Tag: waflt

Victories from the 2022-2023 School Year

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.

Whew – enough from me. What were your victories from the past school year?

3 Takeaways from the 2018 WAFLT-COFLT Bi-State Conference

Teachers are wild.  “Let’s get a sub so that we can…do more school stuff.”  But seriously y’all I love conferences.

It has fully been like a week and a half since the WAFLT-COFLT Bi-State Conference in Portland, OR but I still have so many thoughts bouncing around in my enormous head!  My practice has actually shifted in the past few days as I’ve taken more time to work through my notes and reflect on the changes I want to make to increase student enjoyment and learning!  (Well…acquisition. Whatever.)

Let’s keep it short(ish) – three thoughts I’ve been playing around with:

  1. 90% Target Language Usage is Scarier for Teachers Than for Their Students
    Paul Sandrock, the Director of Education for ACTFL, reported during his session on Facilitating Target Language Comprehensibility that teachers have FAR MORE anxiety about using 90% TL in class than their students do!  This blew my mind. Kids are actually pretty chill if we’re like, “yeah, let’s just drop the English and DO THIS THING, MUCHACHOS!”
    Maybe they actually expect it.  Like, they go into a language class thinking that the teacher just WILL use the language most of the time. Because as a young person, YEAH THAT SEEMS LOGICAL. It’s us adults that come up with reasons not to use the language in class.  This is probably because we’ve tragically developed the ability to overthink things.  (How…wonderful.) J. Marvin Brown talked in his book From the Outside In about how adults struggle so hard in language classes because they, unlike children, let their thinking and their brains get in the way of just experiencing the language and enjoying it (and being able to subconsciously acquire the language).  He posits that we don’t lose the ability to learn languages as we age, but rather gain the ability to overthink things and ruin it for ourselves. I can see this same thing happening with target language usage. Of course it seems natural to use the language all the time in class because…duh.  But!!! But what if they don’t understand! But what about management! But what will I say! But what if I don’t feel strong enough in the L2 to fill awkward silences! But!!!
    Y’all, we can do this.  Our kids want this. They want the input, they want the language, they want to be good at this.  So let’s stop holding ourselves back and make it happen! I’ve started having little interactions (before class, in transitions, giving directions) in Spanish and surprise…everything is going fine.  Just more opportunities for me to work on my skills for comprehensibility! (That thing I present on…gulp.)
  2. You Are Putting On a Silent Film (+TL)
    In presenting with Tina Hargaden (of CI Liftoff and The CI Posse) about body and voice skills for comprehensibility, I learned something seemingly small that has made a big impact on my class flow.  Any time I do a gesture, point to something on the board, or do any of the other magical tricks to make language comprehensible (#futureblogpost) (#magicaltricks), I have to do that thing, then give a beat, then say the word in L2, then give a beat, let students process, then move the interaction along.  I see them anticipating what I’m talking about, hearing the word in the L2, linking the meaning, and having greater chances for success in interacting with whatever we’re talking about because they for sure GOT IT.  Silent film actors had to show EVERYTHING and know that it was going to sink in. I have to do the same! I’m working my silence more to watch their eyes and know that the connection is there instead of breezing through comprehensibility links and later thinking “but I showed them everything!”  They just need that bit of processing time. And the eye contact I’m able to make in that slower way is helping students know that I’m there with them.
  3. Think (Don’t Speak!)
    Laura Terrill gave a keynote on Friday that was great for so many reasons.  But the killer quote from this one was “think (don’t speak!).” Often we employ a turn and talk as a way for students to process some new information.  Buuuuut if they turn and talk with someone who maybe is a faster speaker or faster processor, the “slower” student may lose the opportunity to synthesize their thoughts, and/or make them into something they can express.  If we really demand that students think, but don’t speak just yet!, we are giving room for 100% of our students to do some processing and have some more success once the turning and talking actually begins. (I tried this during a PD with teachers the following week and lo and behold…everyone had something very interesting and thoughtful to express.)

I LOVE CONFERENCES LA LA LA.  But dang, it takes time to process all the great info you get and put it into practice.  I’m trying to take my own suggestion of just picking a few things and working them in. More than that feels like way too much for my poor brain.

(Also every conference reminds me that I should be doing more brain breaks.  Every conference! Goodness. This will surely be a lifelong quest. #futureblogposts)

What is your most recent learning from a conference, and how is it growing your practice?  Have a fantastic day, you pedagogical flower of excellence!!