Tag: Input

Calendar Talk – Keeping Your Fingers on the Pulse of Classroom Cultural Life

Calendar Talk often comes up in conversations about “essential” techniques, and for good reason: it can be a fantastic way to participate in the lives of your students, and provide windows into other cultures! The class is able to share about important events and moments in their lives, and the teacher keeps their finger on the pulse of what is current and important to the students in their class. (The older I get, the more I find myself thinking, “The what? Why is that cool? What are they doing? My lower back hurts. This is just a rehash of the 90s. What is happening.“)

Why should you use Calendar Talk in your classroom? Calendar Talk allows everyone to talk about the things that matter in their lives lately, while also providing an opportunity to learn about and connect to important dates in other cultures, and can thus build deep, powerful connections between classmates and the instructor for maximum joy and acquisition.

When do I use Calendar Talk?

Calendar Talk is a very flexible technique: it can be incorporated into instruction as just part of an opening (or even closing) routine, or it can be a standalone activity itself. In any case, Calendar Talk generates a lot of language that is personalized to the class.

As for when in the school year to use this technique: literally whenever! I find myself starting the year with it because it can be a very safe activity, but I find my use of it ebbs and flows based on student (and instructor, hello) interest. But then, it can be a great palate-cleanser between lots of new activity types, units, or at points in the year when everyone just needs a win (and some connection to go with it). It can be the comforting home base to return to when the class has taken the midnight train to Crazy Town. (This never happens to me, what are you talking about…)

How do I do it? – Logistics

First, get ye a calendar! You want to find a format that works for you.

I typically draw a calendar grid onto a large piece of butcher paper or a giant Post-It. You want it to be big enough to be visible to students and also usable for an entire month. I have joined the legions of Mr. Sketch-addicted teachers to draw and mark the calendars. I find that you can use one calendar for all classes, though sometimes classes get a lot of information out onto the calendar OR feel a strong sense of ownership that might require you to get separate calendars for certain classes. Take into account cost and materials and do what makes sense for you.

Much more economically friendly is just printing a blank calendar template from online onto printer paper, and writing on it using a doc cam. I typically search “[month] calendar” in the Target Language to see if I can get relevant cultural celebrations already built into the calendar, and because the format is often different from US-American calendars. (German calendars, for instance, start on Mondays, not Sundays. Culture!)

If you want to go a digital route, get a template that is easy to use and reuse. During distance learning, I used this free calendar I found online (in German and in Spanish) with easy to copy/paste graphics to move around the calendar pages. It is also easy to make copies of pages so that each class can have its own calendar, and you could even link the calendar slide in view-only mode to a course website.

An alternative for both of these is to just use Small Talk Slides that can help cover the same sorts of information, but without the same calendar visual. A disadvantage is that the actual calendar page serves as a visual scaffold and memory bank – I would venture a guess that most students have seen a calendar and would have its format as a starting point for understanding – but an advantage is that having a closed set of choices can help students be more expressive and not be intimidated by trying to come up with what’s going on in their lives lately, in the L2, when they might not feel quite comfortable doing that. (But also: accepting relevant L1 as part of Calendar Talk can help lower the affective filter, and if you can just rephrase into comprehensible L2, students can acquire personalized, highly relevant vocabulary.)

Pick a format that feels easy and workable for you and your classroom context! And if you have found any sweet templates in your internet browsing, please share them in the comments.

