Ice-breakers!

At the beginning of a new school year or semester, do your students know the names of their classmates? To find out, ask your students if they can name everyone's first name. Then ask if they can name their last name too. If they don't know their classmates' names, then it's safe to assume they know very little other information about their classmates.

I asked my students the above questions and only one student was brave enough to try to name everyone in the class, although he did say he was unsure about many of the last names.  He started in the front row and after he said the student's name, the student then had to (1) stand-up, (yes, I asked them to stand for a semi-formal introduction of themselves) and (2) tell us something interesting about themselves. It is always interesting to me to hear what the students want to share about themselves. It gives me a hint to what is important to me.  

This was my Spanish 4 class so they completed all of the activities in Spanish. There are 27 students in the class and this part of the ice-breaker lasted more than 20 minutes.

Then I gave each person a quarter slip of paper and instructed them to write their name on the paper, and then to the 4 questions pictured above.  
For those that need a translation, the sentences/questions in the box are:
1. A food that you never want to eat
2. The vacation of your dreams
3. Someone with whom you want to eat a meal
4. What do you want to do after graduating (from PHS).

The students handed in their papers face down and then I randomly picked 6 of the papers and wrote the names on the board.  The students wrote 1-6 in their notebooks. I read the answers on the first paper and students looked at the list and choose a person that they thought wrote the answer from the bank of students' names.

After I had read the information on the first 6 papers, we went over the answers and the students checked their own papers.  
Scoring - 6/6 correct - 8 pts
              5/6 correct - 5 pts
              4/6 correct - 4 pts
              3/6 correct - 3 pts
              2/6 correct - 2 pts
              1/6 correct - 1 pt

We proceeded to the second and third round before we had to stop because we ran out of time.  

I liked this activity because:
- the information students had to provide was different than the typical questions such as do you have a pet?, do you play a sport? what is your hobby? etc.  
- it turned into a backdoor review of foods with the focus not specifically on the words but rather on guessing which person had written the answer
- it provided me with information about the students for use in future classes
- the students learned their classmates' names and a little information about them

Next time, I might consider switching out one of the questions for: 
Of what are you afraid? or...anything that comes to mind on that particular day.

Can you tell I'm having a good time getting to know my new students?  :-) 

Odd Uses for Marshmallows

When a new semester begins in January, I am assured of one thing: Some students come directly to my class from the previous level, and others in the class have not had the previous level for a year or more.

My goal is to make sure ALL the students feel successful from the very first day, even if it has been more than a few months since they have been in Spanish class.

This semester I chose to ease my students into Spanish 4 by using El Cacto y el Banco activities created by Paige which Carrie Toth shared on her blog. You can find the activities HERE. It includes a link to the advertisement, a powerpoint, a cloze activity, and screenshots for a retell.  

I liked the activities and I was looking for one more detail to add student voice for an opportunity to let students be creative.  The most obvious "detail" was...the marshmallow.

I bought a bag of marshmallows (less than $1) and passed the bag around the class so students could each take one. Then I asked them to think of unconventional uses for marshmallows and share their idea (in Spanish, of course) with the class. (This ties into the video because the little girl uses the marshmallow in a creative way to resolve a problem.)

Some of the student ideas:  
- use it for a pillow for ants
- put one over your nose when you're swimming to block water from entering your nose
- make comfy shoes
- put between your toes when painting your toe nails (one of my personal favorite ideas. I told students there was an extra point waiting for the first student to send me a photo of this idea in action.)
- create earrings 

Obviously, this wasn't a traditional activity, but it was successful because:
1. ALL students were engaged - they were busy trying to think of something creative and were enjoying listening to their classmates' ideas
2. Students were creating with the language.
3. Students were exposed to some words they hadn't seen before in Spanish (ex: pillow, ant)
4. It was a reinforcement to students that learning Spanish can be fun and enjoyable, and the language journey in my classroom will most likely include unpredictable and unconventional methods.
5. Students ATE the marshmallows at the end of the activity.

