Novel Activities - Popsicle Emojis & Re-creating Scenes

Some of my favorite activities and/or mini-projects that I use with students are ones that can be used with more than one specific novel. This semester I tried two new activities when we were reading the novel, El Escape Cubano, by Mira Canion, but they can easily be used with other novels and with other languages.  

Popsicle Emojis
The first is an activity that Mira Canion gave to me to try that is coming in the teacher's guide for the novel El Escape Cubano. Think of it as your insider's SNEAK PEAK into the teacher's guide. With her permission, I am blogging about it while we wait for the complete guide. (If you have bought a teacher's guide from Mira for her other novels, you know it will be packed full with useful materials!)

First I created a document on an 8.5 x 11.5 paper with 6 emojis: happy, scared, in love, sad, nervous, and angry. I made 30 copies for a classroom set and cut out the individual emojis. (Use the school paper cutter and it will go quickly. Your students can glue the emojis on the popsicle sticks. Save the class set and they'll be ready to use at a moment's notice.)

I bought large popsicle sticks and gave students instructions on which emojis to pair together. Then they glued two emojis (front and back) on the popsicle sticks. When completed, each student had 3 popsicle sticks with 6 emojis.

We had read and discussed the chapters in which the characters in the story are on a raft between Cuba and Florida, with no land in sight. Then I chose sentences from the text for students to identify how a character was feeling at the time. I read a sentence and students chose an emoji to hold up. Sometimes students held up different emojis which provided the perfect opportunity to discuss why each student had chosen the emoji. There doesn't always have to be the same answer and it's interesting to see which students choose which emoji.

This activity involved listening comprehension AND it required students to think about how the characters were feeling which helped the students to connect and relate to the characters more than they would have by merely reading the text.


Re-creating Scenes


In chapter 9 of El Escape Cubano, the characters are on a raft in the middle of nowhere and they have a dangerous encounter with a shark. I wanted students to highlight the events of the chapter by using cutouts of the characters, the shark (which they drew earlier - read about it in this post), and a raft.  

Some of the students were creative and added other objects and color to their scenes. 

(Please, no judgement on my artistic skills, or lack thereof, of the stick figures above; as usual, this idea came to me at the 11th hour so the people and raft sketches were done in record-breaking time!)

The students followed the instructions as shown below:

Mini-Project for Chapter 9 of El Escape Cubano

1. Read chapter 9 of El Escape Cubano

2. Find a sentence that is part of a scene from ch9. Use the manipulatives and create the scene. You may make a speech bubble and write the dialog (if there is dialog) and lay the speech bubble on your scene OR create the speech bubble in Google Slides.

3.  Take a photo of the scene with the iPad.

4. Create a Google Slide presentation with the photos. Title it "Ch9 recreations & your name"

5. Add 4 slides after the title slide.

6. Upload the first photo to slide 2 of the Google Slide presentation.

7. If you didn't add any speech bubbles before uploading the photo, add them now on the slide. Pull sentences directly from the book that describe the scene and add those sentences on the slide.

8. Create 3 additional scenes using the same instructions.

9. Upload your finished Google Slide presentation to Schoology.


Students worked with a partner to create the 4 scenes. This mini-project required the students to reread the chapter to (1) find scenes which could easily be depicted with the cut-outs, and (2) be able to arrange the characters, the shark, and the raft in the correct positions to match the text. 

After the projects were uploaded, it was easy to project them on the board and I used them as a review of the chapter.

FYI, when I give mini-projects like this, I want the focus to be on reading and/or creating with the text and not to spend a huge amount of time on sketching. By having the characters and shark already sketched, the majority of the students' time was spent on reading, writing, and arranging the characters in the scenes. I gave them 30-ish minutes to complete the project which meant there wasn't time to waste.

Below are several slides from 3 different presentations that students completed:
  

HAPPY READING!

14+ Uses for the Feltboard App in the Language Class

Earlier today I wrote this post about the New and Improved Feltboard App.  Since I rediscovered the app this morning, ideas continue to pop into my mind in how I can use the app in a comprehensible way with my beginning levels of Spanish and additional ways to use it with students with higher abilities.

