My units are different every year because the people who come to my classes every year are different! I try to build in ample time into my year for “wandering” with my classes – following the interesting things that come up in conversations – but I have also found it helpful to have certain topics/themes that I “do” (which really means start discussing, because topics spiral up over time) at certain levels to give me some anchors for planning. I try to tackle these set topics/themes using all of the Foundational Strategies I list here on my site, including Card Talk, One Word Image, Small Talk, and Special Person Interviews, with just a bit of steering towards each given topic.
This also helps me in speaking to the proficiencies my students are building at each level. After a few weeks of Card Talk toward the beginning of level 1, I can discuss with students their growing capacity to talk about hobbies and interests. Every student is going to be in a different place with the acquisition of the various necessary structures, but having the set topics/themes helps connect to one very compelling Why for many students: growing in their capacity to talk about the most important subject – themselves! (Of course, there are many Whys in language learning, such as building global community, learning from and with other cultures, and wanting to learn the world’s most beautiful language, German, but if our young people are in the identity formation stage of their development, it’s nice to nod to it!)
A tweet by Profe Camacho led me to the idea of essentially using the same prompt all year long as a way to demonstrate student growth. And thus, the Focus Write was born into my practice!
Why should you do a Focus Write, then? A Focus Write can be a quick, simple tool to demonstrate student growth both to outside stakeholders (read: families, administrators, evaluators), as well as to our learners!
When do I use Focus Writes?
Focus Writes are a lot like Free Writes, which many CCLT teachers have written about. Here is Elicia Cárdenas’ post about Free Writes that covers what they are, and when/how to use them. Generally, you want to start using Focus Writes (and Free Writes) after students have had time to get lots of language input into their heads. I would do one no earlier than 6 weeks into the school year, preferably closer to 9.
It also helps if you can look back on language input that students have been receiving and group it into “topics” so that you can space out the Focus Writes over the course of the school year, and select the spiraling prompts for them (this will make sense later). I aim for five total Focus Writes on the “major” topics I cover in level 1, for example: Introducing Myself, Hobbies and Interests, Important People in My Life, Our School Life, and My Food and Drink Culture. These align with the expectations of the community college through which I offer my third year dual-credit course.
How do I do it? – Logistics
To help with word counting, I like to use special lined paper that has the number of words at the end of each line! I print out enough copies of this paper, modified for each unit to include the unit number and complete prompt, as well as a goal that I think will be attainable for most students. (I lifted the template from the inimitable Meredith White!)
The prompts spiral across the year to include everything that came before, as well as the most recent topic. Here are my level 1 topics as an example:
End of unit 1: Introduce yourself Unit 2: Introduce yourself and your hobbies Unit 3: Introduce yourself, your hobbies, and your important people Unit 4: Introduce yourself, your hobbies, your important people, and your school life Unit 5: Introduce yourself, your hobbies, your important people, your school life, and your food/drink preferences
My lesson plans are my slideshows, so I always have a slide prepared that looks something like the one below that I use after the fourth unit in my level 1 course:
Now, by the third or fourth unit, five minutes does not feel like enough time to answer all the prompts, and I’m actually okay with that! If my students feel like they have enough to write and talk about for five minutes, then I am content, and they will be able to see their own growth.
I have only been doing this in level 1 as students develop language, but this could easily be transferred to other levels for the purpose of building student writing portfolios.
How do I do it? – Procedure
The first time I do it, I tell students that we are going to be writing as much as we can in L2 for five minutes. The first topic is to just introduce yourself, saying as much about yourself as you can in the L2!
Students usually have a question at this point about the grading. I tell students that we are going to do this 5 times total throughout the year, and they will get an A if they increase their word count of logical German writing over the course of the year. (Which hopefully prevents students from just writing “My name is my name is my name is” over and over again.) If you have to take grades with certain frequencies, you can just set a very low goal for students to reach and then give them a good grade if they reach it, with gradations below that goal.
At this point, I distribute the ~special paper and tell students not to start yet, but to put their name, the period, and the date on the paper.
For the first Focus Write, I reread the prompt in L1, and then think aloud about how I might answer the prompt myself. As in, “(L1) Hmm, introduce yourself in German…(L2) My name is Herr Fisher-Rodriguez, I’m 33 years old, I am from California but I live in Washington… (etc etc).” In input-focused classrooms, students can sometimes get nervous about output, and might just need reminders of the kinds of things they certainly already feel comfortable writing about.
Then, I set the timer…and let them have at it! I usually just observe students as they write, prompting slow starters with ideas or inspiration, if needed.
After the five minutes are up, I compliment my students about how smart and awesome they are! I usually say something to the effect of, “I was reading what y’all were writing, and it looked really great and right on target!”
For the 2nd-5th Focus Writes, I just remind students that they have done this (successfully!) before, and that this is just a chance to show off what they’ve learned since the last time we did this. My encouragement is to just beat their own previous records!
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?
As mentioned above, I usually grade these fairly gently, mostly looking for growth over time. Follow your heart (read: the specific context of your job) for how to grade these, but remember that output grows so much more slowly than comprehension, and be realistic with your expectations.
Reading student writing (made simpler by only having them write for 5 minutes, HELLO) can also reveal what structures have really “stuck,” and which might need some more input. For example, maybe your students need more exposure to numbers and talking about age, so you can just make sure that any future input also includes ages, as appropriate. Marking things up with a red pen won’t do as much for their writing proficiency as just reading more, so provide lots of opportunities to read rich, comprehensible texts!
I keep a portfolio of my students’ “major works” from their entire time with me (Free Writes, Focus Writes, tests, reflections, etc.), so each Focus Write gets filed into their portfolio. What’s fun is later pulling them out, and calculating their percentage growth. Getting to tell a kid that they’ve increased their 5 minute writing output by 200% is a great feeling for everyone.
Pro Tips!
Decide on your topics! These may be determined by your district’s curriculum, or alignment with some outside source. Then, no matter what you do throughout the year, you can remind yourself to orient class conversations toward those topics as you move along. Maybe you add in some breakfast/lunch/dinner conversations to your opening routines, or characters in your stories just so happen to extensively describe their friends and family. There is flexibility in the “how” in working towards the “what” here.
Model! Write and Discuss is a great way to model the skills of writing, and guide students towards greater success while writing on a specific prompt. Slipping in a lesson similar to an upcoming Focus Write, and modeling the writing process can really help students be more successful.
Keep them! Even if you don’t have portfolios for each student, demonstrating student growth back to students increases feelings of competence, which can increase student motivation. Make sure they get tucked away for future celebration.
Use them! I used this one year as part of a Student Growth Goal during my evaluation cycle, and my evaluator was blown away by the data I was able to provide. Admin love to hear informed statements like, “these students I chose to focus on increased their 5 minute writing fluency by 100%, while also growing from using mostly Phrases (NM) to mostly using Simple Sentences (NH) with some Strings of Sentences (IL)!” Focus Writes provided both qualitative and quantitative data for these conversations. Check!
Do other types of writing! This is just one way to elicit output from students – building diverse portfolios of student writing is essential for us to know what students have acquired, and what needs more input. I mostly focus on input for the first two years I have my students, so there is not a crazy amount of additional writing for them beyond Free Writes and Focus Writes, but variety is the spice of life!
What if I want to learn more?
This original tweet by Profe Jackie Camacho is what inspired me to write this post, so check that out!
What do you think? Do you feel ready to use Focus Writes? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!
