Keeping it in the TL: Elementary Version

 

A couple of years ago, my colleague, Siobhan, and I attended a workshop that emphasized the importance of teaching students transactional phrases and words in the target language to be used during class activities. The presenters stressed that the value of whatever cutting/pasting/coloring project we had going on could be lost because students drop the TL to speak in English, but it's the transactional language that's the real life part. This rang true for both of us and we went back to school, where between us, teach kindergarten through 8th grade, and put some new practices in place to support TL use in our classes.  

As a part of our process, we asked the children what language they needed to get their needs met and express themselves without defaulting to English.  The list of language is ever evolving and is posted on our class white boards, so when a situation arises, we can add it to the list. Now having experience with the kinds of things the children need to say, we can predict some of that language and explicitly teach it and have visual reminders posted in our classrooms.  What we've noticed is that the children, when given these phrases and words, use them. Phrases like ¿Puedo ir al baño? or ¿Me das un lápiz? can be heard from very young children through middle school.  Not only are the children learning necessary transactional language, we're laying the foundation for on-going inquiry and ownership of their language learning. In upper elementary and middle school, rather than dropping to English, students ask "Cómo se dice...?" for something they need to express an opinion or ask a question, and add the language to their personal vocabulary lists for future use.  This stems from their early experiences in lower elementary and being supported in using target language from the start.

FVR: Hallelujah!

After seeing so many inspiring posts from teachers using FVR(free and voluntary reading) in their classrooms, my interest was piqued and I really wanted to give it a try. I mentioned recently that I'm over working when it comes to comprehensible input(CI) and I know that reading is important to language development--both reasons to speed up the FVR project in my class.

One (perceived) roadblock for me was the length of my classes--we're a FLES program with 30 minute class meetings, three times per week. I was thinking that the 30 minute meeting time was too short for FVR, and so I'd put it off. However, during summer set up, I started looking through our collection of books in Spanish--it's pretty substantial with a wide range of levels and genres, so why not use them?

What I did:

I set up this little area in my classroom, putting out books that range from three words on the page to novels like Esperanza Renace and short graphic novels for my heritage speakers. Topics include content they're learning in class--biomes, animals, etc(in #earlylang, animals and their babies are king) to story book biographies and short fiction.

I'm in the process of creating booklets of short news articles from Newsela and elementary appropriate articles from Martina Bex's El mundo en tus manos to add to the shelf, and plan to add a basket to include books on loan from Chicago Public Library, as I get to know the children's interests better.

Part of my teaching better, working less project involved creating class opening routines AND sticking to them. (Monday/Tues: Music, Wed/Thur Writing prompts and Fridays start with FVR. So this Friday, I greeted each group, 4th-6th graders, at the door speaking very quietly,  using postcards a la A.C. Quintero 's suggestion for seat assignments. There was quiet music playing inside the room and the children entered and sat down calmly and peacefully listening to the music(I wanted to set a very chill tone in what is usually a very energetic environment).

After turning off the music, I quietly explained that we would be doing FVR(referencing D.E.A.R.-Drop Everything And Read) with which they're already familiar.  Then, thanks to the suggestion of my colleague Siobhan, gave some guidance on how to approach reading in Spanish, highlighting:

• Choosing material that feels like a right fit and is interesting to them
• seeking cognates to help make meaning
• using pictures and illustrations 
• changing books if it doesn't feel quite right 

Then, children chose their books, I set the timer for five minutes and away we went.

How did it go?

Day one was a huge success.

• It was a solid block of quiet, engaged reading across the board.
• Almost all of the children asked for more time.
• I asked the students to reflect and give me some feedback on FVR--the overall theme was empowerment and BEING ABLE to read in Spanish(they can understand more than I thought).  The children also overwhelmingly enjoyed being able to choose their own reading material. 
• I felt at ease and enjoyed sitting and reading with the children--it was a nice change that allowed me to simply BE with, and observe and learn from them .

Here are some highlights of the feedback:

 Going forward:

• For older students, allow/encourage the children to use their notebooks to add to their personal vocabulary lists(a few made the request).
• Build in some time for the children to share what they were reading with their classmates(maybe this will lead to a commercial for their book, in Spanish)--after observing them in action, I could see there's a strong desire.

In the end, I think this is a high impact, low prep activity that's allowing me to teach better and work less. 

The Unit Vocabulary List: Focusing on the Essential

I'm deep into planning the 2017-18 year and sat down to excitedly write a new unit on Global Citizenship for my 8th graders--something I've wanted to do the last couple of years. But, when I looked at the language functions/vocabulary section on the unit plan, I was a little stumped. It looked so sparse.

I went back and looked over all of the authentic resources and language tasks for the unit to again mine them for the essential vocabulary/chunks.  Essential vocabulary/chunks.  Essential.