I have 14+ ideas listed below, but I'm sure there are many other ideas, and I'll add them as I think about them or as others share how they use them.  Really...the small cost of this app is worth it!

1.Students read a description written by the teacher and recreate them on the ipad. My department bought this app for our ipads last year and FINALLY I have beneficial ways to use it this year. Update September 2015: I created three scenes and saved each scene to my camera roll on my ipad. Then I typed a description of each scene. Students worked with a partner to read the description and create it on the ipad using the Feltboard app.  After each picture was created, they had to show the ipad to me. I compared their scene to the photo on my camera roll and I signed their paper if it was correct. Students then returned to their seats and worked on the next scene. The paper can be found HERE.



2. Students listen as the teacher describes a scene and they re-create it on their ipads.

3.  Students receive a printed copy of a feltboard made by the teacher.  They listen as the teacher describes it and they circle anything that DOES NOT match the teacher's description.  (Ex:  La chica llevaba botas rojas.  Students circle the black boots that the girl is wearing.)

PHOTO A

4.  The teacher creates two separate feltboards with many similarities, but several differences too, and makes copies of them.  (see images on the right) Students work with a partner.  One student has photo A and the other photo B. WITHOUT SEEING their partner's paper, they must communicate in the TL to find the differences.

PHOTO B

5. The teacher creates a feltboard packed full of different objects (especially useful if they are words that you have recently introduced) and projects it onto the board.  After a determined amount of time, the teacher turns off the projector and students write a list of the things they remembered seeing.

6. Practice descriptions such as emotions, clothing, hair color, and prepositions of location using the 9-square grid. (Find an full explanation and ready-made image to download HERE.) 

7. The teacher creates a feltboard packed full of different objects (especially useful if they are words that you have recently introduced) and projects it onto the board.  After a determined amount of time, the teacher turns off the projector and students write a list of the things they remember seeing. 

8.  Students use ipads to create several feltboards and email them to the teacher.  The teacher prints them or puts them on a powerpoint.  On a separate paper, the teacher writes a short summary of each feltboard and students match the summaries to the correct feltboards.

9. As a variation for number 8, the teacher will make a collage of 6 or more feltboards created by the students (a great use for a photovisi collage explained HERE).  Project the collage onto the board. Instead of a full summary of each feltboard, the teacher can read, or write, sentences about each, mix the sentences, and the students search for the feltboard that each sentence matches.

10. For upper levels that have a better command of the language, the teacher creates a feltboard scene as a starting point for a story, and students develop the story.
Variations: 
 - The feltboard scene is the MIDDLE of the story.  Students write what happened before the scene and what WILL happen next.
- The feltboard scene is the END of the story and students write what happened to lead up to that point.

11.  The teacher creates a feltboard scene and makes copies for the students.  Then she reads a story that has nothing to do with the scene except that some of the vocabulary in the story is the same as the felt pieces.  Ex:  The feltboard may show a family in the city, but the story is about a woman that always forgets things.  As the students listen to the story, they cross off the items that were mentioned in the story.  Great listening comprehension!  At the end of the story, students can list the items that WERE NOT MENTIONED in the story.

12. Sometimes in my upper levels for a fun activity, we create a story by sitting in a circle and each person adds a sentence to the story.  A variation of this can be done while illustrating it with the feltboard as the students add a sentence. OR...

VARIATION:  What I like better is that the teacher is the one that has the ipad with the feltboard app, and it is hooked up to the projector so students can see it.  The first student says a sentence. The teacher adds an item and the next student must weave that item into the story. This could be quite an interesting variation.  

13.  The teacher creates a several feltboards to depict a short story.  Email the feltboard pictures and put them into a 4 square grid on a powerpoint.  Students guess the order of the story before they hear the story.  They write or say a logical story narration to justify how they ordered the pictures.

VARIATION: Students read the description written by the teacher, match the pictures to the 4 different parts of the story. Then put them in a logical order.

14.  A basic activity: the teacher creates a feltboard with a large number of felt pieces and copies it or projects it onto the board.  Students work with a partner or in teams, taking turns saying a sentence that includes one of the felt pieces.