How do I do it? – Procedure

  1. Display the calendar of your choosing so that all students can clearly see it. Or, if you want, you might just draw out the calendar live in front of your students, narrating what you are doing in the L2. “I am going to draw a calendar. I am drawing a line, a line, etc. Hmm…let’s think. Monday…Tuesday…Wednesday… What month is it? Oh, it’s September!” etc.
  2. Introduce the calendar in language at your students’ level. This can range from: “This…is… a calendar! Look…at the calendar! Wow! Let’s talk…about the calendar!” to “Today, we’re going to talk about what is going on in your lives lately, and what’s going on at our school. Let’s also learn about what’s going on in [Target Culture community]!”
  3. To ease into the activity, it can be nice to start with just the date, and the weather. For upper level students, or level 1s who are familiar, just asking “What day is today? What is today’s date?” gets the job done, where beginner students will need more scaffolded questions. You might point at the relevant spots on the calendar and ask this-or-that questions, like “Is today Tuesday…or Wednesday? Is tomorrow Wednesday…or Thursday? Is today or tomorrow Tuesday? Ah yes, today is Tuesday, and tomorrow is Wednesday.” Writing new-to-your-students vocabulary on the board in L1 and L2 can help support making this early-in-the-year activity 100% comprehensible. Writing words like “today” directly onto the calendar can help with this, too.
  4. Then, you can move on to the weather! Beginning with “How is the weather?” you might offer choices again (“Is it sunny…or cloudy?”) with visual supports (drawings or writing in L1 and L2), show the class a list of options, or with students who are ready, just let them answer however they can. You can draw that onto the calendar to record it and scaffold understanding.
  5. If students are familiar with Calendar Talk, everything before this was just the warm up…here’s where it gets interesting! Now, ask the class if there is anything important or interesting happening today, or this week/month. Anything! This can be birthdays of students or their family members, sports matches, performances, school events, holidays – anything! It is likely that students will offer these ideas in L1 – that’s totally okay. You can just let them share, or set a limit for how much L1 you accept, and then rephrase their sharing into comprehensible L2. Aim to use high-frequency vocabulary in doing so – leaning on the Sweet 16 verbs and writing new vocabulary on your board – so that your students can use and reuse that language when talking about their own lives. “Oh! Soandso…has a football game…on Friday! Does Soandso have a football game or a football practice on Friday? etc etc”
  6. Ask lots of natural follow up questions to what students share. “Where?” and “With whom?” are great questions to get more information out of a student’s sharing, and these added details allow you to see a fuller picture of your students’ lives. “Where will you play the football game?” can lead into discussions about how students get to and from their sports practices, how much time they invest in their extracurriculars, and so much more. “With whom do you play video games?” can easily lend itself to a discussion about favorite games and genres, the trials and tribulations of online gaming lobbies, what gaming systems they had when they were younger, and if students have favorite streamers they like to watch play. Generally relying on question words (which I always have posted in my classroom) gives you a lot of ways to go with whatever students share, but also – follow your own curiosity! Especially if you don’t know much about a student’s hobby, this gives them a chance to teach you something. All the while, check frequently for class comprehension, and ask processing/circling questions about what is learned.
  7. See if you can connect events and happenings to as many students as possible. If you’re discussing a birthday, poll the class on who has birthdays in what month, if it’s better to have a birthday during the summer or during the school year, how old everyone in class is, who’s the oldest and youngest, etc. (We had a student in one class last year that we affectionately dubbed “Grandpa” because he was an older junior in a class of freshmen, and the next oldest student was “Uncle Soandso.” I, of course, was “Great Grandpa FishRod.”) Sharing about video games or sports can lead to questions about who also enjoys playing, or who just watches, or who has a sibling who plays. The discussion is never just about any one kid – it always can involve the whole class. Any new words are going up on the board, and getting repeated in processing/circling questions frequently throughout.
  8. Discuss upcoming events for as long as students maintain interest and attention! This is something you will just have to feel out. Sometimes, students are quiet, but engaged, and you can continue discussing for a while. Sometimes, the rambunctious sharing energy is too much, and you just have to move on. Sometimes…you just want to get to the next activity. Move on when you’re ready to move on!

What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?

At the end of a session of Calendar Talk, I try to review the new information we just learned about our classmates. This can be as simple as oral questioning, or could be playing The Mysterious Person game. This can help students acquire more of any new language through more comprehensible repetitions, and give you a chance to shine the spotlight one more time on the students in your class.

I also like to make sure I have saved what is learned on the calendar in some visual way. Whether it’s writing key words in L2 (“Football game” “New video game” “No school” “Tech week”) onto the calendar, or just drawing little icons to jog everyone’s memory, recording what was learned onto the calendar visual stamps the lives of your students into an important classroom document. This can serve to remind you later to check in with students about things they mentioned: “Hey, how was the track meet? Where did you end up going to eat on your birthday?” Nothing makes someone feel more special than getting checked up on.

The visuals on the calendar can also serve as great scaffolds to start a Write and Discuss text. This gives students a chance to see more complete written sentences, and notice anything interesting about how the L2 is written. This can also serve to reinforce any new vocabulary that came up spontaneously during the sharing from your students’ lives, which ends up creating a sort of personalized vocabulary list for your class.