Phew. The last day of school was only 12 days ago, but so much has happened in my personal (and even professional) life in those 12 days that it feels like a lifetime ago. Despite my best efforts, this summer will be as packed and crazy as my last two, so I’m looking to carve out time for reflection on the lessons from last year, lest the time escape me and I collapse like a dying star when we have to start up again in August. So, here are some reflections from our first year back in the classroom full time since the beginning of the pandemic:
It’s Time to Raise the Bar
Most days, right after school, my Spanish teacher colleague Laurel and I take a walk around our school and neighborhood. We chat for ~30 minutes about whatever comes up – sometimes it’s reflections from our teaching day, sometimes rants about unruly classes, sometimes it’s just talking about what’s going on in our personal lives. I always feel refreshed and reoriented after these chats, because they get me away from my computer right after school and help me process lots of stuff. If you read this and take anything away, let it be that you find a Laurel for after-school walks!
Many of our final conversations towards the end of the year were, of course, looking ahead to the 2022-2023 school year. The pandemic has taken so much from all of us, from just about every aspect of our lives, and has required us as teachers to be dealers of grace: not only to our students, but also to ourselves as professionals. There was so much from The Before Times that we just had to let go, because we could see that our students (and sometimes the exhausted professionals we saw when looking in the mirror) were just maxed out with all the upheaval and change.
But the agitation of all that change seems to be settling a bit, for better or worse. Maintaining the empathy and SEL skills that we have learned from these past two school years, it might be time for us to start raising the bar of our expectations a little bit. We want to make the most of our time with our students and see where denying ourselves the easy way out (with behaviors, learning, whatever) helps students flourish even more as they build their competencies. These last two years were definitely not a waste, but we, carefully and lovingly, want to push for more now.
An aspect of this conversation was definitely our students’ relationships to their cell phones, and the impact that they have on our jobs. I won’t get into that here because there is, uh, plenty of great writing about that online right now, but it has helped to see that other teachers have struggled with this these past two years and are looking to try to demand more from their students, as well.
Moving My Posters Around
Last year was the first year I had a classroom allllll to myself, and I have to admit to not being the best decorator slash practical user of wall space. (Luckily, this is one of the many strong suits of my husband-to-be, phew.) I am going to demolish some old (bad) displays I have in my room to make way for spots for the Sweet 16 verbs (also written about here by Mike Peto), common classroom phrases (“Excuse me?” “Can you give an example?” “Can you repeat that?”), and also rejoinders. I think these will be crucial in giving students language with which to create their own responses to what’s going on in class, as well as remind me to recycle these super important bits of language over and over throughout the year.
More Retells
Input is what drives acquisition, but I’ve found my students build a sense of momentum in their language journey by remarking how retelling class stories becomes easier over the course of the year. The first retell is a little bit of a struggle, but it gets better as we go! I tried Blind Retells for the first time this year, and they seemed to go really well. Plus – it’s actually a secret input activity!
Rejoinders / Passwords
I was using both rejoinders and passwords in The Before Times, but they fell by the wayside as we adapted to the many changes coming our way. Time to bring them back! My third years (who were in their first year when things went sideways) brought them up a couple times this year, so I think they stuck out as something cool / helpful /important.
Ungrading
I recently read a fascinating book about Ungrading, a collection of essays by practitioners at different educational institutions about how they go about reducing the importance of grading within their courses while also increasing student ownership of the course content and also their learning outcomes. I am always uncomfortable with grades – they are so arbitrary and not helpful – especially as they relate to the messy work of acquiring a language. I would like to decrease their relevance in my classes as much as possible, while also not uh…getting in trouble at my place of employment.
To that end, I want to see if I can move towards a more portfolio-based assessment system with clear goals that students can personalize and work toward. Part of that will be changing my listening/reading quizzes from having “A/B/C” rubrics to just listing the approximate performance/proficiency level the student demonstrated instead, so that the emphasis is on building performances towards lasting proficiency.
Additionally, I want to try to give only feedback (no grades) on writing and speaking performances as much as I can get away with. Students just look at grades on assignments and trash the rest, so I want to make sure my feedback is actually doing something for them and that it doesn’t go to waste. They have to be able to do something with it, which might end up being revisions and resubmissions. Sooooo that will require a bit more thinking as well, as red-pen-ifying a piece of writing (or a speaking sample) doesn’t do much for a student’s acquisition. But some kids want that red pen! I’ll be thinking on this a lot.
Choosing / Creating Rubrics That Show Growth
I learned a lot from my Avant ADVANCE training about what the different proficiency sublevels actually look like. I think that this knowledge could help me craft better writing/speaking continua that help students see the stair steps they are making towards higher proficiency. They need to be granular enough to be able to demonstrate growth, but student-friendly / not crazy technical. I started creating a writing continuum based on that training, but I think it needs a lot of work for me to feel comfortable using it as a tool for my students’ reflection and learning.
Writing Moves for Each Level
There are certain phrases that came up as part of the Avant training (“Added Details”, “Complex Components”, “Transition Words”) that, again, are a little opaque to our novice learners, but they are the markers that help move them from one level to the next. I’m thinking of creating little cheat sheets of prepositions, conjunctions, and transition words, and then angling my use of them toward the levels that “need them” to move up to the next proficiency level. These could be good reminders to me to keep everything as rich as possible in class (so I don’t just resort to making them memorize the lists), while also being a nice resource for the students who actually do want something to study while at home. Mike Peto also has these brilliant magnets for whiteboards that remind everyone to draw these vital words into our Write and Discuss to make it flow better.
More Backwards Planning from Authentic Resources
My relationship to #authres is that it’s fine-ish if (and only if) I can find ways to use it comprehensibly without breaking my brain / spending 8,000 years preparing ancillary materials. I generally think that time is better spent providing more comprehensible input to students vs. having them hunt-and-peck for words and phrases in otherwise incomprehensible texts. But some things have just proven to be interesting conversation pieces, if just a bit above where my students are. So, I want to be more intentional about creating Embedded Readings or front-loading vocab for stuff that is really cool and merits a closer look.
Using AP Cultural Comparison Prompts as Research Questions
AP was kind of my Big Fail for this year. I taught it as part of a combined Level 3 / AP German class and I never found the correct balance between the two courses. Lots of students expressed frustration about it, and I was frustrated, too. There didn’t seem to be a logical throughline to the course, so I’m brainstorming ways to make that happen next year.
One idea I got from my AP German training last year was to take all of the Cultural Comparison questions that the College Board has generated over the years, assign one to each student, and make that student the “expert” on that area of culture. It allows them to go deeper on one specific topic and its related vocabulary, perhaps even teaching it to their classmates, and helps me broaden their cultural horizons in a way that also prepares them for that exam. That exam I love so much. What an exam. (Muffled screaming)
Answer Questions That Regularly Come Up for Our Whole Department
As department chair, I fielded some questions from parents at an incoming freshman night that I think would be powerful to answer as a department. There is quite a bit of diversity in teaching philosophy / beliefs in my department, which I think ends up being okay because there seems to be a lot of alignment within the languages themselves. That being said, it’s important for us, in both defending our jobs and promoting our content area, to be able to compellingly answer, “What does a successful language learner do to create that success?” “Why is it worth studying a language for more than two years?” “How can the home adults support a student studying a language they don’t know?” Having a, er, common language for this can help us promote our department and hopefully create stable enrollments (a historical problem for us as elective teachers). As we all know, there are plenty of adults who had poor language learning experiences in high school and can’t imagine the magic we create nowadays. 😉
What were your reflections from this year? Let me know what’s been on your mind as we transition out of the school year and go into summer mode!
