Tag: teaching with CI

OWI – Building a Character, and Community, Too!

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

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. 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…)
  4. 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.)
  5. 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.
  6. 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!
  7. 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!”
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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!

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. 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.
  4. 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!)
  5. 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!”)
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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 is Tina Hargaden creating an OWI during a workshop. She has serious teacher swag, and it’s fun to watch her play with relatively little language in so many different ways. Here’s another one of her from a real class of middle schoolers! Context is important – adults are seriously easier to teach than kids. (Most of the time 😉 )

Here is Ben Slavic doing an OWI with his students. He offers lots of helpful notes on his videos that explain his rationale and actions – invaluable for the learning teacher!

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!

Classroom Management Tips (for Myself)

Ah, November. The time of year when students’ general goodwill towards school has shrunk a bit, there have been sports events and field trips galore pulling your kids out of class, and you might just be feeling a lil tired. I know this is the case for me, so this post is about taking the time to develop a plan of attack further so we are prepared for days when things are starting to feel tough.

I’m writing these as reminders mostly to myself, but I hope they help you in whatever you may be struggling with to make this time of year (aka…DEVOLSON).

I can also tell you that some of these reflections come straight from the hearts of my students: though I was recently in a negative head space and worried that students would tear me up, I again asked for student feedback on my teaching (using this form) on the Friday after Halloween (gulp). I learned that 1. things were so much better than I catastrophically had thought to myself and 2. that young people will truly surprise you with their helpful insights…if you just ask!

So, here we go!

Develop Your Vision

Do you know exactly how you want your class to look, moment to moment? This is a bigger, long-term mental project, but when you run into moments in the classroom that are irritating to you, ask yourself, “Why?” How do those moments divert from your vision of how class “should” be? I find that I often haven’t expressed to students a specific expectation that I take for granted, so it would be almost miraculous for them to just meet it. We all know that students can be very…inventive…with their behavior, so we can be the ones to express a vision of fun productivity that truly works in everyone’s favor. I’ve been writing down specific items of behavior that I envision, and then explicitly teaching to those expectations.

Tell Them Why

Language is so different from typical school subject matters that it needs to be taught in a very different way. This can be disorienting from kids who have learned how to “play the school game,” and then get into a language class where we “just talk all the time,” so explicitly stating why we do any given practice can help students understand and meet with our visions. I’ve been repeating since the early weeks of school that “we learn languages by hearing and reading messages we understand in the language,” so when I explain that talking English isn’t helping our language acquisition, kids are like…oh yeah, that’s right. But then! I give them alternatives that allow us to stay in the language as much as possible. They’re more likely to use these new mental/communication tricks if they understand why they are necessary or desired in the first place.

Energy!

When things are going right…tell them. And telling them can look like different things. Strong choral response after pumping them up? “(in L2) Yes, class! Wow, y’all are so intelligent. You’re getting it.” Long stretch of whole class interaction uninterrupted by L1? “(in L2) Wow, this class speaks a lot of [L2]! And so well!” Or save it for the end of class: “(in L1) Y’all, in the middle of class, we had a stretch where it was only in [L2], and it was so glorious. I could tell so much [L2] was going into your brains, and you are going to be the super awesome, multilingual citizens of the future. BAM!” And also: never discount the power of a high five, eye contact with a smile, a covert thumbs up…

Go SLOW

If I keep in mind that my desired purpose in each class period is, at its core, communication with the people in the room, I get better at looking for evidence that communication is actually happening. Am I learning new facts about my students and verifying them with their classmates? Are students reacting to those learnings and sharing more about themselves? Am I sharing new information about the Target Culture and gathering students’ reactions to it?

I must look into their eyes, check their comprehension, and speak to them in ways such that they understand. (Check out this post by Martina Bex about ways to make that happen.) This often involves going much slower, using lots of gestures, pausing, and taking the time to savor silence. This is a long-term struggle: I have literally presented at conferences about the importance of SLOW, and more than one of my level 1 students asked me to slow down a bit. It is important, and difficult! So, I will be slowing down in the name of comprehension and real communication.

