Libertad Creativa

I am the sort of person who is always coming up with quirky little ideas about how I want to present material.  If you've read the blog for awhile, you know what I mean.  Mobiles, graphic organizers, artsy projects, whacky card games.  I like to mix it up because I think it keeps the kids interested and it plays to everyone's strengths.

But it seems to me that whenever I come up with some particularly clever idea, someone is always lurking in the background with a sneer and the same negative comment, "It's not communicative."

Here's how it goes:

Me: I am going to have the students do a self-portrait in the style of Pablo Picasso.  They will look over dozens of his paintings to understand his style and how it changed from period to period.  Then they will make it personal by depicting themselves in that style.  Sounds great, right?

Nicolás el Negativo: "It's not communicative."

Me: We will organize our vocabulary into color-coordinated charts to show which words refer to people, which ones refer to places, which ones are actions, and which ones are descriptive.  Then students will have a visual reference to help them understand underlying sentence structure.  Isn't that a great learning tool?

Nicolás el Negativo: Well, it's okay but it's not communicative.

Me: We are going to reenact the posadas, learn traditional carols, make traditional foods, dress up in costume and have a fiesta.   I even know someone who will lend us use a donkey.  Isn't that amazing?!

Nicolás el Negativo: Not very communicative though, is it?

And on and on and on . . . .

Makes me crazy.

My most fun, creative, interesting, and engaging lessons are sometimes not communicative.  So what should I do?

The answer came to me at FLANC while I was attending a creativity workshop.  Susan Navey-Davis, a Spanish professor at my alma mater NC State, was talking about a creative project her students did and she was showing us some fabulous student work.  I was impressed and I was thoroughly enjoying myself when, all of a sudden, that same old obnoxious objection is raised at the back of the room.  "But, it's not communicative."

Without wasting a breath, Susan answered back with wisdom and gave me freedom forever from those naysayers.  "We don't have to have ALL the 5 Cs in every lesson."

The shackles fell away and I drew a breath of fresh air.  We don't have to have all 5 Cs in every lesson?  No, we don't!  I can focus on Connections, Culture, Community, and Comparisons too.  Communication is very very important, but there are other things that we are supposed to be teaching as well.  I finally have my answer to those negative voices with their criticism and intolerance.

Freedom!

--AnneK

Polls Everywhere

In case you haven't heard about Polls Everywhere yet, let me be the first to share it with you.  And, for those of you that do know about it, I'd like to share some of the ways I use it in my classroom.

Polls Everywhere is a site that allows users to engage their class or audience in real time.  Not only that, it motivates students and increases their on-task time.  The gist is this - you create a question, display it for the class, and as your students respond to it, the whole class can watch the results in real time.

How do you display it?  You can use an LCD projector, interactive white board, or other media to display the real time results.

How do the students respond?  There are two ways.  Students can either text in their answers from their phone or they can respond online (via computer, tablet, or smart phone).  Even those teachers who are not in 1:1 classrooms will probably have a majority of students with cellphones, so participation becomes fun and inclusive.  When not everyone has a phone, I'm quick to ask amenable students to share.  "Mindy, when you're finished can Grant use your phone right quick to text his answer too?"  If you ask the right students, this is easy and fun for everyone.

The folks over at Polls Everywhere can probably explain it even better than I can, so you can click the image below to watch their short introductory video if you'd like.

So, here is the fun part.  How do you use it in the classroom?  There are probably a thousand ways to use it that I haven't even thought of, but here are a few that I found useful.

1. Make a quick poll of student preferences.  This is what they show in the video above.  You can quickly find out whether your students would rather have the test on Wednesday or Thursday, for example.  (Mine have never, ever selected the earlier date, but I still keep asking - just in case.)

2. Ask multiple-choice style questions to check for comprehension to make sure they are following you in the language.

3. Review before a test and see what students know and what they need to review.

4. Ask open-ended questions to see what ideas students got from a reading or listening prompt.

5. My favorite use of this tool is to have students write true/false questions with the vocabulary (in Spanish, of course).  When they all finish, we scroll through them and answer them as a class.  This is delightful fun in levels III and up!

6. Ask students what they already know about a topic before you teach it for some quick, informal formative feedback that can guide your lesson preparation.

7. Ask students for suggestions on what they might like to do for a project in your current lesson.  They always surprise me with their ingenious and creative ideas.

And, I'm sure you are thinking of even more ideas for how this tool can be used.  Polls Everywhere is free and you don't even have to sign up, so it's the best of all worlds for us teachers.