Online learning, for me, has been about simplifying and streamlining my planning processes to yield maximum results without sending me into internet search spirals that last hours and generate maybe one slight adjustment to what I was already going to do in the first place. (It has not, however, cured me of my tendency to write giant compound sentences like the previous one. #BAinGerman)
I have been feeling pretty successful in providing high-quality, personalized CI, given the circumstances. But I had been missing those little bits of memorized language that I was using as “Passwords” (a la Bryce Hedstrom) to get into my classroom – how can I get students those helpful phrases in this online way? Enter The Question of the Week!
Why should you use it? Because often times, students enter language courses with expectations of what they should be learning, and how that learning should look. We can definitely through them a bone with these phrases, which are very useful and help us ensure that they have natural, powerful language for use right away!
When do I use the Question of the Week?
I use the Question of the Week outside of my normal lesson cycle, usually during the “Warm Up” or “Do Now” portion of the lesson, before we really get going where we’re headed that day. It has been a nice ritual for my first lesson of the week with each class because it is expected, and it makes it easy for me to remember to plan it ahead of time!
How do I do it? – Logistics
When thinking of potential Questions of the Week, I have been thinking about phrases that might be expected by the student, given the class or unit content, or are just difficult to weave into stories or discussions. For example, it’s helpful for students to know how to say “My name is…” but awkward to ask it of them if…Zoom just tells me their name on the screen at all times. (These are called “Display Questions” in pedagogical literature – questions to which we either already know the answer or for which the answer is apparent to all and thus for which there is no communicative purpose – they are only for “language practice.” “What color is my shirt?” is not communicative if all students can see it.)
Here are some examples from the first units of my current courses to help clarify even more:
Level 1: What is your name? Where are you from? Where do you live? How old are you? What languages do you speak?
Level 2: What is your favorite food? What is your favorite drink? What do you think about that? (or, “What’s your opinion?” after I make some statement) What do you like to cook?
Level 3: How do you feel? (reflexive in both Spanish and German) What are you interested in? (also reflexive in German!) What does that remind you of? What is important to you?
How do I do it? – Procedure
I introduce each Question of the Week during the first class meeting of the week. I have students note down both the question, and the sentence frame that they can use to respond to it! For example, they would note: “What is your name?” –> “My name is…” in L2, as well as what it means in L1.
Then, I have my class answer in the chat all at once (which I have turned so that they can only chat with me), and I repeat and comment on their answers. “Oh, Soandso is from California? I am also from California! Where are you from specifically, Soandso?” etc etc.
After I get all these initial answers, I move on with my lesson. BUT ALSO: throughout my lesson, I randomly ask the question to my class to make sure they are there and engaged! This helps both reinforce that memorized language, as well as help me make sure that cameras aren’t just off because students are off secretly recording Tik Tok dance videos or something during class.
After we have built a repertoire of these questions, I sometimes cycle through a couple and have students respond to all of them in the chat. Great spaced practice – especially if you ask “Level 1” questions in level 2 or 3!
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished learning it?
Use these questions all the time! I have built the Questions of the Week into stories I’ve told with class, just to build out what we know about characters and setting. Variations on the questions and statements have also appeared in readings I have given my students to reinforce the different forms (person, tense, etc.)
My level 1s have talked a lot this year about “wanting practice speaking,” which we know can be very pleasurable even if it doesn’t necessarily lead directly to language acquisition itself. So I am creating an assignment where students introduce themselves by answering all the Questions of the Week. Because they have practiced and heard these questions and their responses over and over again over the weeks of class we have had together, this will be a slam dunk-easy assignment for students to just speak their memorized answer and get comfortable with the new language in their own voices.
Truly though, if you pick a meaty question (“What is your favorite movie?” “What do you do in your free time?”), you could make the question your entire lesson. Once you start a discussion, you can just focus on a couple answers, write up a summary of the discussion with Write and Discuss, and have spent a good long while getting to know your students and the way their minds work.
Pro Tips!
Pick useful questions and sentence frames! What are some basic sentence frames that allow students to describe, express an opinion, show their emotions? With an eye to useful functions, we can give our students a strong and flexible set of conversational moves that they can apply across their language learning experience. I tend to forget to build some of these phrases into my class stories and experiences, so planning like this ensures that I get the students the useful stuff they need.
Recycle them! Use them over and over as attention getters, in new contexts, make them really stick.
What if I want to learn more?
Bryce Hedstrom’s post about his passwords (which students have to say before entering the classroom) can be a great source of inspiration for ideas of what sorts of things you can build in to your Question of the Week repertoire. Check out his posts about his higher levels, too, to see how the idea scales.
What do you think? Do you feel ready to use the Question of the Week? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!
If you are in the CI Blogosphere or in any of the numerous fabulous Facebook groups dedicated to discussing Teaching with CI (TCI), you may have heard of an activity called a One Word Image, or OWI. (Another TLA for you!) (TLA = Three Letter Acronym) (Buh dum tss) You may have seen teachers raving about how fun they can be, or the wacky images their students create. But what even IS this activity, whose creation is attributed to Ben Slavic? Let’s explore!
Why should you do it? Because our students are wonderfully creative, and it sometimes seems extremely rare that they get to explore that creativity in the current pressurized school environment. Building a character together as a class can be a fun outlet for them (and you!), in addition to accomplishing your Secret Language Teacher Goals. Aka – they get a lot of language input out of it! Not to mention, this character could become a class icon who goes on many adventures, or at the very least lives on in your classroom as a symbol of cooperation and fun.
When do I use an OWI?
The Create phase is a session of Guided Oral Input.
An OWI belongs in the “Create” category of activities in the Star Sequence, or what we might also call the “Guided Oral Input” part of a lesson. This is an experience that generates language and common experience in the classroom, which become the basis for the literacy work of the other star “points.”
A One Word Image is an inanimate object or animal that your class customizes and anthropomorphizes through your questioning and the collective use of imagination. The image gets drawn up (more on that below) so that you can revisit it later and use it for more literacy!
As for when during the school year to create an OWI with your class – it can be whenever! Many teachers use this strategy early on as a bridge to whole class, co-constructed storytelling, but it can pop up whenever in the year if you want to inject some fun and energy into the proceedings. Plus, it is easy to angle an OWI towards whatever unit you’re in. School unit? The image has to be a school supply! Food unit? Food with a face on it is hilarious! House unit? One of my most successful OWIs was a Roomba! (By the way, the German word for “vacuum cleaner” is “Staubsauger” – literally, dust sucker. Ding!)
How do I do it? – Logistics
Before you get started with anything, you’ll need to set up a way to get the image drawn for you! Most teachers find it useful to hire two student artists to draw the image as you and the class build it. This allows you to use the image later as an anchor for further discussion and literacy activities. Elementary teachers sometimes draw the images themselves to make it easier to see and more accurate.
Tina Hargaden once recommended announcing that you need to hire someone who is very good at drawing, so everyone needs to point at someone who is very good at drawing on three! One, two, three! A lot of the time there are 1-3 artists in a class that just rock and everyone knows it. You can use positive peer pressure, or just asking the student to get them on board. They then will need an assistant to help them out, so I take volunteers for that part and let the primary artist choose someone with whom they are likely to work well.
