World Language Week: Polyglots (and what they can teach us!)

Today is the FINAL day of the week set aside to celebrate World Languages. I hope you have sparked some enthusiasm in your students, your coworkers and throughout your sphere of influence:  Languages ARE influence.  Languages are power.  Languages are connections and communication and change.

Here is my last suggestion for celebrating languages (yes, MORE than just Spanish) in your classroom:

Introduce your students to the AMAZING reality of polyglots!

If you hadn't heard the term before, polyglots are individuals that can communicate in multiple languages (often used to describe people who know more than SIX).  In the most incredible cases, these individuals know more than 12 and are called hyperpolyglots.  Yeah, #mindblown.

This can be a really fascinating discovery for your students that value competition, records, trivia and hold themselves to high expectations or like to be known for something they can do that no one else can (um, hello every middle school student ever).  Here are some fun resources you can use to wow your students with the perfect representative for this week of celebration:  The Polyglot.

• This article gives basic information on what a polyglot and hyperpolyglot really is, as well as lists some amazing, living examples.
• This blog post includes 5 mini-interviews with polyglots where they share language learning myths, their favorite technique to learn a new language and things they wish they would have known when they started their journey.
• Tim Doner began teaching himself languages when he was 13!  Here is a video in which he demonstrates many different languages, and here is a Ted-Talk where he discusses the issues in our school system when it comes to language education and gives us many ideas of how to improve it:

• And this final video is of a young boy,Ravi, from India who uses an AMAZING amount of languages to sell things on the street. Genius.

I love the intrigue that discussing individuals such as polyglots bring to our class.  It's amazing! It astounds us!  We immediately think of how difficult just one or two languages has been for us, and we think How in the world did they do it?!  This is a great place for your language learners to be:  curious, motivated, and challenged.

How did you celebrate this week?  Please reach out and tell me; I would love to hear from you!

World Language Week: Duolingo Initiative

Last year, I tried to encourage my students to dabble with the app Duolingo , especially during World Language Week.  Although not perfect, Duolingo does an excellent job of making language learning fun and addicting.  It also encourages students to practice each domain:  reading, writing, listening and speaking.  Unfortunately, not many of my students took it upon themselves to download the app on their own time and see the wide variety of language options the app had to offer.

This year, I figured they needed more of a formal introduction.  So, I got approval from my building technician to get Duolingo added on a class set of Ipads.  I also encouraged students to create an account over the weekend so they could log in immediately in class.  When they arrived, we logged in to their accounts (or created them) and I walked them through the basics of the program:  the languages they can choose from, the 3 hearts per skill, lingots, etc.  I also explained how to add friends on Duolingo and gave them my username so they could see how many points I was earning. I then encouraged them to tweet screenshots/share their level, points, and fun phrases they were learning with the hashtag #LMSwlw (Lakeview Middle School, World Language Week) and I turned them loose!  You should have HEARD my classroom as students were talking in German, Portuguese, French, Swedish, Italian, Irish, etc.  It was beautiful!  They had a lot of fun competing with each other or seeing what someone else was learning.  I listened to multiple conversations about comparing grammar to Spanish or translating a word to Spanish...L3 to L2...NOT L1!  I was so impressed by their focus for a whole class period and their repeated desire to try again once they failed.  Success!

I had multiple students speak with me at various other points throughout the week, commenting on how they "passed" me, or asking me if I had gotten to this lesson in French yet.  Students were much more willing to work on their own the rest of the week after having a class period to dedicate to getting familiar with it and getting "hooked."

So far, so good.  I am learning the importance of instilling a love of learning and an interest in all languages and cultures...not JUST Spanish.  I'd say it's working!

World Language Week: Talent Showcase Project

World Language Week was nationally celebrated this past week (March 9-15).  However, our school corporation will be celebrating this coming week (March 16-20) and I could not be more excited! Every year it seems this celebration gets bigger and bigger within our World Language Department (high school and middle school teachers).  I will be posting our schedule, events, and reflections eventually, but today I just wanted to share with you the project my students have been doing in preparation for WLW.

Thanks to one of my awesome colleagues, we started our World Language Talent Showcase project back in February.  The main objectives of this project are...

1. Students demonstrate their talents and interests.
2. Students teach classmates about another language or culture.
3. Student work and projects will advertise World Language Week and the World Language Department in future years.

It began with students choosing a talent of theirs.  Some chose writing, playing an instrument, painting, creating a website or making a 3-D model.  We had a wide variety!

Then students brainstormed ways of using that talent to teach their classmates about another language or culture.  For example, students wrote a letter to a family member in Spanish, played the national anthem of Mexico, painted a Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera tribute mural in our Media Center, collected helpful links regarding sports' stars from Argentina and created a replica of a terraced farm from Peru.

Once that was decided, student chose whether their project would be in the form of a product or a presentation.  Products are going to be displayed in our Media Center all next week for others to enjoy, and presentations will be in front of our class on Thursday and Friday.

On the day we introduced the project, I handed students these guidelines.  We spent just one day researching information in the computer lab, and the remainder of the project was completed on their own time.  They created their own due dates along the way and monitored what materials they would need and when.  Two weeks before presentations were do, they submitted a one page "Content Connection" paper which justified their choice in project as vital to a language or culture in some way.  

This coming week products will be displayed in our Media Center for other teachers and classes to learn from and check out.  We will have contributions from at least 6 different Spanish classes and one Latin class.  The French and Chinese classes may contribute as well.  Late in the week, those not submitting a product will verbally present to their classmates.