To round out the experience, you might also administer a Quick Quiz as a formative assessment. This can give students even more repetitions of new, relevant vocabulary, and can be a real confidence booster.

Pro Tips!

  1. It is not about teaching calendar stuff! Sure, we can use the calendar to learn the words for “today, yesterday, tomorrow,” the weather and numbers, etc., but the calendar is really a springboard for asking students what else they are doing in their lives besides just being your students, and how they are doing in their lives. If we focus on the “calendar vocab” instead of on the lives of our students, we are missing out on opportunities to learn more about their lives, connect with them, and connect them to each other. Calendar Talk is about building community, and discovering the cultures of your class.
  2. Share from your own life! Don’t be afraid to put events from your own life on the calendar, because you are also a member of your classroom community. As much as you feel comfortable sharing, this can help build even more connections between you and your students.
  3. Favorite day of the week! I have learned some fascinating things by asking the class what their favorite days of the week were. Many students pick weekend days, with specific reasons why one day is better than another, but sometimes students will pick a weekday for an interesting reason. One student picked Thursday and told me that it was because it was the day her favorite webcomic dropped new panels. Glad I asked instead of just saying “we all love Saturday, right?”
  4. Find the style that suits you! Some teachers feel comfortable with sprawling discussions that can take from 10 minutes to the entire period, and feel comfortable managing the flow of new language into the activity. I try to ride the energy of my class, which is variable every day, and feel comfortable improvising a bit as students share their various life events. Some teachers want to keep an activity like this more controlled. In that case, offer choices that students must choose from, as opposed to leaving things more open. “Who has a game this weekend? Do you have a football game or a lacrosse game? etc.” And if you are ever feeling so overwhelmed that it isn’t feeling worth it: move on! It’s okay! You can always try again.
  5. Day of the Day! There are tons of declared holidays around the world, some interesting and historical, some just wacky. Writing them into your class calendar and discussing them with your students as a way to personalize the calendar can be really rewarding and fun. You can use this excellent website for ideas, or look at calendars in your Target Language to see if anything comes up.
  6. Make cultural connections! Keeping an eye on current events and holidays in your Target Culture(s) can make Calendar Talk a natural opportunity to introduce more of the Target Culture(s) into your classes! Write them onto the calendar ahead of time to remind yourself, and open discussions that allow students to make cultural connections and comparisons. My students have always been interested in holidays that offer time off of school in the Target Culture (haha!), elections, regional festivals…
  7. Make connections with people from the Target Culture(s)! It can also be fun to introduce celebrities from a Target Culture, perhaps on a day when they did something significant, or on their birth or death days.
  8. Hire a meteorologist! Once discussing the date and weather loses its luster for the whole class, you can hire for the class job of “Meteorologist.” This person can stand up at the beginning of Calendar Talk, sometimes to the applause of their peers, and briefly report on the date and weather. One of my students used to run out the door to get the absolute best read on the current weather and return in a dramatic burst, and another used to give some sort of encouraging message to the class to start the day. Great fun!
  9. Look up the weather in Target Culture locations! While you’re on the topic of weather, it can be fun to look up the weather in other cities around the world. This naturally allows you to make comparisons between your city and the other city or cities, and might also teach your students about Fahrenheit and Celsius! You might find a link to a weather website in the Target Language – I always use wetter.de and show students the capital cities of the German-speaking world, as well as the city where I used to live.
  10. Do it however you like! This blog post is informed by years of practice and learning from other teachers, and I’m hoping it offers you lots of options for how you might go about doing Calendar Talk. But! Don’t feel like you have to do it all. Again, Calendar Talk is only kind of about the calendar. Mostly, it’s about learning more about your students’ lives and cultures, and connecting them to each other and you. If you focus on that, you can’t go wrong.

What if I want to learn more?

Here is Claudia Elliott’s post about why she uses Calendar Talk, including a video of her doing it with a Spanish 3 class. She also has a whole episode of her fabulous podcast on the topic!!

This is Maris Hawkin’s post about Calendar Talk, which comes with some very helpful linked resources!

I also loved this post from Spanish with Stephanie that includes lots of great resources and examples.

What do you think? Do you feel ready to use Calendar Talk? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!