I set my students up at an easel with a giant piece of butcher paper, some chart paper markers, and some colored pencils. (You’ll also want for them to have a pencil sharpener and maybe a ruler, just in case.) My instructions to the the artist duo are as follows: 1. Draw exactly what I say (not what the class says…it’s easy to get distracted), and the Assistant has to follow Artist 1’s direction and vision 2. Take up the whole piece of paper so that the image is easy to see 3. It should be more cartoony than realistic – like a logo! 4. Do the outline in marker, and then color in with the pencils 5. Do not talk at more than a whisper so you can hear me and we don’t get distracted 6. Work quickly! They will have essentially 20 minutes to make this happen, in most cases
Many teachers also choose to hire a Professor #2 in this moment. This student will make the final call on details if there is a huge disagreement in the class. It is best to choose a student who may be quiet or not quite fully integrated into a group in the class, as this gives them a moment to be an important part of the classroom community without being overshadowed by the more…uh…active participants in your room. When there is a knockdown, drag-out fight about whether the Roomba is blue or red, Professor #2 makes the call and it is final. Instruct the students to respect the decision and move on.
How do I do it? – Procedure
The first time I do it, I say in L1 that we are going to create a character as a class using the power of our imaginations. We are going to create something that doesn’t exist already – so no rehashing of a famous character or person. It could be any sort of object – a car, a food, a piece of clothing – just not a person, or a character that already exists!
Then I start taking suggestions. Don’t bother translating to the L2 at this point – you’re going to get lots of excited suggestions. I take raised hands, and if students say anything that causes The Teenage Giggles (something inappropriate or that could be construed as such), I just say, “No,” and give a lingering glance to the student who suggested it.
A lot of the time, there will be one suggestion that has a lot of resonance with your class – pick that one! If there are a couple warring factions, propose 2-3 ideas and then just make a decision for the class. Write the object in L2 with L1 below it on the board. (Be prepared to learn a lot of random words in your L2…like when your students want to create a muskrat and you have no idea how to say that in German…)
Switch into the L2 (I have a student yell “DEUTSCH” to make that happen), and repeat the word for the object in the L2. I then tell the class to look at the object (again, in L2), while gesturing to a space in the front of the classroom. Saying the word with wonder and admiration, even asking students if they see it too and exhorting them to really look, adds a bit of magic to this initial moment. (I usually try to find a good moment to pop over to the artists and quietly whisper that they should start drawing a basic outline of the object, but without a face or color yet.)
Then, ask students in the L2 if the object is big or small. Use your body to convey these terms to students if they are not quite fully acquired – for example, I usually draw out my arms really widely for “big,” and then say the word in L2 so that students’ brains are cued up to hear the L2 word for its meaning. Then, do the same for “small.” If there’s a split decision, send it to the Professor #2 to make the call. Then, repeat the size with wonder, looking at the imaginary object you’ve established. I also say things like, “Wow, this muskrat isn’t small, no…it’s big!” in the L2 to just give more input. After that base detail has been established, you can play with the degree. For example: is it big, or VERY big? Is it VERY big, or is it GIGANTIC??? (Gestures galore!) This can be a fun way to up the ante and introduce students to similar words in a natural context.
After size, I usually ask what color the object is. It is helpful to have some sort of colored poster, like this number poster from Teacher’s Discovery, to quickly establish meaning for the colors. After the class chooses the color (or you defer to Professor #2 to make the call), it can be fun to compare this to objects in the class. Is it red like a Coca Cola bottle, or is it red like Jackson’s sweater? All the while, gesture to the imaginary object in the space you established earlier. Tell students to look at it, and repeat what it is. “Wow class, look here. We have a gigantic, red vacuum cleaner in our classroom. Hello up there! My name is Herr Fisher! How are you?” HAVE FUN. HAVE FUN!
After size and color have been established, compared, and wondered over, ask if the object is happy, or sad, establishing meaning through gestures or writing on the board in L1 and L2. With both options, I usually go back to the object to play with that a bit… “Hey! How are you doing? Badly? Oh no!! Don’t cry…it’ll be okay!”
For the first attempt, having these three class-decided details may be enough. Make sure you ask some questions along the way as a memory refresher for you and your students (“Wait…is our vacuum red or blue? Oh yeah! Thanks, y’all. It’s red! Wow!”), and don’t be afraid of playing with the wonderment of creating something together. This also can buy your artists some time to finish up their drawing.
You can do this as part of a written exit ticket, or asking the class as a whole: ask why the object feels the way it does. It helps to contextualize the emotion with details that the class has established. For example: “Why is this gigantic, blue muskrat so sad??” This can help focus the problem that students generate. Have them create the problem in L1 so their creativity can run wild! If it is written, you can tactfully combine ideas for the next class (or see if there is a dominant theme you could follow), and if you decide as a class, you’ll have to be prepared to do this live, gently turning down ideas that are too insane/violent/whatever.
I like to wait on the reveal of the character until the next class meeting, but whenever you do it, make sure it is done with a drum roll and some celebration of the artists for their contribution to the class’ history!
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?
So you’ve created a character, and somebody (maybe you, maybe some students) drew it up! What’s next you ask? The possibilities are endless!
The obvious first step is to reveal the artwork to students. Now, because you’re working so heavily in the imagination during the creation of the character, you’re going to have as many imaginings of the character as there are students in your class. I like to preempt any negativity by saying, “Now, we’re going to show our appreciation to our classmates for creating this artwork for us! How much positivity and love can we give them?” (You may still have to address students privately who think they “could have done it better,” or publicly if the class is being unkind. Just prepare a set statement like, “Soandso took a great risk by volunteering to create something for us, so we will only honor their bravery and artistic choices!”)
After revealing the artwork and having the class show appreciation for the artist(s), talk through the character again in the L2. Maybe some features are easier to see than imagine all together – the large image is a great visual scaffold for you to talk about many more aspects of the character’s life. Maybe it has especially expressive eyes, the artist gave it a shock of crazy hair, or it’s interacting with its environment in an interesting way! Talk about that in the L2, conveying wonderment with your voice to show appreciation to the artists.
It is easy to segue from describing the character to a Write and Discuss, where you write up a description of the character with the class. At this point, you’ve repeated the language of the character description a lot, so students may be able to contribute to the paragraph that you write up on the board with ease and enthusiasm! A nice Quick Quiz after writing the description and rereading it can make the whole thing feel like a very academic experience – even if it was insanely fun!
If you feel like you want to try your hand at storytelling, you can use the problem generated at the end of the OWI process to turn into a very simple story. For example, the aforementioned vacuum cleaner was sad because he didn’t know where his parents were. Easy peasy! Mike Peto suggests a sequence of story creation that goes along these lines: 1. Describe the character again, where they are, and who they are with (usually a friend of a similar character species) 2. Describe their problem and the character’s reaction to it 3. Attempt to solve the problem a first time, and fail 4. Resolve the story by either solving the problem, failing, or failing and rethinking the problem
This can generate a quick story that can then be used for more literacy! And the language will naturally repeat, so student will get lots of CI in many restated contexts.
Beyond the Basics
Usually after a first class character, you can extend the time you use to create the class character, as well as the breadth of the questions you ask about the character. I got many of these ideas from Ben Slavic and Mike Peto. Consider asking about the following traits:
Kind or Mean
Intelligent or Dumb
Rich or Poor (gets old quick… Gucci belt Gucci belt Gucci belt #seventhgraders)
Brave or Scared/Timid
Optimistic or Pessimistic
Hardworking or Lazy
Honest or Dishonest
If you find some of these not-so-inspiring, try different traits! This keeps it fresh and can also help start discussions about these values.
Also consider asking the following, which can be hilarious and so fun:
Character’s name
Likes and dislikes
Age
Job that they have
A superpower they have
Pro Tips!
You don’t need to have a certain personality to do this! I am a zany person, but you do not need to be loud and extroverted like me to make this (or any “TCI” strategy) work. I have seen teachers regarding their imaginative creations with calm, professorial wonder, where I’m hopping around, crawling on the ground, etc. Try this strategy again and again until you develop your own relationship to it – don’t feel the need to BE any one teacher until you’ve experimented and found what works best for you.