I  worried that my unit was so light on the student vocabulary list, but again came back to that word: essential.  Really, what the students need for the new unit, and most of the other units I use, are those high frequency words and language of their choosing.  The students know what they need and want to say, and that's not the same for each of them.  And it works. Over the last two years, I've heard students using language in class I know I didn't have on any list, and phrases for which we never had a lesson. It was language they heard in several contexts and was needed and interesting for negotiating meaning.

Even knowing this,  I'm still sometimes filled with doubt when I don't have that long vocabulary and infinitive verb list I was so used to using in the past, and that I received as a student myself. I guess old habits and instincts take time to go away--but here we go. I'm starting the year trusting what works and trusting the students in their own learning.

Self-Selecting Vocabulary: The Sequel

The topic of how to encourage students to create personal vocabulary for themselves has been very present for me lately.   The following is a lesson I gave last week as a part of a 6th grade unit called, Where does the world live? exploring how people live in the world, and what challenges some face, relying heavily on the book, Material World and Where Children Sleep.

Since both of these books are in English, I use them for their thought provoking and highly engaging photographs that we use in class for describing, narrating and asking questions in the TL.   In the context of this unit, I created a lesson around the following IKEA ad:



What did I do?

• I divided up the students into groups of three, after we watched the video once.
•  I told them that their group would eventually tell the story of the video, and asked them to think about what language they would need to tell the story of the video, and identify the gaps-or language they didn't know but would need for the task. 
• While watching the video a 2nd time, the students individually make a list of 10 or less words they needed to look up to help them tell the story- none of the words on the list could be verbs(they're not working with conjugating verbs from infinitives). While they worked to create a list of their unknown words, I wrote recycled, conjugated verbs on the board(from previous units), like es, son, tiene, hay, va, da, lee, mira, limpia, come, invita, cambia.
• After the 2nd viewing, the groups worked together to come up with a final list. Using wordreference.com, they looked up the words they would need to write the story.
• Next, during a silent writing time, each student wrote an opening line to the story using new/recycled language. After a few minutes working by themselves, they shared their opening lines with the group. As a group, they decided how to combine/use the language for a group created opening line.  We put those up on the board, and took a vote on what would be the opening line to use for the stories.( This was an opportunity to fine tune and do a little instruction):

 

• Working in a similar manner, they created the last line of the story.
• Finally, each student wrote 2 sentences to go in between, and the group worked together to again combine language from the individuals to create the group story.
• With the text from their stories, some of the students wanted to make a storyboard version of the video.

I treat this activity as a forum for instruction and creation. The students are creating with the language, self-selecting new vocabulary, recycling previously used language chunks and vocab(feelings, weather, activities, descriptions), and getting lessons throughout on vocab/grammar use(for example, drawing their attention to the repetition they see among sentences and asking them to co-construct the grammar rules).  This process takes 3-4 classes(FLES length), and helps to lay the foundation for their performance assessments on which they need to describe or explain by themselves.

Developing personal, self-selected vocabulary

 

 In my 4th-6th grade classes, I emphasize developing a personal vocabulary list during the course of a unit.  It doesn't take long for the children to see why this is important-what they want to say isn't the same as what I, the teacher, want them to say.  

We start the unit with a basic list of vocabulary and language chunks-or conjugated verb phrases, that the children need for the unit can-dos. This list, with a unit description and self-assessment are pasted into their class notebooks. Next to this are 1-2 blank pages for their own vocabulary list.  This list is developed over the course of the unit, based on the authentic videos, texts and recordings we use and of course, language collected through ¿Cómo se dice?  Generally, the children also investigate new vocab/language chunks through the course of in-class interpersonal and presentational writing tasks, too. What I notice, is that when the children want to and need to use language, they add it to the list and start using it regularly. 

Some of the children overshoot it a bit and want to write every word they hear, some add very little, but most do develop their own self-selected list of language that they start using, which extends past the unit of study. 

Here's one on day one of a new unit:

At the end of 3 months(my students meet 3x on a good week):

 

I noticed that during the unit on ¿Qué come el mundo?, one of my students added the work alérgica, allergic, because it's personal and pertinent to her when we go out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant.

So, how do I assess this?  Let me preface this by saying that 4th-6th grades in my school do not receive grades-so I can assess progress without grade assignments.  One way I look at new language use is through rubrics for performance on tasks. Below is my general class rubric that covers most tasks. As I see about 200 children, ranging from ages 7-14, having a general rubric on hand is helpful.  I include going beyond the task-the children know that this means, asking questions, including additional relevant information and new vocabulary/language.  On specific tasks, I use more involved rubrics for each mode I'm assessing, but for class work, or quick activities, I find this one works. 

Communication	My errors in grammar, word order, pronunciation and word choice rarely prevent communication.	My errors in grammar, word order, pronunciation and word choice sometimes prevent communication.	My errors in grammar, word order,pronunciation and word choice prevent communication.
Task Completion	I completed more than I was asked to do: using new/personal vocabulary, new/personal phrases.	I completed everything I was asked to do.	I completed most everything I was asked to do.	I completed little of what I was asked to do.