VARIATION:  Students simply say the name and color of the felt piece and cross them off until all the items have been identified.  (not a very exciting use, but hey, I'm running out of ideas).

15. Assessment with Photo #1 (from #4 above). Project the photo onto the board.  Either the teacher reads a statement about the picture or distribute a paper with sentences about the picture.  Students write if the statement is TRUE or FALSE.  Option: if false, students correct the statement to make it true.

16. Assessment with Photo #1 and Photo #2 (from #4 above). Student write sentences that describe (x) number of differences between the two scenes.

What other ideas do you have to SHARE?

An Idea for iPads in the MFL Classroom

Below is a post I made on our department blog (a different blog than this one) on 1 way that I used the iPads in the classroom last week with my Spanish 2 students. 

I also used the iPads with my Spanish 4b class (that's the name I call them bc they actually will ony have the same amount of language instruction at the end of the semester as other Spanish 4 students), but I didn't post any of their examples on the blog. We are very fortunate here at Palmyra Area High School to have a set of iPads to share with the Social Studies department.  But if you are like me, you don't have time to check out the iPads to see what apps are available, plus then you'll need time to create lesson plans that focus on acquisition and not on technology.  

(Post from Department Blog)
I used the iPads during the first semester and I wasn't pleased with the results.  For starters, I used the Sock Puppets app because I knew the recording time was limited and I didn't want the students writing long dialogues. However, we ran into problems saving the dialogues and other small problems for which I hadn't planned. (You won't know what problem will arise when using new technology but you always need to be flexible and have a back-up plan!)  Thankfully KK was there to help with the small problems, but I still wasn't happy with the results.

I reflected on the lesson that evening and know one thing that caused problems.  I originally had planned for the students to write the dialogues the day BEFORE the iPads were in the classroom, but the previous day we were finishing up a TPRS story and ran out of time.  

The second problem was the voices of the Sock Puppets.  They're cute when you are listening to them in your L1, but their voice variations made it more difficult for the students to understand L2.

Last week I used the iPads for the second time and I'm glad to say it went much smoother.  I wanted students to make stories in the past tense with high frequency verbs using the  Educreations app to display at Palmyra Pride Night.  It worked out well that they worked on this assignment on one of the days that I had no voice. Below are the steps and a few examples.

1. I distributed papers to the students with a basic outline: somebody wanted something and went 2 places to look for it. They decided if the person was able to find what they were searching for or not.

2. I distributed the StoryBoard paper below.

Students worked alone or in pairs to write and sketch their story.  There were several words they had to use:  buscó (looked for), quería (wanted), fue (went) and 3 others.

3. When their story was written and sketched, they met with me to go over the story.  

4.  They were only allowed to get an ipad out of the cart AFTER they had met with me.  (At the beginning of class I assigned each of them a number that they will use whenever we use the iPads again.)

Students sketched the stories (goal was 6 sketches & at least 6 sentences) and, if time allowed, they added the text on the screen too.

5. After the story was ready to record, they met with me again to go over the story.

6.  They went out into the hall to record.  I tried to keep it to two groups of students in the hall at one time.  If you allow more than two groups to record in the hall, you'll have background noise just as if they had stayed in the classroom.

7.  The following day we saved time at the end of the lesson to watch the stories together. (That also helped my voice problem.)

THOUGHTS on the lesson:

- I asked for students thoughts on this assignment and they told me they enjoyed it. It was a nice change for them.

- It worked MUCH better this time since their stories were written BEFORE they touched the iPads.  They had a limited amount of time and had to stay on task to complete the work. One limitation to the Educreations app is that you can't save a story and work on it the following day.   

- I would much prefer "asking" a story with them because I know that is how acquisition takes place, but without a voice, and because I wanted some concrete examples for Palmyra Pride Night, it fit my plans. 

- This is definitely OUTPUT, no getting around it.  It needs to be limited.  However, I put all the Educreations stories on Edmodo so they can watch their own and their classmates' PLUS their parents can watch them too.  It is a nice way for parents to see their child's progress.