Self-Interrupt

If I’ve shared how languages are acquired – hearing comprehensible messages – then I can just interrupt my own speech if a student starts to talk out of bounds in L1 while we’re talking in L2. I try to scan my class broadly as I do this, so as not to come off too aggressive with the student or students who spoke out of turn, but I do try to go back to them and give them a wink or a nod as we carry on.

Just Walk On Over To the Rules

This is a trick I learned from Tina Hargaden: just stop, saunter (really, saunter) over to the class rules, and indicate which has been broken while scanning the class with a smile. Because it’s so calm and quiet, students tend to get uncomfortable and push each other to quiet down a bit.

Get Feedback

Ask students what activities are working best for them, as well as what is a change they might make to class that would help them learn the L2 better. Most of the time, students are reasonable and helpful in their suggestions, as long as I frame the feedback giving as something that will help us have a more successful, fun class.

After getting the feedback, positively acknowledge that you have considered their feedback, and then try to incorporate their suggestions as much as possible. It turns out my level 1s love stories – let’s do more of those! Level 3 asked for me to actually be more strict about not starting side conversations in English after every sentence, so I know that there will be students in class that will help me out when I am managing towards a more L2 environment. If I am able to incorporate things that students have suggested, then bam! Goodwill towards the class that will help us be more productive and successful, and I will hopefully grow my influence as a classroom manager of their time.

This post only begins to scratch the surface of all the many philosophical considerations and moment-to-moment techniques that go into “doing” classroom management…do you have any quick tips or thoughts that might help others? Comment with your gems below!

Reflect Early, Reflect Often!

We’re ending week 3.5 here in Washington state (we started the Wednesday after Labor Day), and I figured it would a good time to plonk some reflection into my students’ laps to help them look back on what we’ve done so far, let me know what’s working and what’s not, and get an affective temperature check. My big goals for my students are for them to feel safe and cared for in my class, and for them to comprehend buckets of input in German or Spanish. (Sometimes both when my brain fails to shift gears during 7th period…oh mein Gott…)

I gave students this half-sheet form, and five minutes of quiet to fill it out before we transitioned to my personal favorite class game, Gimkit. (Edit: the fabulous Kate Smith on Facebook made it into a Google Form, which makes gathering the data EVEN EASIER! Go ahead and make a copy for yourself!) Feel free to modify as needed, as I forgot to do when I gave the version that said “German” to my Spanish class…d’oh. Anywho, I conveyed before we started that their honest and helpful feedback would make me a better teacher, and it would make class better for everyone. So it’s a win-win!

I’ve spent this morning reviewing the trends, and I’m feeling very, very thankful that I did this. I have solicited feedback from students before, and it can definitely be awkward and painful. But I’m going into next week feeling aware of what’s working for them, and overall how they’re feeling in class.

Here are the biggest trends I noticed, both across levels, as well as in individual classes:

Gestures

Classes at every level pointed to my use of hand gestures for verbs as something that really helped them. I lifted how I do them from Tina Hargaden, so it’s nice to see that it truly is a huge comprehension support, and that I’m not just doing the Macarena for myself up in front of the class. This has also really helped me use more natural language, as I can use the same gesture for a verb’s past, present, and future forms, and use context to otherwise make things clear for students. And I can stay in the Target Language so much easier! Which leads me to…

High Levels of Target Language Usage

All my classes told me they liked how much of the Target Language we used during class, for Small Talk, Stories, Calendar Talk, Card Talk…everything! One student told me while we were watching the Homecoming Football Game that their previous teacher usually would do “only the Target Language” like…every other day. Which meant that class was 50% English, 50% TL. They really need the input to grow their mental representation of the language, so I’m glad students are appreciating my efforts to keep things comprehensible and shift that percentage in the direction of the Target Language.