Thanks to Paige and Carrie for sharing their ideas, which in turn made my prep time for this lesson much easier!    

The Game of Things for the MFL classroom

Last week during Christmas vacation, my family gathered at my sister's house to play "The Game of Things".  After 1 round, I was already making plans to play it in Spanish class.  

Find it at Target or Walmart

The rules of the game are:
1.  A person reads a card from the game, such as "Things that you wish grew on trees", 
2. Players write an answer to what they wish grew on trees, and put their answers in a basket.
3. I read the submitted answers (since I saw the handwriting, I didn't guess but I still put my answer in with the others.) 
4. While the answers are read, have a student write the answers on the board
5. Person A chooses one of the answers (they can not choose the answer they wrote) and guesses who said it.
6. If Person A guessed correctly, s/he gets a point and the person s/he guessed cannot play in this round. Person A continues to guess until s/he is incorrect.
7. If Person A is incorrect, play moves to Person B and Person B tries to guess one of the answers.
8. Play continues until the person guessing has guessed all answers and is left only with his/her own.  The person receives 2 points since nobody guessed what they wrote.

A week after I played the game, I saw a teacher's Facebook post about the game. Click on this link to find some sample questions on Quizlet that you can translate to your TL.  Or, personalize it and write your own questions.

I played this game on the first day back after Christmas vacation (trying to ease into a five day school week again), with my Spanish 5 students.  We played with 9 people and it worked well. You can play with more people (I played it the second time during my vacation on New Year's Eve with 15 people and that was still fun, but definitely harder. It took us about 30 minutes to complete one round! Of course, there was a lot of conversation along with the guessing.)

If you want to play this game with a larger class, you could:
1. divide the students into two or three groups. 
2. 9 or 10 students write the answers; divide the rest of the class into teams of two and the teams work to guess who wrote the answer.  The students that wrote the answers can sit in a line in front to make it clear which persons they can ask.
3. Divide the class into teams of 2 or 3.  The students in each team write their answer on the same paper.  Students work together as teams to guess which teams said which answers.

This link is to the online rule. Adjust as needed for your classroom.
This link is to a video of a man explaining the game. Ignore his comments that it is for adults only. 
My students really enjoyed this game. If you don't try it with your students, I still recommend that you try it with your friends. 

In fact, maybe I can convince my CI teacher friends to play this one of the evenings at IFLT. (What do you think Martina? Will you and others be "game" for this?) 

La Virgen de Guadalupe - Easy Lesson Plan

This month one evening, when I was lesson planning, I saw a message on my computer for a facebook entry from a teacher that shared a free resource on La Virgen de Guadalupe.  It was a script and comprehension questions written by  Bryce Hedstrom, available for F-R-E-E on his blog. Check out his "Free Stuff" page of his blog for the story on La Virgen de Guadalupe and other "free stuff"!

I used Bryce's script of La Virgen de Guadalupe and other activities for my Spanish 4+ class as listed below: 

1. Copy the script and distribute to students. I have 8 students in this class (a dream class, for sure!) so I assigned each student a section of the text.  They had to read the text and then on construction paper they sketched the main points from that section.  I continue to hear that when we learn it is best if we can picture something in our mind, so I wanted students to hear an explanation and have an image ready for them to connect to it. The example on the right was on the portion of text that said the people go to church to give thanks and to sing.

2.  Each student presented their information using their sketch(es) and a short explanation of their section of text.

3.  To review the new information, I created a Kahoot game for students to play. It is listed as a Public Kahoot which you can find HERE.

4. To end the activity on an artistic note, I gave each student a Sharpie marker and a piece of construction paper. They watched THIS VIDEO and learned how to sketch La Virgen de Guadalupe. 

The sketch above is by one of my students. We didn't have time to watch the end of the how to draw video, but it is a good start.  We'll finish watching the video on Wednesday, and I'll upload her finished sketch.

OPTION: If you have the Akinator app on your mobile device, set the language to Spanish and use La Virgen de Guadalupe as the person that the app needs to guess. If students answer the questions correctly, Akinator will be able to guess it. It is a fun way to review information.

