We started the afternoon by looking at pictures of Jason's classroom. He recommended keeping the word walls for different levels on different walls (French 1 on the right side of the room, French 4 in the back or something like that). He also keeps his recent vocabulary on papers underneath the question words they go with (under where: beach, church, mall, etc, how many: numbers, who: professor, student) I think that would help me remember to use more of those type words because we tend to get stuck on proper nouns and never get to the general location terms.
Jason has a WONDERFUL idea for quickly changing your word walls for different classes/levels. He takes thick presentation board and cuts it in half. He glues a hair band to the top of it and then hangs that from a nail. Use butcher paper and tape a sheet on both sides and then you can easily Vanna White the words to change a word wall in five seconds!
While Alina leans forward to show that she wants an answer, Jason snaps to signal that he's ready for everyone to answer.
We did a lot of small group work in the afternoon, so my notes aren't as long...sorry!
Jason talked about some of his conversations that he uses to ignite learning in upper levels. I NEED THESE ideas!!!! An example of what Jason uses: What memories do you have that you want to forget? What memory do you never want to forget? I think I could find good ideas for this by looking up conversation starters online. Any other ideas??
Jason left us with this thought: Who is the real story in our classroom? The movie talk, the novel, our silly characters? NO! The students are the real story... We need to be asking them to share.
Who has a younger brother?
Who has been on vacation?
Who has a pet dragon?
Who wants a pet dragon?
How many of you would like to be an attorney?
Would you like to earn more money?
And you can see that all of these questions lend themselves to follow-up questions. Good stuff.
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