Write and Discuss into Choral Translation + Grammar

Write and Discuss by itself didn’t necessarily get the biggest shoutouts at each level, but many students pointed out that doing a Choral Translation of the class text into English, funky word order and all, helped them see how German and Spanish are constructed and made them appreciate how much they understood. This is the perfect time to slip in fun grammar noticings – German word order is always fun to see at any level, and Spanish can do some wild things, too. And it’s not TOO grammar-heavy for them – one student literally wrote under his positives: “He isn’t making us remember grammar. He’s just speaking to us.” #blessings

Classroom Management

A comment to the effect of “make my classmates shut it during our class conversations” appeared at least once at every level, but was especially prevalent in my level 3 German class. They have known each other for a good long time, and have so many in-jokes and crazy stories from their last German teacher (who was/is a wonderful angel), that we often all get distracted with the fun stories in English and forget to use the most German possible. I see this as a necessary growing pain – I would much prefer that they had positive experiences with each other in the past, but I’m also convincing them of the value of 90%+ TL, so this will be an area of growth for us all. (Being a slightly hyper and easily distracted sort of dude…I am sometimes a culprit. Oops!) I think I can leverage how much my students in each class enjoy hearing the Target Language (as evidenced by their comments) to turn this tide and get us going in a fantastic direction.

Double Checking the Forms I Give My Class

Because I gave out forms that said “German” instead of “Spanish” to my Spanish classes, I received many angry face emoji drawings on my surveys, and one “you could improve by loving Spanish more! (crying face emoji)” SORRY, Y’ALL! (They actually took it in stride, but I definitely don’t want them feeling like I only love my German students…I truly love them all because they’re so FUNNY.)

Sorry, chicos. 😛

Bonus Comments!

I have a couple of heritage Spanish speakers in my level 2 Spanish class, and I got some sweet comments from them, too. One wrote, “I already know the language, but it’s nice being in here.” I have another heritage speaker who sometimes speaks like a Novice – lots of errors, but comprehensible! – and he wrote, “I appreciate that Mr. Fisher tells us that being wrong is okay!” My heart!!!

I want to make sure I do this at intervals for the rest of the year. There are regular slumps in the natural cycle of the school year, and using reflective surveys like this can hopefully help me keep students engaged and contented in class. What’s more, I hope I am conveying to them how much I appreciate and care for them, and can build good will by not pretending to have all the answers all the time.

Go forth, and reflect! What have been your reflections from the beginning of this year? What have students told you? Let me know in the comments below!

Online PD and Impact

We are so lucky to live in an age where if we want to learn something new – about whatever topic! – we can just look up the topic online and find all sorts of help, tutorials, guides, etc. As interest in Teaching with CI grows, more and more high quality training materials are appearing online every day, from webinars, to blogs, to whole books that people are writing to support new to TCI teachers in finding their way through the thicket of innovations available to us now.

What’s more, many teachers are catching onto the fact that it is often easiest to learn teaching skills by watching them happen in real teaching contexts. Teachers have taken to YouTube and Vimeo to post videos of themselves teaching their real students, so other teachers can get a sense of how to bring all the skills of teaching with CI together with the ever-expanding repertoire of activities/contexts for delivering CI. Sarah Breckley recently made a plea to teachers to film their classes as much as possible, and post the videos on YouTube. If enough of us do this, then we all get to learn from each others’ expertise, and seeing the same activity or skill used in different ways may help us build our own individual conception of how to implement what we learn in a way that works for us. (I recently bought this tripod for the purpose of recording my classes! #NotAnAd)

(Now, maybe you can’t post your own videos because of student privacy concerns – always make sure you have a release before you post anything! BUT I think the process of filming yourself and then watching the film back can be INCREDIBLE for pushing yourself into exponential growth. At first, hearing your own voice is awful, but it gets easier with time. And being able to see what you’re doing well can be a great motivator to keep improving!)

I really enjoyed this book!