Spanish Stories with the Subjunctive

Story-asking with students is beneficial for students in ALL levels. When students help create the details in a story, they become invested in the story and are active listeners and participants.

Es probable que la Sra. Hitz hornee galletas para nosotros.

I wanted to involve my students in creating a story with me that pulled them into the story development and was packed with examples of the subjunctive. The steps for the storyline and following activity is described below.

1. I started with a story plot from *Bryce Hedstrom (see below for info): Person A has two friends; 1 friend wants Person A to go with her to one place and the 2nd friend wants Person A to go with him to a different place. This creates the subjunctive phrase:  "Ana quiere que Marcos vaya a la playa con ella" (Ana wants Marcos to go to the beach with her - Ana wants that Marcos goes to the beach with her).

2. For the story, I asked which student in the class had a problem (but didn't tell them the storyline yet). After we found the student for the "person A" role mentioned above, we decided which two students wanted Person A to go somewhere with him/her and to where s/he wanted to go with Person A.
(For this example, Person A will be Colin, and the two friends will be Isaac and Megan.)

3. Colin needed to decide if he wanted to go away with Isaac or with Megan.  In order to do that, Colin (the character in the story) needed to think of the pros and cons (ventajas=advantages, desventajas=disadvantages) to going away with each of the two friends.

4. The students gave me ideas and suggestions for the pros and cons of the student going with Isaac or with Megan. Each sentence started with "Es posible que" or "Es probable que", which requires the speaker to end the sentence with the subjunctive.
Ex:  
Las ventajas de ir a Disney World con Isaac:
(a) Es probable que ellos se diviertan mucho en los parques de atracciones.
(b) Es posible que Isaac tenga dos "quick passes" y no necesiten esperar en las lineas largas en los parques.

Las desventajas de ir a Disney World con Isaac:
(a) Es posible que haya muchas personas en el parque.
(b) Es probable que la comida en los parques cueste mucho.

5. Students then suggested ideas for the pros and cons for going away with Megan.

6. In our class story, the students voted with which person and to which destination Colin decided to go. 

7. That evening I typed the story and distributed it the next day in class. We read the story together. I, or a student, read a paragraph in Spanish, and then I chose another student to read the same paragraph in English. This helped to ensure that ALL students understood the story completely.

8. I randomly put the students in groups of 3. Each group had to create their own story, following the format from yesterday's story (which they had the copy).  They wrote the introduction and then the pros and cons.

9.Then each group had to illustrate the pros and cons by sketching a person thinking with two thought bubbles. (For each student story there would be 4 sketches with 2 thought bubbles each.)

10. I put the sketches on the board, or for the Spanish 4+ the students drew directly on the board. A student put a letter on each sketch. Then I read the introduction and the pros and cons and students wrote or said which picture matched the pros or cons.

This activity provided a great deal of repetitions of the subjunctive used in context: creating a class story, reading the class story; creating a group story; sketching the group story; listening to the group story and identifying which sketch belonged to the story.

 *The initial part of this storyline is from Bryce Hedstrom's ebook "Expressing Desire: Teaching the Subjunctive #1" in which Bryce explains how to teach the subjunctive with stories. You absolutely must check out Bryce Hedstrom's website for a long list of FREE Spanish stories and resources for language teachers, as well as resources that are reasonably priced.   

EJEMPLO: 

Las ventajas de ir al prom con (name)

  1. Es posible que la chica compre cosas en Gucci para llevar al prom.

2. Es posible que la chica lleva un vestido de muchos colores. 


Update on 1/11/16:  Arianne (@dowd124 on Twitter) shared the following photos that her students made when they used the above story format.  Thanks for sharing Arianne!!!

 

Flatline - Bad news during story-asking

In teaching, there's not much that takes the wind out of my sails more than when I tell a story with my students and it falls flat. Completely flat, with no chance of reviving it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened today. I planned a story, I had the targeted structures for the story, but the story started sluggish and went downhill from there. It was a failed attempt, no beating around the bush, I'll call it for what it was.