Cautions - There is one big caveat that I want to let you know about ahead of time.  When you are projecting open-answered questions, students can write anything they want - ANYTHING.  And you cannot be sure who wrote what, so they have a certain anonymity.  Someone who wants to disrupt the lesson could text in something very inappropriate.  I recommend that you talk to your students ahead of time and make your expectations clear, but stay vigilant to quickly turn off the projector in case someone disappoints you.

Have fun with it, amigos!  And if you think up some great ways to use this tool I would love to hear about them.  I'm always looking for ideas to make my lessons more engaging and effective.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Storify

What is Storify?  Well, according to the people at the site it is helps "making sense of what people post on social media. Our users curate the most important voices and turn them into stories."  And that is a fancy way of saying that it is a site where you can collect various sources of information on a topic and unite them all in one coherent way.  You can add pictures, video, articles, tweets . . . most anything, really.

I was introduced to Storify at the FLANC conference and I found it very interesting, though I'm sure I haven't even begun to plumb the possibilities it offers for collecting various opinions and voices.  I decided to plunge on in and give it a try and I chose the topic of foreign language learning as a place to start.  My first "story" is a collection of tips and advice from polyglots on how they went about learning a language.  I thought it would be good motivation for my students (and even myself) when their faith and enthusiasm might be flagging.  I hope you take some time to look through it and take something valuable away.

There is a TED Talk about Storify which you can enjoy here:

 "Don't tell me the story; show me the story.  Help me connect with the people who lived through those events.  Help me understand what it feels like.  Let me feel empathy."

Powerful ideas!  I think the potential use for history and for foreign language is immense.  If we can get our students to feel empathy, then learning momentum begins to really get going.

If you have a story on Storify that you'd like to share, I'd love it if you sent me a link.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Tiranosaurio Intenta . . .

Poor Tyrannosaurus!  His arms are so short that he can't do anything at all.  That is the humorous theme behind artist Hugh Murphy's pictures of T Rex trying to do all sorts of implausible and anachronistic tasks.  They are hilarious and the artist does an excellent job of making T Rex look adorable and nonthreatening.

If you click on the picture above, you can see it in its full size and download it.

The pictures are cute and I found one online on a Chinese website (via Pinterest) and figured I'd change the caption to Spanish so I could share it with my classes.  While I was there, I decided to color it with Photoshop.  (Why do I do these things?!)  I am a very skilled user of Corel Photopaint, but I am a complete novice with Adobe Photoshop, so the coloring job is a little sketchy at best.  I'll keep at it and try to get better as I go.  There are about a zillion Photoshop tutorials out there, so I really have no excuse not to improve.

My Spanish IV students are reviewing the concept that when two verbs come together, the first one is conjugated and the second one remains in the infinitive.  I don't know why that concept is hard, but I have to go over it every year again because it doesn't seem to stick.  This image with its "intenta apagar" is a great example to enhance that lesson.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Saludos Desde FLANC

(I see now that I wrote this last weekend and forgot to upload it.  Ooops!  Here it is now.)

Today I have the great pleasure of writing to you from the FLANC conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  FLANC is the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina, and though I have been a member for years, until now I've never had the opportunity to attend the conference.  I have attended two workshops already where I have learned a tremendous amount about technology and motivational strategies for students.

Until this afternoon, I had though I was a fairly advanced user of educational technology, but there is so much new tech out there that it boggles the mind!  If you go for more than a few months without staying on the leading edge of technology, you will find that you're out of date. 

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with Bobby Hobgood and I was so impressed with everything we looked at this afternoon and I am abuzz with ideas and possibilities.  He had more material than we could possibly get through in the 3-hour session so I have a lot more great stuff to go over in my free time.  I promise to share here as soon as I've sorted through everything.

I haven't chosen my sessions for tomorrow yet, but there are a lot of tempting ones on the schedule so the hardest part will be making the decision of which ones to attend.

Hasta pronto,

AnneK

Follow Up: I attended a session on maximizing student on-task time that was filled with good ideas, some of which I already use.  I also attended a session on universal design and how to make my lessons more accessible to my students with disabilities which, interestingly enough, makes lessons better for everyone across the board.  (A powerful idea!).  Lastly I went to a session about creativity in the classroom and learned something very, very important.  It has to do with the five Cs and I'll share it with you in a few days.  I promise!  :-)

Subjunctive Mobile

This is a little creative idea I came up with to take away some of the fear of the  subjunctive.  We had taken notes and done some writing, but I wanted another repetition of the material without making my students crazy, so I created a hands-on project to decorate their study space and remind them of the rules in a whimsical way.  The result was this subjunctive mobile.