Now, I myself have spent many hours getting some “YouTube PD,” watching other master teachers do their thing with real students. But my recent reading of Ten Mindframes for Visible Learning by John Hattie and Klaus Zierer has given me a lot to think about when it comes to what I’m getting out of all that viewing. It can be easy to fall down a rabbit hole of watching video after video of a teacher that you’re obsessed with…I mean…enjoy watching. I am guilty of sometimes thinking, “Oh goodness, why am I even trying? This person is a super-teacher and I would never be able to get to that level of organization, participation, etc etc etc.!”

But after my reading of 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning, I am going to approach any video I watch with the mindset that Hattie and Zierer pose as the first (and maybe most important) mindframe: I am an evaluator of my impact on student learning. This mindframe has been helping me, well, frame my thinking for what I’ll be doing this year. I have sometimes been guilty of assessing a lesson’s “success” based on whether we get through all the activities I have planned, whether or not students “behaved themselves,” and whether or not I thought the activities were cool. But now, I want to look for evidence that my students comprehended everything that happened, that they felt comfortable interacting with whatever new vocabulary came up that day, and that they felt increasingly more comfortable contributing to class.

Video Watching Mindframe

I want to carry this mindframe into my viewings of YouTube videos of other teachers teaching. I don’t want to get blinded by other teachers’ brilliance – I want to learn from it! Here are some questions I want to keep in mind to guide my viewing and personal professional development:

  • What is the impact of what I see while watching this video? How do I know that this instruction is having an impact?
  • Is there a “din” of Target Language in my head by the end of the video? (The “din” is an idea that comes from Krashen – hearing the L2 bounce around in your head after the class is over, which Krashen posits indicates the activation of your brain’s Language Acquisition Device. If you’re experiencing that, it may mean that the teacher used a ton of Target Language and – even better – provided a lot of Comprehensible Input to the class! Sweet – it’s acquisition time! Now, how did they do that? Watch the video with that in mind!)
  • Do you feel like you can answer the teacher’s whole-class or individual questions when they are asked? (If this is in an L2 you don’t speak yet, this means the teacher made themselves comprehensible – again, how?)
  • How do students respond to teacher questions or classroom events? (This can mean “with what language resources?” as well as “with what affect?” Both of these are worth looking into!)

It is easy to be dazzled by other teachers, but always keep in mind that we’re usually seeing teachers on their best days. (Nobody is going to post a lesson that ABSOLUTELY bombed, unless it’s a “cautionary tale” sort of situation.) But make use of these questions as you watch teacher videos on YouTube, and it might accelerate your learning of new skills as you dive into the world of Teaching with CI. What did the teacher do, and what was the impact?

So, Ben, who are your favorite teachers to watch teach online?

Thanks for asking, myself! Here are some faves that have helped me learn and grow a lot in my journey:

  • Tina Hargaden was the first teacher I watched using non-targeted CI, and my mind was blown wide open. Here she was, on the first day of a class, speaking so close to 100% TL! Her channel has TONS of video, as she filmed herself every day for an entire year, but this video in particular got the wheels a-turnin’ for me.
  • Alina Filipescu is a TPRS master teacher. Her classes always look so engaged, so lively, and so fun. She has really driven home the power of expectations for me, as she teaches and reteaches her expectations constantly to keep the class on point. I could watch this video all day.
  • Brett Chonko teaches in Virginia, and his videos always start with a good-natured “Welcome to Spanish class!” Here he is on Day 1 of a Spanish class, explaining how the class will look in a fun, relaxed way, and getting to a Write and Discuss on Day 1! What a pro.
  • AnneMarie Chase is an awesome TCI teacher located in Nevada. Her blog is also incredible – she has so many ideas for organization, grading, games, you name it! See her ideas in action on her YouTube channel.
  • The aforementioned Sarah Breckley is a ball of sunshine energy! It is a lot of fun watching her teach, because she always looks like she’s having a blast. Her blog is awesome, too. Watch this video if you want a great overview of how to provide high quality, comprehendED input.