Four examples are below:
 
   
 

Two More Apps (w/ limited sharing capabilities)

I heard about two new apps within the last week.  The first one I heard about today because it showed up on my AppsGoneFree app because it is free, at least for today.  It is called Speech Journal, by the Mobile Education Store.  

If different students use the app, they will need to click on the Not You? button and sign in with their first and last name, no email address needed.

The first screen of Speech Journal prompts you to choose an image.  You can take a photo with the ipad camera or choose an image from your Photo Library. There is the option to move and scale the photo. 

After you upload the photo, a Record button appears.  After you record, you have the options as shown on the image to the right.  If you play your recording and do not like it, simply click on "Erase and Re-Record".  If you only want to narrate one photo, then select Save Recording and you are finished.  Your file will be stored in the Archives.

To make a narrated slide show of several photos, after you are satisfied with the first recording, click on "Choose Image" to add more images and more recordings.

The downfall to this app is the only way to share the recording is through email.  If your students make the recording on a classroom iPad, you can always listen to the recordings directly from the iPad or have them email it to you.  However, the email separates the images from the sound.  Hopefully in the future they will provide more user-friendly options for sharing.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

@kristindunc tweeted about the second app, Story Creator.  It is a digital storytelling app that permits you to upload photos and record a narration of the pictures.  It evens permits you to put a short video on the "page" instead of a photo. 

A nice feature is that you can synchronize the recording with highlighting the words, but if you are not comfortable with editing, it may be a disadvantage instead of an advantage.
 

I had problems with the app earlier today when I deleted photos, and then it would kick me completely out of the program.  To share your finished product you can email it, but your friends will need to download the Story Creator app to view your story, or you can send a download link via email. 

Both these apps have obvious limitations; making them useful for only specific projects.

Sock Puppets and Storytelling

In the past, I tried using Sock Puppets for a class activity.  I blogged about it HERE.  There were some problems and I haven't had the students use the Sock Puppets app since then.  However, I forgot to mention the other way I had used the Sock Puppets app in the past.

In class, the students help me to create stories fairly often.  For something different, I used the Sock Puppets app to retell the story, however I changed a few facts about the story.  The students listened to the story and had to list the things that were different from the story told by the Sock Puppet compared to our story that we created in class.  It was a short activity but because the students were listening to a Sock Puppet, it seemed to catch their attention more than if I had just read the story to them with the changes.

Another plus, it was a breeze to make.  You don't need any tricky tech skills to be able to create something using the Sock Puppets app.
CLICK HERE to see the short video.

Some hard core language teachers may not like that the puppet changes the voice of the person speaking, so it does not sound very Spanish.  I don't see it as a problem as long as it is used sparingly.

The Sock Puppets app is for the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod touch.  It is a free app but if you want more than 30 seconds of recording time, you will need to pay a small fee to upgrade the app.

PuppetPals App - Uses in MFL Classroom

Are you looking for a new idea to introduce a unit or a way to incorporate newly introduced vocabulary into your lesson?  iPad has many apps that allow you to be as creative without having to be extremely tech savvy.  One app that meets this description is the PuppetPals app.  

This morning (when I was avoiding writing lesson plans), I created a new video with the PuppetPals app relating to Chac Mool.  It was fresh on my mind due to a tweet last night from @esantacruz13 with a link to a video and a blog post with 5 embedded readings of Chac Mool written by Kristy Placido (@placido on Twitter).  

In not much time, and little effort, I made the following video.  Thanks to Carrie Toth (@senoraCMT) and Kristy Placido (@placido) for starring (unknowingly at first) and for granting me permission to post it on my blog!

Click HERE to see video.


PuppetPals is free, however, I strongly recommend that you purchase the "Director's Pass" for a few dollars.  With the director's pass, you can upload your own photos for backgrounds or for characters.

Last semester I read, Piratas, by Mira Canion and Carol Gaab. With PuppetPals and its backdrop of a pirate ship and pirate characters, the next time I read this book with my students I will be able to create a conversation between the characters or, even more interesting for the students, add a photo of one of my students in the story for him/her to  "interview" one of the characters.

 

With the purchase of the Director's Pass, this app will allow you and your students, to quickly create short videos relating to any topic you are currently studying.  