If this has happened to you, you know the feeling. I could actually hear an echo inside my head saying, "abort, abort, move on", but as strange as it may sound, aborting a story that is flatlining and moving onto something new, can be even more scarier than forging ahead with a deadbeat story. (By the way, Why is it called deadbeat? If it's dead, there isn't a beat, right?)

Well, there was no life in the story, and hoping it would revive was a utter waste of my time. Wishful thinking, but no chance of revival. The clear signs were:

Glazed eyes.

Slowed pulse. 

Contagious yawns.

Glances at the clock.

(That's describing the students, by the way, not me, or at least I hope it didn't describe me.)

It was the last period of the day, so after students left, my first instinct was to talk to my trusty colleague for some feedback, but unfortunately she had another commitment at the end of the day. So tomorrow, I will try again. I'll review the basics of story-asking and look for the missing link, and hopefully, this situation doesn't repeat itself tomorrow.

We all have an bad day, an off day, a day where striving to provide the "compelling" in Compelling Comprehensible Input feels way out of reach. I'm going to view this as evidence that there is a lot of room for growth and learning on my part. And that may explain the expression "growing pains", it's a it of a painful experience.

En 2016 espero que... A Bulletin Board for the New Year

Hall bulletin board display

If there is one thing I've learned when adding a display on a bulletin board, especially when it is original and requires creativity and making sketches, die-cut letters, etc, (more work than simply buying pre-made bulletin board sets from a catalog), it's to make sure what I put on the board is something that I can leave there for at least two months.

My plans were to make a bulletin board for the coming Christmas holidays, but with only 17 school days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I ruled out a Christmas bulletin board for this year (at least for the large bulletin board in the hall). 

I had been waiting to be inspired and f-i-n-a-l-l-y it happened. (Which is a good thing because the bulletin board in the hall had only red fabric on it for several weeks!) I decided to have the students write what they wish for in the new year. 

Students' wishes/hopes for the new year.  (names of students covered)

Students started their sentences with: Espero que..; Deseo que..; or Quiero que...
 I shared my photos with Nelly Hughes (@nellyanhug), and she immediately replied that the sentences they wrote for the bulletin board provides me with even more information for PQA.  Killing two birds with one stone is always a good thing!
To the left is a collage of a few examples from the board.

 If you are interested in the pdf files of the people, please send me an email, leave a comment below, or contact me on Twitter (@sonrisadelcampo).       

Update:  Emily Long sent me a photo of the bulletin board that she made with her students (below).  Thanks for sharing the photo, Emily!

 

El Gordo - Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad

The month of December is filled with opportunities for Spanish teachers to include culture. These celebrations include:
- Dec. 8 The Immaculate Conception
- Dec. 12 Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe 
- Dec. 16-24 Las Posadas
- Dec. 22 The Winter Solstice
- Dec. 24025 La Noche Buena y la Navidad
 
One celebration that is HUGE in Spain, in fact it's "fat", is "El Gordo", el Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad. It is Spain's, and the world's, largest lottery when you take into account the number and amount of prizes that are distributed.

In order to help the students experience (in a very small way) the excitement of El Gordo, I created billetes from an image of the lottery ticket from 2011.  At the bottom of the ticket, I added spaces for the students to write a number and their name.  

Today, as students entered the classroom, I gave each student a ticket. I explained the lottery system and that the tickets were sold as décimos.  At the bottom, the students had to write 5 numbers, and they were not allowed to write the same number twice, and their name.  They had to record the number they wrote on their tablet or on their phone because they will need to know that later.  (This will be my way of practicing numbers later in December - sneaky, I know.) Each class had their own container in which they put their billetes.

From now until December 21, the students will have to "buy" additional billetes by...suggesting cute answers to class stories, exceptional participation, showing kindness to another student, helping me distribute papers, or anything that deserves an extra billete. When they receive additional billetes they will write a 5 digit number (not the same as before), their name, and then place it in their class container.