The ABC-Quiz: Cultural Learning Through Movement

In the summer of 2022, I was lucky to attend a seminar put on by the Goethe Institut titled “Sprache, Landeskunde, und kulturelles Lernen” that explored the concept of integrative Landeskunde in language instruction. That is, exploring how to teach our students not only facts about our Target Cultures, but also skills of intercultural communicative competence and discourse about cultural phenomena – all through the Target Language. It was an absolute blast to take the course entirely in German with German teachers from four continents, and the ABC-Quiz stuck out to me as a fun way to get students thinking, moving, and engaging with cultural concepts.

Why should you do it? Because our dear kids need a bit more movement in their school day, even if it is just a little bit of standing up and walking around! Plus, they tend to get competitive about finding the “right” answers, which ups the engagement factor as they think about cultural Products, Practices, and Perspectives.

When do I use the ABC-Quiz?

The ABC-Quiz is primarily an input-oriented activity as students read and process questions about cultural phenomena in the Target Cultures, voting with their feet as to what they believe to be the correct answer, and it can be inserted into a unit just about anywhere – either to introduce a topic and relevant vocabulary, or to extend learning about a given topic.

If you use an ABC-Quiz early in a unit, you will definitely want to preview new vocab in some meaningful context, or build in that contextualization into the Quiz itself.

In this example slideshow that I can use very early in my German 1 course, new academic vocabulary is bolded, and contextualized given students’ knowledge about the world. Even if they maybe think that “Hauptstadt” means “largest city” at first, they quickly learn that it means “capital,” and can then use that knowledge immediately for the next prompt to guess / state Germany’s capital. The number ranges in the population and number of states questions also give clues as to what is being talked about before students are asked to guess facts about Germany, based first on their learning the new vocabulary in German as relates to the home country (in my case, the USA).

Otherwise, the vocabulary in this example is very limited to basically “is,” “has,” and then names of countries! With more language proficiency, students will obviously be able to read and contextualize more information and new vocabulary.

How do I do it? – Logistics

The main principle of this activity is that students are given a multiple choice question, and move to a designated part of the classroom to indicate what they believe to be the correct answer. You can simply use scrap paper, writing “A” “B” and “C” in large print on three separate sheets, and then lay those sheets across the front of your classroom to designate three areas. Perhaps you already have a “Four Corners” procedure with country names, cardinal directions, or some other indicators in your classroom that you can use in the same way.

You will also need to prepare either some slides, or, much more challengingly, an oral text with multiple choice questions about your Target Cultures. This can range from geographical facts, like in the example above, to questions about the Products and Practices of your Target Cultures. See below for more inspiration in this regard!

How do I do it? – Procedure

  1. Explain to your students that you will be asking them questions to see what they already know about the Target Cultures (and maybe also their Home Cultures!).
  2. Tell learners that they will answer the questions you ask by moving to what they believe to be the correct answer, and indicate the areas for A, B, and C (or whatever other system you use in your room).
  3. Start with a question that could be fairly easy to answer, and model wondering aloud about any new vocabulary that might show up. Referring to the example above, maybe you say, with special emphasis on the italicized words, “[In the L2] The capital…of the United States is…Los Angeles…New York…or Washington DC.? Hmm…the capital. What does capital mean? I wonder…What do you think? Go to A, B, or C, and we’ll learn together!”
  4. Reveal the answer to the question, and celebrate all students’ answers. Reread the complete sentence with the correct answer in it, and do a comprehension check on any new vocabulary (or maybe even the meaning of the whole sentence) by asking, for example, “[In L2] What does capital mean in English?” Celebrate the answers you get for that!
  5. You can easily reinforce new vocabulary by asking follow up questions using the newly-learned word, indicating with a gesture when students can give a choral response (or if maybe they should just shout it out). “[In L2] Ah, so Washington, DC is the capital of the United States! Is [our city] the capital of [our state]? What is the capital of [our state]? What is the capital of France?” All along the way, restate the correct answers, using the new vocabulary, in complete sentences.
  6. Continue on asking content questions, having students move, showing the correct answer, and extending the input with further questioning. If you want to make sure any new academic vocabulary really sticks, you might limit yourself to 3-5 new terms that you use in a variety of contexts throughout the activity.

What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?

Because you may be introducing new information to students through this activity, it is recommended that you follow up with some sort of review activity. Maybe you do a Write and Discuss with your students about what they learned, or just engage in some oral questioning.