This is easily accomplished in a single class period, or it can be done as a weekend "micro project" on their own.  It would also make an excellent activity for the students to do with a substitute teacher since the instructions are very straightforward and I even included pictures so that they could be done without the teacher present, if necessary.

The file can be downloaded here with full instructions, pictures, and the template so your students can make their own mobiles.

Why are the instructions in English?  I hear you cry.  There are several reasons actually, but primarily I wanted the students (even those with special needs) to be able to do it on their own and I wanted the parents to be able to read and understand it.  By all means, feel free to rewrite it in Spanish if you wish!  I'll be happy to post it here and give you credit if you do.

I hope this is useful to you and that your students enjoy it.  I'd love to see pictures of your mobiles if you feel like sharing!

Hasta pronto, 

--AnneK

Después De Las Vacaciones

We are back again after our fall break and, after three weeks of vacation, my students seem to have various levels of enthusiasm for being at school today.  Some are barely slugging through the hallway whereas others are smiling and cheerfully catching up with each other.  Most look a little sleep-deprived and some look like they are suffering from PTSD . . . so what do we do on that first day back?

Obviously we Spanish teachers want to do something in Spanish to get our students thinking and functioning in Spanish again.  But, at least in my case, I don't want to jump right in with something serious right away.  I like to ease back into school in a friendly way so I try to come up with a "fun activity" when we track back in.

One of the things I tried for years, mostly unsuccessfully, was to encourage students to talk about what they did during vacation.  This seems like a no-brainer in that it's personal, relevant, and interesting.  Only, the problem is that students don't feel like they did anything worthy of mentioning or they don't have the vocabulary to express themselves.  So I wind up frustrated at the front of the classroom going, ¿Nadie?  ¿Nadie no hizo NADA durante las vacaciones?  ¿En serio?  ¿Nadie quiere compartir nada?  Por favor . . .  And then I give up in exasperation and I have to find busy work for them until the bell rings - not ideal.

As with most things in life, I found that the more preparation and work I put in ahead of time, the better things go.  So I decided to create a meet-and-greet activity that will work at levels 2 and up.

Students use the sheet to interview one another and record their answers.  I used a good mix of regular and irregular verbs but the activity could be easily modified to include other verbs.  Today in Spanish II we did the activity using the present tense forms and I explained to them that we will be learning the preterite tense later in the week.  In my other classes we used the preterite.

And here's a nice thing: when students fill in the names of their peers who answer yes to the various questions, it creates a visual chart.  With a quick glance, they can easily tell which were the most popular and least popular activities over the break.  (Math connections anybody?)

Be sure to review how to ask and answer questions and remind them to stay in Spanish.  The idea of the activity isn't to get names on a sheet; it's to communicate with one another in Spanish.

Here is a link to the activity that we used today.  I hope you are able to find a use for it in your classroom as well, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¡Bravo!

I know we all have that same dream - that our students will actually embrace the language and learn to speak it for real.  I often am treated to tales of how they heard and understood Spanish outside the classroom or, better yet, how they got to actually communicate in the language.  But recently a student of mine, really went above and beyond.

April (not her real name) recently shared with me a story of how she used her Spanish outside of the classroom to make a difference.  She said she was at a park and noticed a woman who was surrounded by a group of people and was crying.  April said that she approached the woman when she noticed that she was speaking Spanish and that the crowd of onlookers was unable to understand her.  The woman explained in Spanish that she had lost her son in the park and was not able to find him.  Together they called the police and April translated for the woman and served as her liaison with the police.  A description was made, the place he was last seen, what he was wearing . . . and the search was on for the child.

The boy was found, much to the teary-eyed relief of the mother and April said it was the most amazing experience.  She said that when she was in the moment, she didn't need to think of conjugations or vocabulary at all, the language just flowed.  She told me that she had a feeling of "Where did that come from?" but was too involved in the situation to slow down and worry about it.  I would like to commend her here twice.  First for her ability with the language which came from many hours of study and practice, and secondly for her courage to stand up and do something instead of holding back.

I know that many people might have stood back in self-doubt and not offered their help for fear that they might embarrass themselves or that their grasp of the language might not be good enough.  But April jumped in without a thought for herself - simply with the aim to help a fellow human being.  I simply could not be more proud of her.  I feel blessed to be her teacher.

Hasta Pronto,

--AnneK

¿Qué Dice El Zorro?

What Does the Fox Say?  If your students aren't already going around school singing this strange song, they soon will be.  With 30 million YouTube downloads and more than 130,000 comments, this song and the accompanying video are beyond popular.  That said, it is every bit as strange as it is popular.  The song is performed by the Norwegian band Ylvis in very basic English and it explores the theme of animal calls, ultimately asking the title question, "What does the fox say?"