On December 22, the day that Spain holds the drawing for El Gordo, we will hold our drawing.  Either I, or a student, will draw a ticket, and then s-i-n-g the number, in Spanish of course.  Students will look at their list of numbers and if they hear their number, they will have to repeat the number in order to claim their prize.  (The reason I have them write their name on the bottom of the ticket is in case they don't recognize the number, I will know whose ticket it is.)

The prizes consist of Spanish pens, homework passes, a small jar of my homemade jelly, baked goods (oatmeal cookies with cream are one of my students' favorites), free choice to sit where you want or to sit on the cushioned chair, small gift certificate to Dairy Queen, etc.

We will also watch several of Spain's great advertisements and film shorts on the national lottery.  Below are links to the clips from 2014 and 2015:

Anuncio Lotería de Navidad 2015 - Justino
Check Martina Bex's blog HERE for amazing & free materials for this short film.
 
Anuncio Lotería de Navidad 2014 - El Mayor Premio es Compartirlo


Another gem for Christmas: Mejor anuncio Navideño 2014/15 - Sainsbury's Christmas. 

I plan to be generous with handing out additional billetes to build the excitement and to give some extra encouragement for class participation. 
I'm looking forward to December 22!

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.  :-)  

Story-based Assessments - Pulled Sentences & Additional Information

There are several ways of assessing a student's understanding of a text written in the Target Language.  One method that has been used for ages is to have the student read a text and then answer comprehension questions about the information in the text.  

The questions can be written either in the Target Language or in L1. One downfall to writing the questions in the TL and having students answer the questions in the TL is that students may be able to search the text using the words in the question and find the answer without actually understanding the text. (I've done this with texts written in English and with texts written in Spanish.) When that happens, the assessment is no longer providing information for which it was designed.

Lately, I've been experimenting with other ways in which students can show they understand a text.  Both of the examples below have numbers inserted in the text and the students choose the correct sentence to replace the number.

Example A:

This assessment is based on the story "Omar y Diego".  It is story that I wrote after a class story focusing on the structures: se despertaron, se fueron corriendo, and se levantaron.  I pulled some sentences from the text and inserted numbers in their place.  I moved the sentences to the bottom of the paper.  For the assessment, students must write the number on the line of the sentence that fits in that part of the text.  

To make this assessment more difficult, add sentences that were not from the original text to the choices, and/or pull out more sentences and add them to the bottom.  

If students haven't seen this type of assessment before, it would be helpful to use several class stories from the past and "practice" reading strategies to find the correct placement for the sentences.


Example B:
This is a variation of the above example. (I used the same story, "Omar y Diego" but this example shows the beginning of the story and the above example shows the end of the story. It's a full page of typed text!)  


Choose a place in a story where it would be easy to add another detail to the existing information.  Then to the left of the text, write several sentences from which the student needs to choose.  Some sentences you create can have absolutely nothing to do with the text. Students that understand the text should have no problem eliminating those as a choice.  You can list other sentences that are related to the subject matter but do not make sense at that particular part of the story. Also, by adding NONE to the choices, the student will not simply be able to eliminate two choice and by default choose the one that remains.  It is possible that none of the choices are correct and the student will need to understand each sentence in order to know if NONE is the correct answer.

This method may require some Higher Order Thinking skills (HOT)  on the teacher's part because you have to limit the vocabulary in the multiple choices to what the students know, but still create sentences that fit into the story and don't use the same words in the sentence before and after the #.  

Flood of Subjunctive Input w/ Bianca Nieves y los 7 Toritos novel

As I mentioned in a previous post, my Spanish 4 students are reading the novel, Bianca Nieves y los 7 toritos written by Carrie Toth, (@senoraCMT on Twitter), and published by TPRS Publishing, Inc.  There is undeniable tension between two of the main characters with their true emotions spilling out in dialogue.  At times, Carrie gives the reader a glimpse into Bianca's thoughts when suspicions and distrust escalate and imminent conflict is on the horizon.