Don’t let it run wild, part one! Kids are extremely creative, but it’s easy for things to get out of hand if you allow students to interject constantly with “Does it have seven legs?” “Is it wearing a tophat?” “Does it speak with an Italian accent?” You, as the teacher, need to make clear that creating with large groups of people can be very difficult because everyone is creative in different ways, so YOU will be the one asking the questions and will only accept answers to those questions. And when you have to cut it off, you will for the sake of actually getting something done and created. This can feel creatively disappointing, but we sometimes have to accept our ideas not getting used, and maybe they will be used next time!
Don’t let it run wild, part two! Kids like inappropriate stuff. When you are creating something in a more open-ended way with students, they will attempt to push the boundaries and say things that will make their classmates laugh. If you get a sense that there is a secretive in-joke laugh going around because of a suggestion, just nip it in the bud by lightly turning down the suggestion and giving a meaningful glance to the students suggesting it.
Sometimes you just have to make the choices! Students will likely feel very strongly about this activity, as it is quite unlike the rest of their classes and assignments. Sometimes you just have to make the call for students (often with the help of Professor #2), and accept that not all students will be satisfied. (“No one even wanted that one!”) Understand that these are your loudest voices and don’t necessarily represent your whole class. Let them know that a decision just had to be made, and that we can all accept our feelings of disappointment and hope that our ideas get chosen next time. (Sometimes students will strike deals with each other about a detail, saying that they’ll save something for next time…hilarious. And quite cooperative!)
Offer choices! Sometimes, asking questions such as “What color is it?” can lead to seemingly hours-long discussions that never get anywhere. Especially early on as students are acquiring these terms, just offer 2-3 choices – one that is kind of logical, one that is a little more out there. “Is the apple red like normal, or BLUE??” Students will usually have some sort of response as long as you show them what each word means, and you can decide if it will be normal-seeming or…not. (Most of the time, asking the class, “Is this a normal ____?” leads to an emphatic “NO!”)
Make it quick! As I said above, lingering on an open-ended question can just feel like an endless L1 slog of pain and misery. Keep the conversation moving: offer choices, allow for a short moment of lively debate, and then make a decision (relying on your Professor #2, when necessary). This can be a very fun activity – don’t let it, uh, fester.
End it if you have to! Some groups are not used to their teachers offering them such fun choices, and can get overstimulated very quickly. We (people who teach with CI) have all had a class who just couldn’t even. In-fighting, debates that got personal, no consensus building, etc. If that is happening to your class and it is starting to feel a little out of control and not so fun for you, tell the class you have all you need for today, and shift gears to something like a Dictation or a Quick Quiz. It has to be something quiet to signify, “hey, this didn’t work so well this time.” Reuse whatever language you were able to come up with as a class, and maybe add a detail or two yourself as the teacher, clearly establishing meaning and making sure your artists are with you.
If it fails, try again! Sometimes, we try a new strategy, and the first go-around feels quite…train wreck-y. Students don’t get it, you feel unsure, you question your abilities to teach “this way,” it doesn’t seem like it did anything for your classes, etc. We can have any number of thoughts go through our heads as we try something new, and this is absolutely normal. You’re learning something new and those muscles aren’t conditioned yet for maximum performance! I encourage you to try the strategy again, and as SOON as possible. Get back on the horse! That way you can implement the lessons you learned the hard way RIGHT AWAY and leave class with a sense of accomplishment, not a sense of defeat, embarrassment, or bitterness. End on the best note possible – practice again and again!
What if I want to learn more?
Check out the Bite-Sized Book of One Word Images by Ben Slavic and Tina Hargaden – this is an excellent resource that I have drawn a lot of my inspiration from. Ben Slavic is credited with creating the OWI, and his work with Tina in this book is very illuminating when it comes to how using images inspires our students’ imaginations and gets them so focused on creation that they effortlessly acquire the language used along the way.
Sarah Breckley has this video that shows her trying an OWI for the first time, with real kids!! It is very brave of her to show a first attempt – and can give you some inspiration as you learn for yourself.
Here’s Brett Chonko seamlessly working from an OWI to a Write and Discuss – what a pro! This can show you how these two strategies interact and lock together seamlessly to provide some awesome CI to your students.
There are many more videos of teachers doing OWIs on YouTube – search “One Word Image” for a treasure trove of different teaching styles!
What do you think? Do you feel ready to create a One Word Image (OWI)? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!
Recently, I went to a workshop with Lynn Johnston, who is an absolute rock star and will be PNCFL’s representative for ACTFL Teacher of the Year this November in Washington, DC. I have seen her present multiple times at WAFLT and WAFLT-COFLT conferences, and so appreciate her creativity and energy. I feel like her students’ brains must be bursting with L2 at the end of class – she has fabulous systems in place to make sure kids are getting tons of input every single day. She is also a reading rock star, and really turned me on to doing WAY more reading with my students.
One thing I have been thinking about a lot is how Lynn uses sentence frames to give students opportunities to express themselves, while also modeling higher level language use. In CI World (disclaimer: not a real place slash no one owns “CI”), teachers are often discouraged from “forcing” output – that is, pushing students to output beyond whatever mental representation they have acquired. This makes sense: you can’t wring water out of a dry sponge. But we also know that outputting can be motivating to learners (especially secondary learners), and that it may provide opportunities for their interlocutor (here, usually the teacher) to provide even more input as they follow up on whatever the learner said.
So, maybe we can provide sentence frames with most of the language filled in, and students can use those to express themselves at higher levels than they would be ready to produce on their own. This can give the teacher a brief break from providing all the input, while also modeling correct language usage.
I saw someone say once that even if students are working on super complex/”advanced” grammar and topics, if they are filling in a blank, they are only functioning at a Novice level – just words! With this in mind, if I’m working with Novices, I can provide them the structure to use their Novice-level words and phrases skills to build simple sentences. We each provide about 50% to get them successfully functioning at 100% Novice High, and we can do this early! Then we can push them towards Intermediate-Low (strings of sentences with supporting details) by modeling how to do that, too.
Ultimately, you get out what you put in. If we consciously feed our students a healthy diet of comprehensible language steps above their level, they will eventually (truly eventually – we’re playing the long game) be able to work at that level independently – because they have had repeated opportunities to see what that level looks like. If we’re only speaking to them in short, choppy sentences, or just short phrases, or via vocabulary lists, then…that’s what we’re going to get back. (“Hey Jimmy, how’s it going?” “Pencil…teacher…desk…Sit down please…”)
So! I’m going to try to give my students comprehensible, useful sentence starters/frames that match our topics. I can use them for quick turn and talks, as support for whole-class interactions, or even as exit ticket assessments. Again – I will be providing the grammar/vocab that pushes them up the proficiency scale, and they are filling in with information personal to them. I will have to support that with helpful vocab and input, too, and it will lead to some satisfying student language use in class.
I’ve been doing a training recently to assign performance levels to L2 writing, and I’ve learned that one of the indicators that a student has moved from Novice-High (simple sentences) to Intermediate-Low (strings of sentences) is the inclusion of supporting details, usually in the form of prepositional or verbal phrases. So maybe if we’ve been talking about food, I can model for my students the addition of details that move it towards Intermediate-Low writing/speaking. Take the simple sentence “I like to eat pizza,” for example. If it were in a composition with other similar sentences like “I play videogames. I rarely shower.” it would be rated at Novice High. But with some prepositional phrases, it can look like this:
With this image, I enter the Great Internet “Pineapple on Pizza” Debate. (For the record, I think it is a nice sweet counterpoint to the saltiness of the pizza, so I like it.)