Other available themes (backdrops and characters) are western, community, fairy tales, aliens, and several others.  An example of using your own backdrop and characters is in the photo below on the bottom left.  It is a screenshot from a video in which the cow and duck are looking for the girl that usually feeds them because they are hungry.  While they are talking about her and asking where, she flies across the top of the screen, unnoticed by both animals.  That is just the beginning of the ways in which you can be creative with this app.

 

If you have the app or decide to buy it and make a video for class, I would love it if you would share some of YOUR ideas and YOUR videos.  

Pinterest & Educreations - Do they play together well?

TECH HELP NEEDED!

I'm looking for some tech help from someone on my PLN.  Do you know if there is a way I can directly Pin my Educreations videos DIRECTLY on Pinterest?  

Or, must I first embed the Educreations videos on my blog and then Pin the blog post to Pinterest?

I'd like to put some videos on Pinterest but I don't particularly want to post them on my blog first.

Sample Educreations video below:
  

My first experience with iPads in Class

I used the new class set of iPads for the first time on Friday with two of my Spanish 1 classes. I felt a little like it was the good, the bad, the ugly experience. Thankfully, what started out as a frustrating experience ended on a good note.

First the bad: My plan was for the students to use the SockPuppets app to write a 3 question interview.  I wanted to keep it short for several reasons, one of them because the free version of the app has a 30 second limit.

The previous day I acted out/taught Episode 10 of Cuentos de Ensalada.  At the end of the episode the father and son say they need to get a/another job to support the family's new twins.  I had given the students a sample interview to use for a recording while getting to know the app.  Then they were supposed to write 3 questions and responses.  I allowed them to make minor changes to my questions and answers, but some students didn't limit themselves to that and really allowed their creativity to show.  The lady from tech support was there most of the class period, which was very helpful, but after one class of that experience I decided I was not going to go through that again.

The problems were:
1 - With 22 students in the class, it was too noisy for them to record in the classroom.  I sent them out to the hall which helped, but it wasn't the ideal situation.  (On a bright note: The superintendent happened to be passing through when they were recording and she was intrigued and asked two girls to explain what they were doing.  They impressed her and she was pleased to see the technology that the school bought being used by the students.)
2 - I should have had them do the writing the previous day. That was my plan, but we ran out of time and I didn't want to reschedule the date for the iPads since the tech lady was also scheduled to be there to explain the expectations to the students when using iPads.  It would have worked smoother if the students were ready to record right away.
3 - The free version of the SockPuppet app on the iPads.  Only after students had made the recordings did we find out that the free version will not allow you to email the recording. That meant we had to share all the videos they made before class ended.  There were 3 or 4 groups that we didn't have time to go over.
4 - A few of the apps made screechy noises.

Before the second Spanish 1 class of the day, I had changed the assignment.  First I asked them to tell me, in the TL, what happened the previous day in the episode and I wrote the sentences on the board.  I erased the sentences (because I didn't want them to copy them).  For the assignment, they had to work with a partner to think of 4 things that happened in the episode that they could sketch and then write on a paper two sentences that explained/described each sketch.  After I checked their sentences, they used the Educreations app to recorded themselves reading the script as they paged through the sketches they made on Educreations.

This worked better.  The only trick was the only way they could email it to me was if they created an account on Educreations.  Instead of asking them to do that, I uploaded them to my Educreations account and then embedded them on to Edmodo so they could share it with their parents online.  

Personally, I felt it was an unsuccessful class because it was all production/output and no input.  The students enjoyed it, but they didn't advance their Spanish knowledge or skills.  It sort of reminded me of my "old school" way of teaching in which I would play a review game with them and they liked it, but didn't really learn anything new from it; in other words - ZERO language acquisition taking place. :(

Now for the good:  Two boys were working in a group. One of them was absent the previous day so he took control of the iPad and was working on sketches.  The other boy is one that rarely volunteers in class.  He was more or less in charge of the writing.  When I checked their first 5 sentences, there were only 2 small errors. The quiet boy had written them by himself with no use of a translator.  I told him, "you are one of those students that don't participate in class often, but obviously all those hours of hearing the language in context and reading class stories and Cuentos de Enslada was sinking in or there is no way you could have written these sentences." They were great sentences! Spanish 1 - less than 92 class hours - and he wrote beautiful, grammatically correct sentences.  That...was the brightest part of my day on Friday and I'm smiling now, as I relive it.