The ridiculous suggestions of what the fox says and the unusual video are the humor and the hook for this particular song: Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!  Joff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!  A-hee-ahee ha-hee!  These are the things I keep hearing my students singing in the halls to each other.

I did not do the art for this particular piece, but I created the caption.  Your students will probably get a kick out of it and it might be a nice transition piece into a lesson about animal calls in Spanish.  My students have often been interested in qui qui ri qui and guau guau as well as pio pio pio.  Perhaps your students might enjoy translating the song into Spanish?  It has a very basic structure and vocabulary, so it might make a good assignment or an extra credit that they would find entertaining.  (Translation has been a bad word in language instruction for the past 30 years or so, but I think it has its place as an occasional tool.)

Regardless of how you use it in your classroom, I hope you and your students enjoy it!

Hasta la próxima,

--AnneK

Un Crimen Horrible

I saw this online today and figured it needed a caption in Spanish for my students.

Easy enough for Spanish I students to understand!

And this is week 9 at my school, so I've just got five days until we get a three-week fall break.  Lots of hoops between here and there remain to be jumped, but laughter is a great way to start the week.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¡Que Hablen En Español!

One of the greatest challenges that I face is in getting my students to actually speak in Spanish - as opposed to just speaking about the language.  Though I believe there is a lot of value in studying grammar and vocabulary discretely, I also know that the real underlying goal of everything is learning to communicate in the language; and that means opening one's mouth to speak!

I have come up with projects, lessons, games and gimmicks over the years.  Some have been successful but, I'm not afraid to admit, many have not.  Adolescents, by their very nature,  are reluctant to do anything that makes them feel awkward or has the potential for great embarrassment, and speaking a foreign language is one of those things.  They feel so shy when it is time to speak because they don't want to look foolish.  Interestingly, sometimes it is the very best students who are the least willing to open up and talk because quite often those are students with perfectionist tendencies who cannot abide making mistakes.

 
Image: Mike Gifford via Flickr, CC 2.0

So what do we do?  Work on their self-confidence, teach them to be resilient to criticism, and remind them that mistakes are part (a very important part!) of the learning process.  I'm sure we all have a story or two about a horrible linguistic or cultural faux pas that we made while learning the language.  Personally, I mistakenly referred to New Year's good fortune (omikuji in Japanese) as a slug (namekuji in Japanese), horrifying and stupefying a Shinto priest in the process.  It doesn't help that slugs are pretty universally reviled in Japan.

Image: Everystockphoto.com

I personally share my stories of shame with my students so that they understand that mistakes happen to everyone.  One day even the most shameful mistakes (Embarazado, anyone?) are easy to look back on an laugh.  And laughter makes a good classroom tool, I think.

Here is a game that will get them talking and laughing.  Have the students work in pairs and have half of them turn their desks around facing the back of the classroom, while the other half face the front.  Give the students who are facing you a vocabulary word and then they must describe the word to their classmate using only Spanish.  I don't let them use hand gestures either.  Throw in a couple of non-vocabulary words too - just to keep them on their toes.

You can make it competitive by keeping score or you can keep it relaxed; you know your students and what will work best with them.  Mine love to compete so we make it a race to see which pair can come up with the correct word first.  In this activity they have to use their communication skills to talk - examples, descriptions, circumlocution - it's a beautiful thing!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Fin De Semana Largo

Amigos, I can't speak for you but I am really looking forward to this coming long weekend.  Not the way you normally look forward to a long weekend, but with the sort of desperate instability that comes from weeks of having fit too many responsibilities into too few hours in the day.

I'm stressed and I'm not handling it as well as I usually do . . . something about not having my daily work routine down yet.  Usually by week two or three I know exactly what needs to be done and when so that everything runs as it is supposed to, but my schedule this year just isn't conforming to my attempts to regulate it.  I feel like this cat . . .

I thought a long weekend picture might put a smile on my students' faces tomorrow, so I went online to find one.  I actually found quite a few, so I thought I would share them here.  These were all found in the wilds of the Internet and none of them are of my own making.

I do hate when people fail to use the opening exclamation mark.

 I also happened across a page or two of advertizements for excursions and hotels.  Here are a couple, just in case you want them as realia for a long weekend lesson.