Again, not life-changing in terms of wild L2 complexity, but by adding on any of these details, you’re moving out of Novice and into the Intermediate range. If we, as teachers, can model a variety of ways to add detail like this to our sentences (either through using these sentence frames as conversation pieces during class, or during Write and Discuss), we will push our students to use them more, as well. And all we would have to do is put up a sentence frame like “I like to eat _____ with _____” or “I like to eat _____ at _______” and students can fill in to their heart’s content!
The jump from Intermediate-Low to Intermediate-Mid is marked by increased use of “Complex Components,” which are dependent or subordinated clauses. Think clauses like, “When I was younger…” or “I like people who are…” or “I shop in stores that…” Those conjunctions build complexity by linking together clauses, and this is what really makes a student’s writing/speaking flow. Upper-level students could definitely benefit from getting sentence frames like these, especially when applied to AP/IB themes or topics!
This year, I am going to try to use more sentence frames so that students can “get practice” speaking the language and feeling successful. (Even though I know that this does not necessarily contribute to their acquisition of the language in the most efficient way, as I’m taking a bit of time away from providing more compelling input, we serve many masters in school jobs. This might help students feel more like they’re “doing something” in class beyond just trying to understand, and might head off possible administrator comments about a class being too “teacher-centered” or that the students never “actually speak the language.”)
But I can start small! Early in level 1: My name is _______. Then: I like ______. Do you like _______? Then: I eat a lot of __________. I can leave these frames posted for a certain amount of time, so students can refer to them and secretly get a bit of input if they look at them. Maybe I can put them in a pocket chart, or dedicate a section of wall to them. I want to commit also to changing them out regularly, so we don’t get to April and I’m like…uhh…Why is “Me llamo…” still cheerfully posted? (Last year, I was super gung-ho for rejoinders, but sadly only managed to post like…5 different ones. Oops. Growth area!)
This use of sentence frames for structured student output will also (hopefully) remind me to create related Writing Checklists for our class Write and Discuss work that will help us incorporate more strong writing moves into our shared writing. I’ll start small with conjunctions like “and” and “but,” and work my way up to including storytelling elements like “First…then…finally…”, nice transition words like “Nevertheless,” and those subordinating conjunctions that help build “Complex Components”: that, who, which, when, if, etc.
Here are some example sentence frames, linked to their performance indicator and a theme you might find in AP or IB.
Can you think of sentence frames that you could incorporate into your units or daily lessons that will push your students towards the next proficiency level? (Oof, there were prepositional phrases and two subordinated clauses in that one sentence! You get Intermediate-Mid, Benjamin.) Comment below with your thoughts and wonderings!
Edit from 2020: Are you teaching online? Read the post below first, and then check out this one for ideas on how to adapt it to online teaching and learning! Good luck to you!!!
Card Talk is another essential activity for CI classrooms. It has had some different names throughout the years that you might be familiar with – Ben Slavic’s“Circling With Balls” is definitely the progenitor to what many now just call Card Talk. (Because…#thatnametho) (My understanding is that he named it that way because so many students drew sports balls on their cards when he was teaching. #sportsballs) Many teachers start off the year with Card Talk to build classroom community and learn about their students, but this is an activity whose flexibility really lends itself to being used at any point throughout the school year.
Why should you do it? Not only to learn about the opinions, aspirations, and experiences of your students, but also to connect students to each other through your discoveries! It can be exciting hearing about someone who shares some part of your life when you’re new to a class, to a school, to an area, etc. Plus, Card Talk can be a great way to front load some high-frequency vocabulary about a subject if you’re either required to follow some sort of mandated curriculum, or are diving into a focused unit of study about a (perhaps AP- or IB-aligned) theme.
When do I use Card Talk?
The Create phase is a session of Guided Oral Input. Talk about them there cards!
Card Talk belongs in the “Create” category of activities, or what we might also call the “Guided Oral Input” part of a lesson. This is an experience that generates language and common experience in the classroom, which become the basis for further literacy work. (Most activities, like stories, characters, Movie Talk, etc etc. that people think of when they think of CI fall into this “Create” category, as they generate a lot of novel oral language, but don’t forget to also have strategies from the Write, Read, and Extend/Assess categories to provide the most complete L2 literacy experience for your students!)
As for when to use this activity during the school year…it can really be whenever! Many teachers do this early in the school year (read: first or second day, first or second week) as a way to break the proverbial ice and build classroom community (and also reinforce classroom expectations and procedures). But you could just as easily bust out Card Talk in the middle of the year to align with whatever topic or theme comes next for you. District requires you to do a daily routine unit? Card Talk it! Looking to talk alllll about your culture’s delicious food? Card Talk it! Getting into 3rd- and 4th-year discussions about stereotypes and regional identity? Card Talk it! We’ll see how below…
How do I do it? – Logistics
I have done Card Talk effectively two different ways: on paper, and digitally.
On paper: Each student needs a piece of paper to write and draw on, as well as a marker. I would shoot for 8.5×11″ printer paper, or card stock if you can get it – these “cards” can function as name tents if you want them to. Marker helps the images and names be visible throughout the classroom. If you are feeling NEXT LEVEL, use differently-colored paper for each class, to keep them separate. If you are Recycling Royalty, there’s no shame in using the back of a scrap piece of paper! (I am of German descent, so my Recycling senses are strong…)
Once students have the necessary materials, they should fold their paper in half hamburger-style and write their name in large print on one of the sides. (Is there a more professional way to write hamburger-style folding? Is it “lengthwise?” Whatever we’re all teachers here and it’s my blog darn it) On the same side as their name, students should draw a large image – without words as much as possible – that is a response to the Prompt. You may want to have students divide that side up so that there is space for both their large written name and the image, and we ask for name on the same side as the image to link the two together in our conversation. If you’re doing Card Talk early in Level 1 or 2, your Prompt can be “Draw something that you like – an activity, a sport you play, something you do in your free time, whatever!” (Some students may need some loving reminders of what is context-appropriate to draw on a card for a “school assignment,” *teacher wink*) For more prompt ideas for levels 1 and 2, as well as ideas for upper level courses, see the “Pro Tips” section below.
Sam likes hot Cheetos, and Willa likes turtles. These cards were the source of so much joy and community, and they were scrap paper!
Students only need about 4 minutes max to write their name and draw their picture. (We’re talking a quick sketch in one color, not an artistic masterwork.) After they have finished, you have some choices. I have typically used Card Talk in the beginning of the year, so I have students prop up their cards so I can use them simultaneously for the activity, and to learn names. OR: Scott Benedict turned me on to collecting all the cards, quickly sorting them by category (sports, video games, food, etc.) before choosing a first card for discussion.
Digitally: I link a slide show to our Learning Management System that has a template for students to fill out. There are enough copies of the slides for each student to claim one, and the instructions are right on the slide for students to edit and create their “cards.”
Slide template for digital Card TalkMy example because I LOVE READING AND READING IS COOL
Use your Precision Teacher Judgment to pick a student’s card that you would like to engage the students and class in discussing. You’ll be holding on to it to use as a visual scaffold for much of the activity, or displaying it for the class to see.
To start, signal for students to bring their attention to the whole class, and if you have a signal that indicates a transition from the L1 to the L2, give that signal now!