These strong emotions make it is easy to imagine what dialogues could have taken place among the characters that are not recorded in the book, and what characters may be thinking but strategically keeping to themselves. This is a perfect opportunity to "flood" the students with comprehensible input that is packed with examples of the subjunctive used in context!  

After students had read the first five chapters, I knew they had enough information on the characters in the novel to match possible dialogues and thoughts to the characters.  I wrote 25 sentences related to the events in the novel.  Students had to match the dialogues and thoughts with the characters that would have said or thought them. (If you would like a copy of the document to the right, you can find it HERE. 

Of, if you are a Kahoot fan, I uploaded the above sentences on Kahoot. Have the students choose which person said or thought the sentences by playing Kahoot with THIS GAME. (That saves paper and saves YOU time at the copier machine!)

You can find additional resources, in the Teacher's Guide for this book. It is packed with more activities than you need, which allows you to choose the ones that work best with your students. 
(To be clear, I mention books and materials I use in my class because I want to share what I have found to be useful in my classroom.  I do not receive compensation for mentioning products from companies on my blog.) 

Non-Targeted Comprehensible Input

"The Case for Non-Targeted Comprehensible Input" by Stephen Krashen, Journal of Bilingual Education Research & Instruction, 2013 15(1): 102-110, is a must read for language teachers interested in second language acquisition. 

When I first read this article, I tried to imagine what a lesson designed around non-targeted comprehensible input looked like. How could I prepare for a lesson by not choosing focus words or targeted structures?  

This year with my Spanish 4+ students, I am inching closer to teaching with non-targeted comprehensible input and understanding how to prepare for these classes.  I dutifully come to class each day with a prepared lesson plan, but most times, the lesson serves more as a guideline or a back-up plan because I allow the students' interests, energy and unforced conversation drive the lesson. 

Here are a few examples of what that looks like ...

1.  November has 15 school days so I decided to name November as Reading Month. In Sp4+ class, every day we read 3 fiction/non-fiction online books at the start of class. (I use the website, A-Z reading. Interesting enough, the non-fiction books are the books that create the most conversations with students.) 

Last week I estimated 15 minutes needed of class time to read the 3 books.  Wrong. It took the entire 70 minute class period to read the (short) books  because after reading a page, a student would say, "I have a story to tell" (in Spanish, of course), and then proceeded to share a story related to a word in the book.  The page that described a spider stirred up 15-20 minutes of conversation among the students. 

That is how people communicate in their first language, no scripts, nothing planned, simply sharing experiences with others.  Sometimes the conversation skips from one topic to another and someone will ask, How did we get onto this topic? and we trace our conversation backward.  Now that...is interesting too; interesting to see the direction of a conversation when allowed to flow naturally.

2. Last week my plans were to read chapters 10 and 11 of La Llorona de Mazatlán by Katie A. Baker. Students pleaded with me to continue reading to the end of the book. What? They're asking to read more? There's only one answer for that question: Yes. 

3. A teacher in another discipline stopped in during class to drop something off in my room.  The students saw this interruption as an opportunity to talk in Spanish with the visiting teacher. The visiting teacher provided the compelling input for more than 10 minutes.

4. The day my friend from the Dominican Republic, Nelsi, came to visit, the students embraced the opportunity to talk and interact with her that I swear that class was shortened by 30 minutes. That's how quickly the time flew.

How does this work for language acquisition? Second language experts tell us that the high frequency words and structures will naturally appear and reappear - thus the label high frequency. This has been true in my experience.

For example...

I don't consider "crecer" to be a high frequency word, but in the last 3 days, it has appeared several times in different, unrelated materials. I didn't target this word, but because of the "non-targeted" repeated exposure in different contexts, "crecer" (& various forms of the verb) are now part of the students' working vocabulary.  

The continual implementation of "non-targeted comprehensible input" has transformed my class structure and my thoughts on teaching. My lesson plans are evolving, and each day I have the opportunity to witness first hand how this change has benefited the students in ways I could only dream about several years ago.