In the example slideshow above, I provide students a gap-fill reading that reviews all the information students learned in a short paragraph that uses connecting words like “and” and “but.” It is simple enough for a Novice learner to understand, and all they have to provide in that example is place names and numbers! You could confirm correct answers as a class by reading the completed paragraph aloud, and then have students complete a Volleyball Translation in pairs. Gap fill paragraphs like this could easily have larger gaps or more complex clauses for students with higher proficiency, like “When entering a restaurant in Germany, it is polite to…” or “Something that is similar to my culture is that…”

This activity is a great way to discuss cultural Products and Practices, so written reflection or discussion about the underlying Perspectives is also a natural place to go after an activity like this. I like ACTFL’s reflection question that is included in the Intercultural Can Do reflections: “What new insights about yourself and others have you gained from thinking about this?”

Pro Tips!

  1. Extend the learning! To drive up the amount of input and thinking in the activity, make a discussion out of every answer. Use new target vocabulary to ask personalized and knowledge questions, and share experiences with any cultural phenomena come up.
  2. Follow up! A gap-fill text, multiple choice questions, whatever – just make sure that students have to recall the information they learned. It can get exciting to move around and try to “win” during activities like this, so it helps to have a paper-to-pencil component that confirms what was learned and what might need reinforcement.
  3. Go beyond facts and products! For illustrative purposes, my examples above use geographic facts about Germany, but we could train our students’ Intercultural Communicative Competence even further by discussing social situations and phenomena that students may discover in the Target Cultures. (This would be the Practices P of the 3 Ps!) Let the image below provide some inspiration for possible topics for an ABC-Quiz:

What do you think? Do you have ideas for an ABC-Quiz you could do with your students? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!

Special Person Interviews – Making Students The Stars of Your Curriculum!

I tend to forget about Special Person Interviews for a while, and then when I start doing them again and kids are CLAMORING to be interviewed in front of the class in German, I’m like…what have I even been doing? They are easily adapted to align with curricular goals, interesting, and FUN.

Why should you do Special Person Interviews? There is no easier way to make your students the stars of your curriculum than by literally making them the “Estrella del día” / “Stern des Tages” / “Class Superstar” for an entire lesson! Students also get natural modeling of so much beautiful language, and, as Mike Peto says, we can effectively model the Interpersonal skills of thoughtful, engaged conversation for our learners. We need these skills perhaps now more than ever.

When do I use Special Person Interviews?

The Special Person Interview occupies the “Input” portion of your lesson, creating a common experience for your students as they engage in the interview of one of their classmates. It is highly recommended to follow up with some oral or written review of the information learned in the interview during the same period the interview is completed, and to do a Write and Discuss to summarize and review the information you learn about your Special Person!

As for when in the school year to do Special Person Interviews: I recommend doing them early in the school year, and regularly throughout the year thereafter. The Special Person Interview process establishes students’ lives as the focus of the curriculum, build community and connections between students, and build student skill in listening and responding during whole-class interactions.

How do I do it? – Logistics

The first step to conducting a Special Person Interview is…finding a Special Person! This could be any student, and maybe after a while, anyone from your school community. You definitely want to pick someone who shows some interest in being interviewed / being a star. An unwilling interviewee will likely give you very short, deflective answers that won’t be compelling to your class and won’t give you much language to work with as the instructor. I generally sweeten the deal by rolling out my Very Cool Swiveling Teacher Chair from behind my desk for the Special Person to sit on during the interview, and you might offer a cool prop or costume item if that’s your style. (And if all else fails…stickers…)

Ahead of the interview, you will also want to prepare about 5 interview questions. That doesn’t sound like very many, but between the follow-up questions that you end up asking to get more details, the reactions from the class, and your comprehension checks / review questions, you will likely end up with an entire period’s worth of conversation that you have to cut off for lack of time. If you have questions that you know that can be simpler to answer (“How old are you?” “Where do you live?” etc.), you can fill those in as makes sense, too, but 5 juicy questions are a safe bet.

You will likely get the most compelling answers if you allow your students to answer with a short response in the L1 (designate ahead of time “a phrase or single sentence” “2-3 words”) so that you can reframe the response in the L2 to control the flow of new language. Remind the class that though the class is interviewing the Special Person, the instructor is the one framing the interview and keeping it in the L2 so we can meet our two goals of 1) learning more about our classmates and 2) learning lots of L2. (Obviously, if the class has the proficiency and confidence to ask questions and follow ups…GO FOR IT! That is when it gets really fun for you and them.)

I display the questions on slides like the one shown below, with an option for the student to answer in a sentence in the language. This models different language forms very naturally for the class and gives high flyers a chance to try out some L2 for themselves. You can always prompt the interviewee to respond with the 1st person form once you have introduced any needed new language, which also helps recycle the information for the class as listeners.

This year’s most compelling answer: “moldy spinach.” Our Star had seen some really terrifying moldy spinach, but chosen not to eat it. (Phew.)

How do I do it? – Procedure

  1. Introduce the Special Person Interview to the class. I always try to frame it as the class interviewing a local celebrity who is really cool…someone in our class! You can accept volunteers, skillfully select an outgoing student who is game for most things, ask a student ahead of time and then announce them, or pick randomly (with the option to decline). To avoid the awkwardness of uneven clapping volumes for more or less popular kids in the class, I always prompt the class for a “dignified golf clap” as they take their seat in the SPECIAL CHAIR or don the SPECIAL WIG.
  2. Introduce the “Star of the Day” “Special Person” “German Class Superstar” or whatever you end up calling your interviewee. It usually goes something like this for me:
    “(in L2) This is Billybob! The class says, ‘Hello, Billybob!'” “HELLO, BILLYBOB!”
    “The class says, ‘Good day, Billybob!'” “GOOD DAY, BILLYBOB!”
    (something silly or ridiculous) (the class repeats that)
    AND THEN: I spell the interviewee’s name out loud and on the board in the L2, confirming with them once I am done.
  3. Quietly instruct the interviewee in L1 to answer however they feel comfortable, but try to keep it to [your limit of L1] for the answer. Tell them you’ll have sentence starters on the screen if they want to try to respond in L2, and of course, you as the instructor will help!
  4. Instruct the class that their job today is to learn information about their classmate’s life, react to what they learn in the L2, and answer any review questions you have for them!
  5. Pose your first question with linguistic support. Repeat the question in L2 as the Special Person thinks, pointing at the supports you have on the board (translations, images, etc.), and maybe slip in a reminder to keep their response either in the TL or within [your limit of L1].
  6. Depending on how the interviewee responds, either reframe their response in the TL, adding anything to the board that may help (the new terms plus translation/images/etc.), or just repeat what they said back to them (in the 2nd person). Then, report out to the class in the 3rd person, prompting for reactions if the info is especially interesting, or perhaps a “Me too!” if the class has commonalities with the interviewee. (Credit to Annemarie Chase for this!)
  7. Ask natural follow up questions. Shelter the language in the follow up questions to known language or that which you can easily support, such as with Sweet 16 postings or question word posters. It is easy to introduce tons of new vocabulary words in a lesson with open-ended questions, but we have to be careful to not overload our students with mountains of new language. I try to set a limit for myself of how much new language I allow into an interview, such as just down one side of my whiteboard.
  8. Bounce between interviewing the Special Person, and comparing / reviewing with the class. This helps with class engagement. I typically try to ask the class a similar question with a “yes/no” answer, or something that can be answered with a hand raise so as to not get lost in a side conversation. (“Class, are you also afraid of spinach?” “Billybob said he has a cat. Who has a cat? Who has a dog? Who has a hamster?” etc.) Once I’ve moved on beyond a question, I always try to go back and review what we’ve learned by asking review questions. (“What did Billybob say he was afraid of, again? Oh yeah, he’s afraid of moldy spinach. Did he eat the moldy spinach that he saw? No way!”)
  9. Linger on each question for as long as there is interest and material. Again, it’s prudent to limit the amount of brand new language that is generated from an interview, so keep that in mind as you follow up with the student. The length of the interview and follow up questions will likely correlate to the proficiency of your students – teach to their eyes, and keep track of how confidently they are following along and responding.
  10. Celebrate the Special Person at the end of the interview, perhaps bestowing upon them a sticker (kids love stickers at any age), or Knighthood in the Micronation of Fisherlandia. (Wait that might only work out in my specific classroom…)

What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?

Review review review! You likely just learned some cool new info about one of your students through the interview. Oral questioning (of the whole class or maybe individuals) can be a simple, but effective, follow up.