How do I do it? – Procedure
After you have picked which card you are going to discuss first and gathered your class’ attention, show the card to the whole class. You can say something in the L2 like, “OooOOoo, look at Soandso’s card! How interesting!” Alternately, if you’ve collected your whole class’ cards, you can ask, “Hmm…where is Soandso?” while looking around the classroom. You will likely already know where they are, but it will give you a chance to repeat the student’s name early on in class in a positive light. This also give you a chance to use those question words early and in context, boom.
After you have identified the student and had the rest of the class observe their card, you can repeat simple comprehensible language like “Hmm, look at Soandso’s card! Wow, so interesting!” Again, shower the love early on. THEN: take a stab at describing what is going on on the card, in slow, comprehensible language. Think breaking it up into chunks of meaning, a la: “Soandso…plays…the guitar!” Point to the card as you repeat that line again, and then you might also go to the board to write the word for “plays” in L1 and L2 on the board, and “guitar” if that is not as cognate-y as it is in German and Spanish. Remember: the card is the visual scaffold for your conversation!
All you’ve said so far is that Soandso likes to do something. Easy. You’ve been looking into every students’ eyes to confirm that they’re with you. Maybe do a quick “What did I just say?” in L1. Now is a good time to confirm with the student in question – “Hey Soandso, you play the guitar, right?” This gives them a chance to answer affirmatively, and may sometimes be necessary if a student’s artwork requires a bit more…um…interpretation.
You’ve stated what the student likes to do, confirmed it, and are now ready to expand with some details. Using our example of playing guitar, you can ask things like, “Do you play guitar super well? Like Jimi Hendrix?” (obviously assuming that yes, they are a world-class guitar player) “What songs do you like to play? Are you in a band? How long have you played guitar? What style of music do you prefer to play? Have you ever played a big concert?” Here’s the thing: you only have to pick one or two of these detail options to make an interesting conversation. If this is early, your students might not be able to handle too much more new information/language anyways. Pick a detail and park on it for a while, savoring the new information as it comes.
And here’s a natural segue: I like to alternate between questioning the individual student and panning out to the rest of the class. I can either ask them similar questions to ones we’ve already covered with the student (“Who else in the class plays guitar? Who plays in a band?”) and then compare them to the individual student, or just confirm details and comprehension with the class using some artful questioning. (“Does Soandso play the guitar or do they play the piano?” “Yes or no, does Soandso play in a band?”) Both serve to slow you down from adding too much information, and get some natural repetition on whatever has already come up. Surveying the class and tallying the results on the board can also be a helpful visual scaffold.
If you’re ever stuck, two power questions are “Where?” and “With whom?” (“Do you play guitar in the [Nearby Concert Stadium]?” “Do you play in Justin Bieber’s band?”) Students can answer however they like. We’re not going to call their parents later to confirm that their child plays in Justin Bieber’s traveling rock band…teachers have no time for investigative journalism, per my survey of the field. But kids can be whoever they want in class, and maybe there’s a bit of fanciful invention allowed. Or they can answer honestly! Either way, whatever they say is cool (as long as it’s school appropriate/kind) and can be fodder for further conversation.
Ride the waves of energy that come with talking to the student and the class. HEY THERE remember we are always striving to talk TO the students, not at them. It’s all about the class communicating so that we can all learn more information about each other. That serves both content and affective goals, especially early on. Find out more information about the student, always checking comprehension, involving the class, and reviewing.
When you’ve discussed a student’s card, learned some interesting supporting details, and you feel the energy starts to wane a little bit…move on! You can pick another card and repeat the process. (“Oh wow, that was so interesting that Soandso plays the lead guitar in an emo band. I used to do that, too. Thanks, Soandso. Hey, class, look at Whatserface’s card! She does competitive horseback archery!”) It can be helpful to set time limits for yourself so the Create phase doesn’t feel too mushy and ethereal, so maybe stick to 10-15 minutes of Card Talk at a time before transitioning to another mode. Abandon ship at any time if the “feel” just isn’t there, and be ready to move to the other parts of your lesson early with literacy activities and brain breaks.
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?
During the process of Card Talk, I find myself writing details on the board that we discover through the conversation. These might be words like “tournament” or “team” or “whaling harpoon” for your sports conversations, or “song” or “genre” for music conversations. You might have supported these by drawing little pictures to go with the L2 words in lieu of L1 translations – or not! Either way, all of this scaffolding that you’ve built up during the oral conversation can be excellent support for the Review portion of the lesson (which might just be a quick series of questions about things you learned together), and then for the shared writing during Write and Discuss. Your writing can flow easily because you can just follow the information that you’ve left as hints for yourself on the board.
Keep all the cards at the end of the lesson, and hold onto them. You can always pull out a card and Card Talk it on a day when you’re feeling less prepared, or if you just want to fill some time with some pleasant conversation. I usually do Card Talk a few days in a row at the beginning of the year to teach how to chorally respond, stay in one conversation, and how to signal when comprehension is lost. Plus, the class gets to know each other better as you help draw connections between students (and yourself!).
It’s also nice to whip out the cards later in the year, and talk about them as fond memories. Students might start producing phrases or sentences as you review them and they bask in the glow of their lovely memories. (One girl last year drew a cat on her card, so naturally we talked about cats, but she was also lightly teasing her own drawing, so we called her “the most artistic artist” for the rest of the year. And it came from Card Talk!)
During Comprehensible Cascadia, someone mentioned that it might be fun to give the cards back to the students and have them use them as talking pieces for little Presentational assessments. Maybe you set up a Flipgrid or Seesaw assignment where they talk about themselves. Using the card as a scaffold/support can help them feel more confident, because they’ve already heard the class talk about their card. I might try this during this coming year!
One last use of the cards and Card Talk is to personalize stories you tell with your class, or any other activity where everyone is interacting. Once you learn things about your students, you can put those things into their conversations and stories. Or maybe you don’t get to a card during Card Talk, but you can pull out the information and put that into a story – the kid who drew it may have forgotten that they drew whatever on their card, and imagine that you’re a Psychic Teacher with Magic Powers. Maybe a kid drew a horse, and in a story you’re telling, suddenly a horse appears! That might lead to an aside with that student, talking about their interest in horses and maybe personalizing the details so that everyone’s heart siiiiings.
Pro Tips!
Go slow! You may be tempted to explore EVERY ASPECT of EVERY CARD of EVERY STUDENT as SOON AS POSSIBLE to BUILD COMMUNITY and HAVE SO MUCH FUN. Slow down there, Turbo. (message cc: myself) We do not want to overwhelm students early in their language acquisition journeys, and each card may cause us to introduce a good bit of new language. Stick to fewer details / less language at first to build student confidence in comprehending and responding, and students will thank you for going slowly in their new language. Plus, this can also help us savor the moments more and remind us that the kids are the curriculum – we got nowhere to be, y’all. Just with our students. Take time also to review “old” cards to refresh that language and that knowledge.
Ask the next natural question! This activity is a lot like making small talk at a cocktail party. Ask yourself, “what do I want to know about this image and this student that will help us know them better and appreciate their lives more?” If you have to script out your questions ahead of time, there’s no shame in that! Take a peak at the cards during your planning period, and make a list of questions, if that helps you feel more confident. Then you can flow more naturally: “You like to swim! Where do you swim? Are you a good swimmer? Do you swim competitively?” There’s no shame in being very prepared, and then magically pulling out that specific card that you’ve prepared well when you’re with your class. You’ll find that preparing for one card actually helps you prepare for the rest of them, as the questions tend to be similar across time and topics.