And last but not least, a poster from what looks to be the worst movie ever.  I cannot imagine what educative purpose there could be for such a thing.  Maybe students can talk about what they don't want to do on their long weekend . . . or what the heck is depicted on this poster . . . or maybe what the plot of this movie could possibly be?  (Fun vocabulary: attack buzzard, crazed expression, faces aglow with radiation, talons of death . . . )

Have a great long weekend, mis amigos.  I hope you take advantage of every moment, and don't let the hovering vulture of doom get you.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Circuíto de Aprendizaje

We had a big test in Spanish II yesterday and it was one of those things that you either got an A or an F on.  I wanted to go over it with the students but I knew that doing it in the large group would be a bore to most of them.  Furthermore, going over the test with the whole class invariably results in a lot of little questions that are best addressed one-on-one . . . so what to do?

It occurred to me this morning during 1st period planning actually.  I threw my lesson plan out the window and scurried around to put a new plan together at the last minute - learning stations!  This way I could work in small groups on test corrections while the other students were busy at various stations I put up around my room.

Station 1 - Test Corrections and Optional Extra Credit
Station 2 - Vocabulary Picture Drawing
Station 3 - Vocabulary Memory Matching Game
Station 4 - Listening Practice
Station 5 - Vocabulary Pantomime

As you can probably guess, we just learned some new vocabulary and it was time to start playing around with it.  But they weren't quite ready enough for me to turn them loose on some communicative practice without some scaffolding either, so the games, sketches, and pantomiming were a good choice.  And since listening is a receptive (as opposed to a productive) skill, it is also a good choice when first practicing with new vocabulary too.

So after we did a warmup activity and reviewed the vocabulary on Power Point, I introduced the stations and told the students to go stand at the station where they wanted to begin.  I kept the group maximum to four people since I am blessed with relatively small class sizes this year.  Then I started a timer on my iPad and I dove in to work with the group at the Test Corrections Station.

For those folks who had As on their tests and didn't need much help, I had an extra credit option and I also suggested that they might like to help a fellow student.  Some preferred working with others and some wanted to do extra credit, but all were amenable regardless.

All around the room students were engaged and learning - using their creative right brains to draw and act, and using their analytical left brains to play matching and to analyze the listening passages.  Honestly, what could be better?  I'm so glad I ditched the boring Let's-All-Review-The-Test-Together-Then-Make-Corrections plan!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Explorando El Vocabulario Con Los Sentidos

Getting the senses involved in learning makes a lot of sense and can be a lot of fun!  Recently my students had a vocabulary list with a lot of food items on it: naranja, limón, dátil, uvas, aceite, aceitunas, pipas, cidra, etc.  Someone suggested that we have a fiesta and sample all these foods, but I had a better idea.  Why not do more than just eat?  After all, the more senses you get involved, the more memorable the learning.

So I made a list and had the students sign up to bring in various foods.  I used Sign Up Genius, which is an amazing tool because it allows people to sign up online and sends them reminder emails.

I then put together a lesson that involved experiencing the vocabulary with all of the five senses.  We started by watching a little video with a song about the senses.  The video was for children but my high school students were not offended when I showed it to them.  Then students worked in groups and took turns trying to identify their vocabulary words with their sight (easy), smell, touch, taste, and hearing.  That last one was difficult but I had the students put food samples in a plastic cup and rattle it around so that they could hear a sound.  What sound does wheat bread make?  Not much, as it turns out.

I created an activity sheet to guide the students through the activity and help keep them focused and on task.  If you click the image below, it will link to the sheet so you can print it and use it in your classroom too if you would like.

 The beautiful thing was all the smiles and laughter I heard around the room as they participated in the activity.  They had a great time while they were learning and I had a great time just watching them!  I hope that your students have a good time doing this too.  It will really bring the food unit to life.

If you do decide to do this in your classroom, please drop me a line and let me know how it goes.  I'd love to hear from you.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Lo Estás Haciendo Mal . . .

You're doing it wrong.  It's a favorite meme and a gotcha with kids currently so, when I saw this picture, I couldn't resist.

I had a great summer vacation and I'm ready to get back to blogging and sharing with you now that August is waning . . . .  *sideways glance and nervous shuffling of feet*  Okay, so I actually teach at a year-round school and we're in Week 6. . . But who's counting, right? 

Honestly, the beginning of the year is such a pressure cooker that I didn't have much time to think about blogging and even less to actually do it.  Oh, and did I mention that the entire Blogspot.com domain is blocked at school currently?  *sad sigh*  This means that I won't be blogging from school, even after hours.

Hope is not lost though.  Our IT guy is a superhero and my principal actually listens to me . . . (It's true; don't be jealous.), so maybe we'll figure something out.

In the meantime, accept my good wishes for a great start to your school year and don't forget to leave comments and encouragement - not just on your students' papers, but also on the blogs you read. 

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK