works at any level.
- High amount of Input is needed before Output.
- Create finger puppets to introduce vocabulary (ex: Make a blue spoon finger puppet with eyes. Use inanimate objects instead of always using animals or people.)
- Tell your students that you will publish their stories in a newsletter that you send to parents and then you will have a flood of stories from your students.
- Students prepare a story at home and come to school prepared to illustrate the story on the board and tell it to their classmates.
Check out his Spanish Cuentos blog HERE.
Check out the video El Ratón Pablito for an example of his online stories.
Check out this video of his 4th grade students telling a story. They were NOT reading from a script when they recorded the video.
Seriously, GO to his Spanish Cuentos blog and you'll find a boatload of ideas!
Genius!!!
Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell @SECottrell & Wendy Farabaugh @MmeFarab
Effective Storytelling with Consistency, Cartooning, and Cool Content
Sara-Elizabeth started the session with a story in Spanish and later Wendy demonstrated storytelling in French. (Wendy has some major acting skillz!)
My reflection/notes & comments by presenters:
- Introduce "dice" (s/he says) early in beginning levels so you can say "He says, I want to go to the party." which allows you to give repetitions of the first person plural form.
- Use Goldilocks story to teach este, ese, aquel (this one, that one, and that one over there)
- Push for proficiency by asking students to add details.
- Use cartooning (simple shapes with obvious details) to help students visualize.
- Check YouTube on how to draw simple figures for storytelling.
As I say, less is more when it comes to sketching!
Teri Wiechart @TeriWiechart
Put TPR Back Into TPRS
Teri is the TPR pro! She demonstrated the power of TPR by giving commands to 5 non-speaking French attendees. The were quick learners with Teri as their teacher.
My Reflections & notes and Teri's comments:
- Create 3x3 grids to track and recycle vocabulary taught to students and then add more grids of words to build vocabulary.
- Highly recommends Contee Seely's book "TPR is more than commands"
- Play with words used in commands - make odd combinations
- Chain commands - how many commands can students follow correctly? (Say 3 commands - students act them out; say 5 commands - students act them out; continue adding commands to find the highest number that can be completed)
- Teri allows students to give her commands as long as they are physically possible and not rude
- Student gives commands to teacher and she narrates the commands in first person singular as she performs them.
- Make mistakes when following commands to see if students recognize the error.
- Use numbers in commands so students start to learn them.
Grant Boulanger @grantboulanger (2016 CSCTFL Teacher of the Year)
Best of Minnesota: The Art of Engaging Novice Learners
In true Grant Boulanger fashion, he started his session by getting to know the participants by asking them what level they taught, where they were from, etc. Grant shared examples of how he first makes students feel as part of a community and then how he engages the students in the classroom using the Target Language. Most helpful for me was watching a short video clip of Grant interacting with the students in his class.
My reflection/notes and comments by Grant:
- Personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations ~Jeremy Hsu
- Be attentive to students and be in the moment with them
- Keep it Simple in the Classroom
- For language to be acquired provide input that is: Understandable, Interesting, and Repetitive
- We acquire language when we understand messages.
- It doesn't matter is language is comprehensible if it hasn't been comprehended. (Grant quoted John De Mado's keynote speech)
- Interaction accelerates acquisition
- Teachers need to create a classroom environment that will allow language acquisition to occur
- Intentional planning must yield to flexibility
- Students must make eye contact with teacher and respond to what the teacher says - facial expression, verbally, body posture
- Validate a student by asking him about his new hairdo, new shirt, and talk to other students about the student's response
- Create a space of JOY and SUCCESS in your classroom! (photo right: Grant shows student's weekly bathroom pass in which she signed out of every class except his. She didn't want to leave the class!)
Check out Grant's blog!
Mira Canion @MCanion
Reading is Thinking; Making True Learning Visible
When Mira Canion is the presenter, be assured that you will be an active participant in the session. (The downfall to this is that I did very little tweeting or taking written notes during the session.)
Mira started the session with a photo and then asked participants related to the photo. Some questions were easy to answer, while others required us to think about how we arrived at that answer. In some cases, our background knowledge and experiences influenced our answers. She pushed the participants to explain how they arrived at their answer, helping us to delve into the invisible thinking that steered us to the answer we gave. We then compared the first photo to another one that was similar but carried a much heavier meaning and impact on the people's lives in the photo.
Mira had us break into groups of 4 and then each of us were assigned a number. This helped to ensure that all group members were participating in the discussion questions.
Later, she demonstrated activities that can be used in connection with a text, such as Quiz, Quiz, Trade, (photo on left) in which the teacher writes questions about a text and gives the questions to the students. Students then pair up and ask each other their question, then trade their papers, and pair up with another student to repeat the process.
Check out Mira's blog!
The list of sessions above are a sampling of the sessions that I attended. I will definitely consider attending this conference again, although I REALLY wish presenters didn't need to bring their own LCD projector and speakers (which I forgot and Christy Miller kindly lent her speakers to Krista and me for our presentation.)
Next conference: IFLT!!!! And I know, without a doubt, that IFLT will provide powerful professional development!
Some of the highlights were:
1) GRANT BOULANGER received the CSCTFL Teacher of the Year Award! Congratulations GRANT!!!
I am confident that everyone that knows Grant, will agree that he deserves to be recognized and celebrated for his passion for teaching Spanish with the belief that ALL students can be successful. It's exciting that this award will provide Grant with additional opportunities to share how he connects with his students and starts them on their way to proficiency in their second language.
2. John De Mado was the Keynote Speaker. He didn't deliver the one-two punch. He delivered the one-two-three-four-five.....ninety-nine, one hundred, etc. punch. His straight talk about education, the illusion of education, the perceived literary problem, etc. left me wishing that ALL educators, not only world language teachers, could hear his message.
Several truths from John de Mado's Keynote were:
- Literacy begins with Comprehensible Input.
- Telling students what they need to know to say back to you on a test is NOT education. It's an illusion of education.
- Computer programming is NOT a culture.
- Textbooks were NOT designed to be the curriculum!
- Where languages are celebrated, literacy thrives; where languages are atrophied, literacy declines.
- One cause of devolving language is high-stakes testing ill-conceived mandates.
- Standardized testing is killing us. It's killing our minds. It's killing our literacy.
3. The sessions and workshops! There were between 16-21 sessions happening at one time, not to mention the 3-hour workshops that were also offered in the mornings and afternoons.
A common problem for me was which session to attend because there were usually several sessions that I wanted to attend scheduled for the same time. When there was a conflict, I decided to attend sessions of presenters that I had never heard present before and/or presenters that may not be presenting at the next conference I will be attending, IFLT16 in Chattanooga, TN.
Below are my notes & reflections and presenter comment's on the sessions that focused particularly on Comprehensible Input and Reading. (The reflections are listed in chronological order.)
Craig Klein @profeklein aka Spanish Cuentos
Exhibitor All Star Session: The Power of Comprehensible Input and Storytelling
Craig started the session by sharing his journey from teaching college students to his move to teaching elementary students. He quickly came to the conclusion that he needed a different game plan. After observing another teacher whose students were comfortably speaking in their second language, he analyzed what words they were using and realized that they were using a core vocabulary which was sufficient for their communication needs at that level. This led him to search information from available online resources, such as blogs, videos, Twittter, etc. about teaching with stories and with comprehensible input. He apparently is a quick learner! He shared many videos of his students acting in class, retelling stories, and telling their own stories with props they created at home. I wish everyone at the conference could have viewed those student videos because there would be NO doubt that storytelling is powerful in second language acquisition.
Additional comments by Craig and/or ideas from his classroom:
- Teaching with stories and CI works at any level.
- High amount of Input is needed before Output.
- Create finger puppets to introduce vocabulary (ex: Make a blue spoon finger puppet with eyes. Use inanimate objects instead of always using animals or people.)
- Tell your students that you will publish their stories in a newsletter that you send to parents and then you will have a flood of stories from your students.
- Students prepare a story at home and come to school prepared to illustrate the story on the board and tell it to their classmates.
Check out his Spanish Cuentos blog HERE.
Check out the video El Ratón Pablito for an example of his online stories.
Check out this video of his 4th grade students telling a story. They were NOT reading from a script when they recorded the video.
Seriously, GO to his Spanish Cuentos blog and you'll find a boatload of ideas!
Genius!!!
Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell @SECottrell & Wendy Farabaugh @MmeFarab
Effective Storytelling with Consistency, Cartooning, and Cool Content
Sara-Elizabeth started the session with a story in Spanish and later Wendy demonstrated storytelling in French. (Wendy has some major acting skillz!)
My reflection/notes & comments by presenters:
- Introduce "dice" (s/he says) early in beginning levels so you can say "He says, I want to go to the party." which allows you to give repetitions of the first person plural form.
- Use Goldilocks story to teach este, ese, aquel (this one, that one, and that one over there)
- Push for proficiency by asking students to add details.
- Use cartooning (simple shapes with obvious details) to help students visualize.
- Check YouTube on how to draw simple figures for storytelling.
As I say, less is more when it comes to sketching!
Teri Wiechart @TeriWiechart
Put TPR Back Into TPRS
Teri is the TPR pro! She demonstrated the power of TPR by giving commands to 5 non-speaking French attendees. The were quick learners with Teri as their teacher.
My Reflections & notes and Teri's comments:
 |
| Teri & classroom mgmt |
- Create 3x3 grids to track and recycle vocabulary taught to students and then add more grids of words to build vocabulary.
- Highly recommends Contee Seely's book "TPR is more than commands"
- Play with words used in commands - make odd combinations
- Chain commands - how many commands can students follow correctly? (Say 3 commands - students act them out; say 5 commands - students act them out; continue adding commands to find the highest number that can be completed)
- Teri allows students to give her commands as long as they are physically possible and not rude
- Student gives commands to teacher and she narrates the commands in first person singular as she performs them.
- Make mistakes when following commands to see if students recognize the error.
- Use numbers in commands so students start to learn them.
Grant Boulanger @grantboulanger (2016 CSCTFL Teacher of the Year)
Best of Minnesota: The Art of Engaging Novice Learners
In true Grant Boulanger fashion, he started his session by getting to know the participants by asking them what level they taught, where they were from, etc. Grant shared examples of how he first makes students feel as part of a community and then how he engages the students in the classroom using the Target Language. Most helpful for me was watching a short video clip of Grant interacting with the students in his class.
My reflection/notes and comments by Grant:
- Personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations ~Jeremy Hsu
- Be attentive to students and be in the moment with them
- Keep it Simple in the Classroom
- For language to be acquired provide input that is: Understandable, Interesting, and Repetitive
- We acquire language when we understand messages.
- It doesn't matter is language is comprehensible if it hasn't been comprehended. (Grant quoted John De Mado's keynote speech)- Interaction accelerates acquisition
- Teachers need to create a classroom environment that will allow language acquisition to occur
- Intentional planning must yield to flexibility
- Students must make eye contact with teacher and respond to what the teacher says - facial expression, verbally, body posture
- Validate a student by asking him about his new hairdo, new shirt, and talk to other students about the student's response
- Create a space of JOY and SUCCESS in your classroom! (photo right: Grant shows student's weekly bathroom pass in which she signed out of every class except his. She didn't want to leave the class!)
Check out Grant's blog!
Mira Canion @MCanion
Reading is Thinking; Making True Learning Visible
When Mira Canion is the presenter, be assured that you will be an active participant in the session. (The downfall to this is that I did very little tweeting or taking written notes during the session.)
Mira started the session with a photo and then asked participants related to the photo. Some questions were easy to answer, while others required us to think about how we arrived at that answer. In some cases, our background knowledge and experiences influenced our answers. She pushed the participants to explain how they arrived at their answer, helping us to delve into the invisible thinking that steered us to the answer we gave. We then compared the first photo to another one that was similar but carried a much heavier meaning and impact on the people's lives in the photo.
Mira had us break into groups of 4 and then each of us were assigned a number. This helped to ensure that all group members were participating in the discussion questions.Later, she demonstrated activities that can be used in connection with a text, such as Quiz, Quiz, Trade, (photo on left) in which the teacher writes questions about a text and gives the questions to the students. Students then pair up and ask each other their question, then trade their papers, and pair up with another student to repeat the process.
Check out Mira's blog!
The list of sessions above are a sampling of the sessions that I attended. I will definitely consider attending this conference again, although I REALLY wish presenters didn't need to bring their own LCD projector and speakers (which I forgot and Christy Miller kindly lent her speakers to Krista and me for our presentation.)
Next conference: IFLT!!!! And I know, without a doubt, that IFLT will provide powerful professional development!
Monday, March 7, 2016
CSCTFL 2016 - A few days away
 |
| Program cover - CSCTFL 2016 |
Then I read that in 2016 CSCTFL was going to take place in Columbus, Ohio. I immediately put it on my wish list of conferences to attend and I set to work to write two session proposals. Imagine how excited I was to receive a congratulatory email stating that my proposals were accepted!
So many (great) sessions, so little time
Click HERE to access the lengthy list of incredible sessions available for the 3-day conference. How can that many great sessions be offered over such a short period of time???
When the conference schedule was first published, (months ago), I read through the l-o-n-g list of sessions and made a schedule of priority sessions to attend. (Click here to see my tentative list of priority sessions. I'm sure I'll be adding a few more possibilities on the 6-hour drive to Columbus.)
Click here for a list of sessions on Grant Boulanger's blog, offered by the #langchat moderators.
If there is a downfall to this year's conference, it is that there are several sessions that I REALLY would like to attend but they occur at the same time, or they occur when I am presenting. My game plan: Divide and conquer. Basically, I am hoping to find friends that are also torn about which sessions to attend, then we'll attend different sessions and regroup to share the insights from the sessions we attended.
Two sessions I know for sure that I will attend:
As luck would have it, both times I am presenting there are other sessions I wish I could attend. Since I haven't figured out the whole cloning aspect, I going to have to rely on tweets and blogs to friends to share what is happening in those sessions.
A short description of the two sessions that I will be presenting are:
1. On Friday from 5:00-6:00, my colleague, Krista Kovalchick, a French and Latin teacher that teaches next door to be a Palmyra Area High School, and I will be presenting on "Breathe Life into Reading to Increase Student Engagement and Comprehension". Reading is a powerful tool in the WL classroom and our presentation includes various examples on how to increase student engagement with fun and interactive reading activities. We included several videos from our classrooms so you can see the level of student engagement during those activties.
2. The following day, Saturday, from 9:30-10:30, I am flying solo on my second presentation entitled, "Integrating Apps and Tech Tools into a 90%+ TL Classroom". The emphasis is on using apps and websites that provide ADDED VALUE to a WL classroom. I enjoy experimenting with technology and new and improved apps, but the bottom line is if the app or tech steals time from the class instead of providing ADDED VALUE, it doesn't pass the test for my classroom.
If you are planning to attend CSCTFL this week, Krista and I would be honored to share with you what is happening in our classrooms, as well as learn from YOU what is successful in your classroom.
I don't think it is too early to say THANK YOU to the organizers and those that are working behind the scenes to make this three-day professional development opportunity a reality. I repeat: I am looking forward to attending many informative sessions and learning from outstanding world language teachers in the Central State Conference area and beyond!
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