PHEW it is already July 12th and I’m just now getting to a post I outlined right at the end of the school year. I’ve been busy busy with my honeymoon, my brother’s upcoming wedding, LLLAB summer work, ACTFL stuff, CI Reboot… Lots going on. But I really got a lot out of reviewing my victories last school year, so here we are again. Here’s what went well this school year:
Free Writes / Focus Writes
I use timed Free Writes as a way for students to show their language growth over the year, with each student storing all their Free Writes in portfolios that we keep in the classroom. This is consistently a winning procedure, as students love comparing their disjointed writing from the beginning of the year with the more fluent, detailed writing they are producing by the end of the year. Our greater consistency with doing them just about every 2 weeks helped me in my planning and gave us lots of evidence of growth to reflect on at the end of the year.
A related win has been doing something I’ve titled Focus Writes at the end of each major thematic unit. Students get 5 minutes to write about themselves in relation to the major topics we explore throughout the year. For example, for Level 1:
- 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
It’s simple, quick, definitely not the only kind of writing they do, but kids get to see how much easier it becomes over the year to write more. We reflected on how comprehended listening and reading input becomes greater ease in writing about yourself over time. And my two Level 1 classes averaged 96% and 116% increase in word counts on these Focus Writes between Focus Write 1 and Focus Write 4 this year, which I brought to my evaluation conversation with my assistant principal, who loved it. Definitely keeping Focus Writes for next year – kids like increasing their skill in talking about the most important thing: themselves!
Reviewing and Clarifying Expectations
Every year, I have been trying to refine my classroom expectations so that they are clearer to students, both in what to do and why we do it this way, and making them expectations that I feel comfortable and justified in enforcing. Inspired by Lance Piantaginni, I used the following expectations this year:
I reviewed these expectations Every. Single. Day for the entire first month of school, and regularly thereafter. (This is especially important after long weekends, breaks, big events, etc.) In addition, any time we did a new activity type, I specified how these expectations applied to the new activity. And this year was so much more peaceful! It was easier to enforce clear expectations whose justification we went over thoroughly. I am keeping these expectations and these procedures for sure.
March Music Madness
I participated in March Music Madness this year in all my classes and it was a huge hit. If you are not familiar, excellent teachers across the world collaborate on a March Madness-style bracketed tournament for new music from our target cultures with the goal of finding a “winning” song from the contenders. Teachers can either link up with international online voting calendars or keep all the decision making up to their own classes (I opted for just doing a school-internal tournament this year because of scheduling). I had my TAs put up a bracket with images of the artists, pictured below, and my students grew so possessive of their favorites that it made my heart smile. They were arguing with each other about their preferences related to Target Cultures music – arguing about content – awesome! I can’t wait to participate again next year.
Free Reading
My students started reading earlier in the year, and read more than ever before. Kids traded books, talked through plot twists, and generally got so much in linguistic competence from daily free reading. Not to mention, it was an absolute joy to read outside when the weather was nice.
Something I touched on but want to do in greater depth next year is discussing with students what successful Free Reading in the TL should feel like. Students have different tolerances for ambiguity/volume of new vocabulary and thus need to try different levels of difficulty for themselves, and sometimes learners need reminders of how to use the glossaries of the books they’re reading. Reading can be a very efficient, effective way to acquire a lot of language, but not if students are frustrating themselves out of potentially successful experiences.
Teaching a Novel
I have only ever done free reading of novels in class, but this spring, I taught my first-ever whole class novel. And I loved it! I taught Mit dem Wind in den Westen from Fluency Matters, and the Teacher’s Guide made it so easy for me to plan and read with my students. My students loved learning about the former East Germany and its culture, and Reader’s Theater was a hoot. I tried a variety of reading formats with my students, including whole class reading, group reading, partner reading, and individual reading, and the group reading procedure pictured below was the favorite of my students:
1. Reader (reads text aloud in L2) 2. Explainer (explains what’s happening after each paragraph/page) 3. Dictionary person (looks up words) 4. Questioner (asks content/context Qs) [Roles change after every page / logical amount of text]
This Tweet
This Tweet was my most successful Tweet this year.
I asked my Level 1 students what color they associated with each school subject and it got…heated lol. Try it as a warmup some day and report back – lots of fun!
WAFLT / PNCFL / NEA
In October, I was named the Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT) Teacher of the Year. This was a huge surprise to me, and I was deeply touched by the recognition. I have felt lots of love from colleagues I have met through WAFLT conferences, and I was honored to be chosen as a representative for language teachers in our state.
In February, I submitted a 30-page (!!) teacher portfolio to the Pacific Northwest Council for Languages (PNCFL) as the WAFLT candidate for PNCFL Regional Teacher of the Year, and interviewed with members of the PNCFL board for about 45 minutes, touching on topics of best practice in language teaching, the teaching of culture, advocacy for language teaching and teachers, and so much more. At our online conference, I was named the PNCFL Regional Teacher of the Year. This really made my head explode, and it has been so incredible to meet language teachers from across our 6-state region and learn from and with them.
The next step is the ACTFL Convention and Expo in Chicago in November of this year. I am one of five candidates for National Language Teacher of the Year, which makes my heart pound every time I think about it. The process of refining my PNCFL portfolio and adding to it as part of my ACTFL candidacy has been truly transformational for me. I am prone to self-deprecation and anxiety about my work as a teacher, and the reflection built into the portfolio process has really helped me identify what I do well, and areas where I want to grow some more. I feel really proud of myself, and no matter what happens in November, I am ready to use my teaching and advocacy skills for the good of all the language teachers I have the pleasure of connecting with.
If all that wasn’t enough to make my heart explode, I found out in April that I am Washington’s nominee for the NEA Excellence in Education Award. My lovely colleague Kei nominated me (knowing this feels like such a wonderful professional hug – professionally hug excellent educators in your life!!), and it means that I’ll be headed to an awards gala (!) in Washington DC in the spring of 2024. Wild. Wild! I am so thankful for these opportunities and can’t wait to see how they evolve over this next year.