What about you – who are some of your go-tos for YouTube PD? Comment below and let us know!

Give ’em the dang sentence frames!

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!

Card Talk – Building Classroom Community and Learning About Your Students

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 Talk
My 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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!

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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!

Students Want YOU to Write a CI Novel

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!!

On Silence

My last post here was in December of last year, and the last post was a month before that. In the meantime, I was still teaching, still giving conference presentations, still going to PD, still trying to be a fierce advocate for communicative language teaching.

But I was also experiencing a darkness in my professional life that I hadn’t anticipated, a life-consuming shadow. My start in teaching had been great! I was making lots of teacher friends, kids seemed to like my class, and my teacher evaluations didn’t make me feel like a total failure. Why, then, did I feel like I was drowning? Why, then, did I silence myself when the rush of learning in my early career was still there, and my growth felt day by day, week by week? Why, then, was I thinking about quitting?

I was finding myself in the middle of the age-old problem: the more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know. The more I found myself doing, the more I realized there was to do. The more I tried, the more I thought that it would never be enough. And this mode, this mindset was doing damage to my mental, emotional, and physical health.

Around semester (the end of January), I saw the need for change in the way I was living my teaching, but I was stuck in bad habits. Then suddenly, we had five snow days in February, and I had nothing to do. The scared part of me thought I should be creating or perfecting or learning something for school, but for the first time…I just didn’t. I rested and relaxed, and came back ready to go once school got mostly back to normal. (I played a ton of video games and ate a lot of vegetarian chicken nuggets, for transparency’s sake.)

I deleted the Twitter and Facebook apps off my phone during that time. This, paired with committing to spending less time on my phone in general, changed the things I was actually doing with my time. I was enjoying my relationship and my friendships more, and I suddenly had time to read for pleasure. I had justified my insane use of both apps for a long time by insisting that the professional development I got through both was helping me grow as a teacher and be better at it. That was true to an extent, but the drive to compare myself with other teachers on the internet was also causing me to reduce myself in my own eyes, minimize my own accomplishments, and constantly be on the search for something new. There was no joy and gratitude for what I had inside me and around me.

I left any books related to teaching at school. I was in a weird place of having teaching both as my job and as my hobby – I was always reading something about teaching, always trying to find new ideas and research, always trying to be “in the know” about everything in CI world. But no one can do everything, and you certainly can’t learn to do things well if you’re not focused. So school was for school, home was for home.

And I started leaving school earlier. I’d have days where I’d be getting home close to 6pm, having arrived around 7am, and scrambling to get dinner ready and try to have some time for myself before Brent got home. When I looked back, the time at school was spent socializing to avoid work, searching the internet for resources I wouldn’t end up using, and getting lost clicking around my computer. I started thinking: What did we do today, and how can it grow into more proficiency tomorrow? A lot of times, the answer was simpler than I had imagined.

I went back to basics. I found that everything I knew I wanted to do with my teaching was inside of me already. Realizing this helped me slow down, see my students where they were, and actually teach them something. Classes and students I had started feeling despondent about suddenly turned around and created interesting stories and moments for everyone (instead of just for the overachieving do-gooders and the overachieving distractors). And then suddenly, I was able to go to work on time every day, do my work with smiles in most periods, and go home and enjoy my life. MY life.

Sometimes, you need a period of radio silence, the silence going both directions. When you go silent, you often find that you can see and hear things so much more clearly. This was true for me, and I know I am a better teacher to my students for that.

There are lots of blogs, websites, videos, trainings, ideas out there. Forgive yourself for not being able to do them all. My plea is for teachers – thoughtful, hard-working, innovative, passionate, self-sacrificing beings that you are – to just focus on being with and loving your students. Silence the voices (from without, from within) that drive you to scuttle parts of yourself in the never-ending pursuit of more. It’s enough. You are enough.