I know I'll use the iPads again, but I'll have to try a different approach the next time.  Please share with me how you have successfully used iPads with your beginning levels, and at the end of the class, still felt that it was a productive, learning environment.  

The iPad & Educreations App in the MFL Classroom

If you have an iPad or have one available to use at your school, consider using it to make mini-lessons with the free Educreations App.

This school year, I have been experimenting with the Educreations App and other digital story-telling apps to record the stories that my students help me create in Spanish class.  I also made one mini-grammar lesson for my Spanish 4 students that insisted on a formal lesson on the subjunctive.  

Here is the story the students and I created on Friday. (The sound quality is usually better but I was sitting next to my noisy computer when I recorded on the iPad so I could read the script off of my computer screen.  I was in a hurry so I didn't take the time to re-record it.  Next time, I'll print out the script and move away from my computer!)

 

These are the steps I follow to make the stories:
1.  When I'm ready to "storyask" with my students, I ask for a volunteer to sketch as we create the story.
2.  I give my iPad to a student, give them a brief overall of the app, and tell them to sketch as the story develops.  
3.  I tell the student to make a minimum of 5 different sketches for the story.  
After I hand off the iPad, I usually don't check back with the student or see the sketches until the end of the class.  I'm not concerned that they're not verbally responding to my questions because I KNOW they're paying attention because they have to illustrate the story.  If they weren't paying attention to the storyline and what I am saying as we develop the story, they wouldn't be able to sketch it.
4.  Since the story was just created on the spot with the students, after they leave, I type it up on my computer because I usually give them a copy of the story to read the following day if we didn't write it together in class.
5. After the story is typed, I mark the typed version to indicate when I want to go to the next sketch on the app.  
6.  Then I record the story as one recording.  I think you are able to record each page individually, but with the script in front of me, it's no problem to record the entire story without pausing.  This way when the students view it, they do not need to click to the next page.  My goal is for the students to be able to understand the story by listening to the story, so I need to discipline myself to speak slower to make it 100% comprehensible for the students.
7.  After the story is recorded, I give it a title, save it, and link it to the class Edmodo page.  Then it is available for students to view at any time.  

There is never a shortage of students that want to make the sketches.  The following day, I like to use the story on the Educreations App as a review of the story.  Then the artist's classmates are able to see what they drew.

The Educreations app allows you to add text and upload photos.  
There are other apps that I have experimented with a little, with pros and cons for each of them.  The apps I currently have on my iPad for digital storytelling are:
- StoryKit
- Explain Everything
- Felt Board
- ZigZag Board
- ScreenChomp
- Educreations
- ShowMe
- Book Creator
- My Story

If you have a favorite app for recording lessons or stories, please share them with me.  I like the Educreations app but I know there are probably other apps that will do the same thing, maybe even easier to use, that I may not be aware of.

Apps for Spanish Class

I just learned that the Draw Something App for iPhone and iPad is now available in Spanish and 12 other languages.  How cool is that!

One way to use this is to have my students set this App to Spanish and play it with other students in the class, outside of school.  Maybe even throw in some extra credit points if they reach a certain number of plays and then show it to me when they reach that number.

An even better way to involve the students with the App is to find another class of students learning Spanish, either in the U.S. or in another country, and partner my students up with them...OR...find a class in a Spanish country to match my students to their students, or simply play as a whole class.  If I can find a class from a Spanish country that is learning English, maybe we could alternate playing the game in Spanish and English.

I love when the creators of the Apps make them available in other languages!

If you are reading this blog and are interested in starting some type of collaboration with this App, please post a comment below or send me an e-mail @ cynthia_hitz@yahoo.com.

Videos as part of the Final

Since I've used videos throughout the semester for discussions in the TL, I wanted to carry that format through in the final exam.  
My Spanish 4 curriculum includes the subjunctive and to test them on that, I used the video "Defective Detective".  They watched the video, twice, and then had to write 6 sentences giving reactions/feelings on how they felt or how a character in the video felt.  In one of the sentences, they needed to say someone was sure or certain about something to show me that they knew NOT to use the subjunctive with those expressions.