If you’ve done a couple interviews, you can play The Mysterious Person by describing someone from the class with info that the class has learned, and having students guess who is being described. This is a fun way to recycle language and also make sure that you are regularly making students’ lives the center of the curriculum: it’s hard to play Mysterious Person if you don’t keep learning new information about your students!

Always following up with a Write and Discuss helps turn the interview, which was mostly sound, into written language. In addition to modeling strong writing in the L2 and helping connect sound to form, this can become material for a class yearbook, a comic about the student’s life, or a display about the students in your class!

Rounding off the period with a Quick Quiz gives students one more recycling of the new language from the interview, gives you as the instructor formative assessment data on student comprehension, and gives the whole experience a “school-y” sheen.

Pro Tips!

  1. Ask natural follow up questions! Through this process, we are modeling conversation skills in the L2, so if a follow up question comes to mind based on the student’s response, ask it! You’re doing this on behalf of your class, who may not yet have the L2 to ask the question but want to learn more!
  2. “With whom?” and “Where?” are often great follow up questions! If you draw a blank when trying to pose follow up questions, these two power questions are often very interesting to pursue. Generally, leaning on question word posters will give you the inspiration you need for a follow up question.
  3. Go slow! If we want to model being a thoughtful conversation partner, it is natural to react, repeat, and rephrase the things we hear about. If you need to stall to think of a good next question, just repeat what you just learned. That is much better than rushing through to fill the silence and feeling frantic.
  4. Switch up the questions! Mike Peto recommends coming up with a new set of 5 questions after using them for about a week, and Annemarie Chase builds up from having her first interviewee answer just about 5 questions, to a slideshow of almost 20 questions. Maybe not all 20 questions get asked, but the idea is to add variety and build on students’ growing proficiency.
  5. Switch up who gets interviewed! Why not bring in a person (whether or not they speak the L2) from the community to be a Special Person? This could include L2 speakers from your community, your administrators, or L2-speaking friends and colleagues from across the world!
  6. Switch up who does the interviewing! I sometimes ask for volunteers to read the questions off the board, and then I (the instructor) reframe and ask the follow up questions. Students with more language might be able to do some follow up questioning of their own!
  7. Orient your questions towards the unit you’re teaching! If you have a pacing calendar to keep up with, or certain themes/vocab that you need to hit every year, use the Special Person interviews to introduce, deepen, or reinforce those themes. Here were some questions from a “Food Unit” that were super engaging for one of my German classes and helped reinforce tons of relevant vocabulary:
    – What did you eat this morning for breakfast?
    – What can you cook?
    – What is the name of your favorite restaurant and what do you order there?
    – What food do you personally find gross?
    – What is a food that you could eat every day?
  8. …or don’t! Maybe your goal is not “hitting this specific vocab,” but rather, “learning more information about my class.” That is a very worthy goal – pick questions that you think would be fun and interesting for your students!
  9. Teach rejoinders to help the class stay engaged! If students have a way to react to the new information that they’re learning, they will more likely stay engaged in the TL. Easy ones to start with are “Me too!” and “How cool/interesting!” (Credit again to Annemarie for this idea!)

What if I want to learn more?

I am so lucky to have learned about Special Person Interviews from Bryce Hedstrom, whose post here is a response to someone who had been trying Special Person Interviews and was experiencing some frustration. His response is clear, helpful, and illustrative! Here is a video where he discusses Special Person Interviews with La Libre Language Learning.

I refined my approach to Special Person Interviews after learning more from Mike Peto, who has a great primer on them in his CI Master Class (paid subscription necessary). This free blog post discusses how to make the most of the “untargeted” approach to these interviews and provide students with lots of repetition, interest, and joy.

This post by Annemarie Chase is a treasure trove of Special Person/Star of the Day ideas. Her ideas for keeping the class involved are (mind explosion noises) and I am immediately stealing.

Cécile Lainé created this post as an FAQ document for Special Person interviews, and has potential questions aligned to ACTFL proficiency levels, graphic organizers if the instructor wants, and a helpful list of ways one might follow up on the interview process.

Here is a video of Brett Chonko conducting a Special Person interview in one of his classes. Lots of great stuff happening in this video – and it’s great to see the process happen live with real students!

What do you think? Do you feel ready to use Special Person Interviews? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!