I hope to learn a lot from my students, get to know them a little more in the process, and create lots of resources for future open houses and publicity of the program.  Stay tuned for more details throughout the week!

Voice Recorder Pro

The way our current tests are set up, students step into the hallway with me to have a quick conversation for their speaking test.  It is usually between 5-8 points, and it involves the student answering a few questions I ask them in complete sentences.  While I greatly value the one-on-one conference with each of my students, the obvious downside to such an exercise involves time.  28 students X 2 minutes each X 3 classes = lots of time spent not "teaching."  I am constantly trying to come up with activities the rest of the students can be doing that are truly worth their time while I am not instructing/monitoring.  Plus, the conversation I am having with one student generally feels rushed and pressured as I am always with one ear turned towards my classroom.

I am convinced there has to be a technological advancement out there that will make this process more efficient.  This year I began experimenting with Voice Recorder Pro.  It is a free app that allows students to record their voice, play it back, alter the speed of recordings and export these files to various locations.  It has truly streamlined our speaking tests!

Pros:

1. Each student can take the speaking test at the same time, instead of waiting 2 days to speak with me.
2. Students can listen to their own answers and learn from their mistakes and my comments instead of trying to remember what they said or how they said it by memory.
3. The anxiety related to conversation being "put on the spot" is greatly reduced when you can think first and re-record later if necessary.

Cons:

1. Instructions took quite a bit of time the first time we used the app together.  There are many options and many different features for the students to sift through.
2. The best option we could think of for me to hear each recording was for the students to export the file to DropBox.  But, each time, it uploaded the MP3 file along with a text coding file.  Our DropBox account had to be cleared out regularly.
3. Each file has 2 names you can edit.  One just changes the name inside the app, but the other will change it when you export it, too.  Trial and error!

I will continue to use this app as often as is feasible while we aren't yet 1-to-1.  I anticipate it being even more helpful when students have a device in class each day.  

Make every minute count!

I NEVER get to everything I have planned for the class period.  Anybody with me?  When I'm trying to refresh topics from yesterday, conference individually with students, practice listening/speaking/writing/reading, have the students moving around, use authentic resources AND assess students along the way...I just don't know where the time goes!

Some people use "exit tickets" to double check that their students got that one main thought from the day.  But, if you're like me, you have come to the conclusion that you are incapable of stopping class in enough time for the students to successfully complete their exit ticket. So, I decided to do the exact opposite...come up with a super quick assessment that is their ticket IN the door.

If we have just introduced new vocabulary, for example, the following day I meet the students in the hallway before they get a chance to walk in the door.  I have a stack of pictures in my hand, along with my gradebook.  I show the students a picture, one at a time, and have them recite the word to me in Spanish.  If they can do it on the first try, they earn 3 points and they can enter the classroom.  They then can begin their "Para Empezar" on the board.   If they cannot answer the first question, they go to the back of the line and wait to try again, but now they can only earn 2 points...and so on, until they are out of points to earn.  Those students enter the classroom after repeating after me and receive a 0 for the day.

I have noticed that this practice takes care of 4 objectives:

1. Students are held immediately responsible for information they learned the day before.  It is not a test next week, nor a homework assignment they can look up information for, but rather a quick "got it or don't got it" type of wake up call.
2. This has all but eliminated my tardy issue.  If you are late to class, chances are you are still waiting in line to enter and you are already mentally rehearsing your vocab.  If you are so late that we are already finished, you have earned a 0 until you have made up your word.
3. It feels fair. It's straight forward.  No tricks.  No test taking strategies.  If you mess up, you get 2 more chances.  If you bomb a whole day, it was only 3 points.  But, after you consistently do well at this for a week, you have a 15 point assessment in the gradebook to be proud of.
4. It helps me conference one-on-one with my students.  I get a brief moment with each individual to hear them pronounce a word or two.  I can see how long they have to think before they respond.  I no longer have to wait until a paper quiz to see how students are doing...I know before they enter my classroom.  And, oftentimes, I base my instruction on that!

As the week progresses, I typically stray from rote memorization to more complex things.  Sometimes they have to translate a sentence.  Sometimes they have to answer a question.  Sometimes they have to simply pronounce a word.  It varies.  This idea could work for all content areas, too!  It is a great way to assess students in a non threatening way, with very little prep for the teacher.  Plus, it gives me a few minutes of classtime back...and I need every minute I can get!

Frase de la Semana

I am always looking for ways to encourage students to incorporate Spanish organically into their daily conversations.  Sometimes it happens, often it does not.  So this year I decided to take a more proactive role in targeting one "frase de la semana."

Each Monday I introduce a brand new phrase that I think will be helpful for them to know.  I have a spot on my front chalkboard where I write the phrase in Spanish and leave it all week for them to reference.  I do my best to act out the phrase in Spanish using gestures, pictures and whatever else I can gather to express the meaning.  Each time I hear the students using this phrase in context throughout the week, they receive a red "boleto."  They write their name and class period on the back and place it in my little bucket by the door.  On Fridays I draw out a name (or two or three, depending on how generous I'm feeling :) ) and the winner gets to choose from my highly coveted "premios" box.  It was JUST refilled, so tickets are going hot!

This semester students requested the ability to use the phrase on social media sites and gain credit that way too.  I think that still accomplishes our original objective...so I said yes!  We will see how it goes this week.  At this point, I love seeing tweets from my students using #valelapena, so I'm considering it a win.