Example for "Defective Detective":
- El hombre tenía miedo que alguien atacara a su vecina.
- Me sorprende que haya tanta violencia en el resto del apartamento.
- A la anciana no le gustaba que un ratón estuviera en su cocina. 
- Es cierto que el dectective quiere proteger a su vecina.

LINK to video - CLICK HERE

Since my juniors and sophomores took their final at a different time then the seniors, when I showed the video to the seniors, the others wrote the sentences as a practice. I used a commercial for the subjunctive part of their final for the juniors and seniors. (YouTube is an unlimited resource!) 

I also used this video as part of the final for my Spanish 5 class.  Instead of writing sentences with the subjunctive, their task was to simply retell what happened in the video (in written format). If they didn't know a word they used circumlocution to get their point across.  

For the verbal part of the Spanish 4 final, I sent the students to the hall, two at a time, with either my iPad or my iPhone.  They each had different sets of questions that they had not seen before they left the class.  Then I gave them 5 minutes to answer any 3 of the 5 questions in Spanish.  They used the app. QuickVoice to record their answers.  Overall I was pleased with how well they did and how they were able to self-correct their mistakes. 

These type of finals show me the students' abilities 10 times better than any traditional grammar based test could.

Apps for Spanish Class - Akinator

Last week for something different, I started the class using an  app for the iPad called "Akinator".  It is similar to "20 Questions".  First you think of a person, real or fictional, and then Akinator asks questions for which you must answer Yes/No/Probably/I don't Know/etc.  The great thing about the app is that there are many languages in which you can play the game.

When my students walked in, I had Akinator projected on the white board.  Of course it caught their attention and they immediately said, "What's that?" and other comments.  I told them to choose a person that was real or from a book, or movie, or TV show, or cartoon character or anyone they could think of.  We then proceeded with the activity and Akinator proposed the first question in Spanish.  Many of the words in the questions were familiar but many times they had to ask me what something meant or they were able to figure it out through context.  

After Akinator correctly guessed the characters they had selected, they asked to play again, and again, and again.  I limited it to 6 or 7 times, but they wanted to play it the whole class.  I wanted to show them that simply by changing the language on games, or apps, you can learn new words in Spanish and increase your vocabulary, and....Have FUN!  

If you haven't tried Akinator yet, I strongly recommend it for when you have a few minutes at the end of class that you don't want to waste, or maybe just for an activity to change up the routine that the students will enjoy.  It costs $1.99 and worth every penny.

Sock Puppets App w/ TPRS

Three weeks ago another language teacher told me about the Sock Puppets app for iPhone and iPad.  I experimented with it and kept it on my list of possible sites to use in class when I needed to change things up a bit.

Yesterday, I started a story with my Spanish class.  I've had a student teacher since January, and yesterday was my first day to teach them since several weeks ago.  I have the skeleton of a story that I use that gives several examples of POR, and that is the story I started yesterday.  I only had 20 minutes to tell the first part of the story because I was headed on a field trip in the afternoon. 
The first part of the story was very basic and short. The students retold the story to each other and I also had them write it so I could correct it before continuing on Friday.  The first activity I did with the students today (one day after they heard the story) was: I asked them to number their paper 1-10.  Then they had to listen to the story below and find the differences in this version compared to the version from yesterday.  The Sock Puppets App made it more interesting for the students to watch. 
If you want to give more repetitions and you are afraid the students will be bored, try mixing it up with different types of repetitions that will help to keep the students' interest. 

 

ipads in Language Classes

This is not the usual type of post because I would like information from YOU...

If you are a language teacher that uses an ipad in your teaching specifically with TPRS or in the upper levels with CI (Comprehensible Input) methods, could you please share with me how you use the ipad?

Or, if you don't use an ipad in your language class because you don't have one, but have ideas for its use, please feel free to share those ideas with me also.

I look forward to hearing from YOU!

image from: http://www.reed.edu/cis/about/ipad_pilot/index.html