Compare and contrast with the class! As I hinted at above, it can sometimes just feel like you’re talking to one student while everyone else awkwardly listens in. Involve the class by surveying them, comparing them, contrasting them, checking their memories. You might create a tally of people who do the student’s activity well, okay, and awfully, and then name a couple “experts.” (I have had at least 4 Fortnite “experts” in each class whom I asked all varieties of questions about the game.) Connect students who share similar interests: “Oh! Both Soandso and Whatserface play soccer! But they play on different teams!” This activity is all about building community and common knowledge about the many wonderful people in your classes.
Move on! One time, I pulled out yet another card that indicated that Soandso liked video games, and, surprise, this kid loved Fortnite specifically. I looked around and saw like 8 of my other non-gamer students astral project out of their bodies, because we had already touched on the topic before. So I moved on! If a topic isn’t bringing energy to the class, or the student you pick isn’t providing tons of details that move the conversation along, there’s no shame in confirming what you have learned with the class, and then moving on. Give each card a good faith attempt, and be okay with switching to something else. You can either pick another card, or move into a Review of everything that came up in Card Talk that day.
Provide choices! Especially early on in a course, students might feel uncomfortable responding to more open-ended questions because they might not know if they can say some words in L1, or because they’re worried whether or not they’ll say the L2 “correctly.” You can circumvent this by offering some choices to the student – “Do you play the guitar in a band or by yourself? Do you create your own songs or play songs by famous people?” Include some choice options in your preparation so you can assuage the nerves of your poor L2 babies when you’re like HEY TALK L2 WITH ME and they break out in a panic sweat.
Prompt ideas! – This one gets its own section below…
Prompt Ideas (roughly by level)
You can use Card Talk in any level to learn about what students generally like, but you can also use it to adapt to any thematic unit or topic you might be teaching. Just have students respond to the prompts with a simple drawing! Useful vocabulary for a topic or theme usually comes up in response to prompts like these. Here are some ideas based on what is typically “asked for” by traditional scopes and sequences at each level – if you have more ideas, comment below and I’m happy to quote you and add them to this list! You don’t have to do Card Talk to start any unit if you don’t want to – these are just suggestions!
Level 1: What do you like? What is your favorite place in our school? What is your favorite class? What is your favorite food? What is your favorite food from the Target Culture? What do your typical meals each day look like? How do you stay healthy? What is your favorite room in your home? What do you buy when you go shopping? What is your favorite place in our town? Who is your best friend, and what are they like?
Level 2: any of the above, plus: What are you afraid of? What are your favorite activities in your favorite class? How do you spend your time after school? What is your least favorite/grossest chore to do at home? What is your favorite mode of transportation? What does your ideal weekend look like? What is one of your favorite childhood memories? What holiday means the most to you? What is your favorite scene from your favorite book/movie/TV show?
Level 3: any of the above, plus: What sorts of art do you appreciate most? What do you think symbolizes our local community? What technologies have had the greatest impact on our society (either historically or recently)? What job do you want to have when you are older? How will the future be different from now? (Economically, environmentally, politically, etc.) What is something typically [Home Culture]? On the other side of the paper, what is something that is typically [Target Culture]?
Level 4+/AP/IB: any of the above, plus: What do you think is the greatest challenge the world [/Home Culture/Target Culture] is currently facing? What is a new technology you can think of that would positively change the world of the future? What one stereotype about [Home Culture] do you think is absolutely false? On the other side of the paper, what is one stereotype that you think is true about [Home Culture]? What is one aspect of [Target Culture] that you find very different from [Home Culture] and would love to incorporate into [Home Culture]?
What if I want to learn more?
Again, Card Talk has evolved over the years, so see the posts above from Ben Slavic to check out “Circling With Balls.” Here’s a video of him talking about it from his TPRS training series.
Cameron Taylor created this document that gives a rundown of how to do Card Talk. It looks like Cameron also gives the instructions for the activity in the L2 – NEAT! And I just found this video of him delivering those instructions!
Brett Chonko has this awesome video here that shows him in the first day of the school year doing Card Talk with students. He also peppers in a lot of talk about what students can expect from a “CI” class, and even does Write and Discuss on the first day! #pro
Here’s Tina Hargaden doing Calendar Talk, moving into Card Talk, and then doing a Write and Discuss. So…much…clapping…! And here’s another video where she sets Card Talk up with her class.
Here’s AnneMarie Chase doing Card Talk with her class. She is an expert at going sloooow, and she uses lots of artful questioning to include the class in the conversation.
What do you think? Do you feel ready to use Card Talk? Comment below and send me any questions you might have!
List of potential novel topics generated by the Comprehensible Cascadia 2019 Pre-Conference Reading Workshop
Reading is an essential component of any TCI classroom. Written input provides different data for the brain than oral input (think literary language, more passive constructions, sight cognates may be easier than when heard), and Stephen Krashen has compiled numerous studies that show that reading improves learners’ vocabulary, spelling, grammatical accuracy, fluency…you know, ALL THE STUFF. Students need to be reading in the L2 every day, because the benefits are too good to pass up.
Many programs have implemented Free Choice Reading (FCR), empowering students to choose whatever book from the classroom library they like, and read for a predetermined amount of minutes to get some great written input. Of course, the “C” in “CI” stands for “comprehensible,” so we need for reading materials to be leveled so that students’ brains don’t implode when we set them to reading. They need to understand their texts for the input to do its job!
We are lucky to live in a time where there has been a surge in “CI Readers” – compelling stories written in simplified language to help students both enjoy a story and get great input. Companies like Fluency Matters produce beautiful books that are meticulously edited and often have stories that students get hooked on. There are also other authors that sell through vendors like Amazon or Teacher’s Discovery. If you teach Spanish, you are especially blessed, as there are soooo many Spanish CI Readers when compared with other languages.
But what makes a student into a reader is the book that just “fits” them, the “Home Run” book, the transformative reading experience that makes kids unable to put books down. If you are a reader as an adult, chances are you can remember a book or two that was this experience for you. When the Harry Potter books were still being published, my parents took me to a couple of the “midnight premiere” events where you could get the book as soon as it was out, and kids my age were rushing to be the first to finish the newest book and know all the dramatic plot points. I remember powering through The Goblet of Fire at all hours (well past bedtime, with a tiny reading lamp) because it was a wonderful, gripping story. I was a reader!
We want these same experiences for our own students, to make them literate people who can use their reading to build empathy, as well as skill in the L2. And the texts need to both compelling stories, AND written in language students can understand with only a year or two (or maybe even a semester!) of language class behind them. But since comprehension-based readers are a relatively recent discovery for many language teachers, there aren’t a TON of authors or titles available. (Again, more for Spanish than any other language.) Additionally, “authentic” children’s books in the L2 may be more simplified when compared with the literary canon of the culture, but they often contain low-frequency vocabulary, and might not exactly be compelling for a reading-avoidant secondary school student.
This is where you come in. Yes, you! See those topics above? They were generated through observation of student reading habits and by directly asking what students would be interested in reading. Students want to read these books in the L2, but they don’t quite exist yet in large variety.
You – yes, you! – could write a simple, 10-chapter reader that could spark that love of reading in a child, a love that will push them to higher levels of L2 proficiency. A chapter could be like two pages, with lots of illustrations to support comprehension! Not feeling extra creative? Pick one of the Seven Basic Plots and map one of the above themes onto it. JUST WRITE THE BOOK!! WRITE A BOOK! WRITE ANY BOOK!
Your students want to read in the L2, and the benefits are undeniable. So lets put the magic into their hands with some new, exciting readers.
Want to learn more?
If you’re feeling like this might be something you could do (because duh you can) then reach out to Mike Peto. This post was inspired by him, and he is an excellent resource when it comes to all things reading in a TCI classroom. WRITE THE BOOK. WRITE IT!!
