I'm back and enjoying a quiet lunch break to try and get some more blogging done. I should be downstairs talking to more people, but the introvert in me needs some quiet and processing time. Plus, I need to get all this stuff down before I forget!
I have been using songs as bellringers since I saw Lisa Reyes's presentation on using popular music in the classroom. You can find my initial notes from my blog entry from 2010. I have been using this strategy ever since and have quite a list of songs built up, with more coming all the time. So I am no stranger to using songs in class.
Betsy also uses songs in class, but she uses them with the purpose of practicing pronunciation and building appreciation for the culture. So she takes the song, types up the Japanese on one side and then the English translation on the other. If it's a high-frequency phrase, she will underline the phrase on both sides so that students can see what structure means what. It might be hard to explain without pictures...
Anyway, she has the students just try to read the song first to/with a partner...practicing the way the mouth reacts to the different vowels and sounds. Then, she plays the song with the lyrics on the board and points and sings along (the class has the option to sing along). Then, she has students pick one phrase that they like and they practice saying it to their partner. They just say it over and over and over. Then, she has students volunteer to say that phrase for the class (repetition of hearing the sounds) and she repeats it. Sometimes she will translate the phrase before she repeats it, but not always. She is constantly encouraging students to say a little bit more and repeats the partner work and add on to their phrase. Once the students have some practice with pronunciation, she sings the lines (without music) and we sing it back to her. She says that she has a horrible voice (not that bad...) and so it makes the kids feel comfortable singing in front of the class.
I'm thinking of switching up some of my songs to do some of these activities with kids instead of just the cloze activity as we listen. In this way, I would be encouraging the kids to sing along and really internalize the sounds of the language. I'll let you know (hopefully) this year how it goes.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
TPRS Strategies with Betsy Paskvan
I started out my week learning some Japanese with Betsy. I've seen Betsy present two other times, but I continue to have these AHA moments with her. She is amazing.
The first thing that I took away is not really anything new, but still a nice reminder. Betsy told us a story based on the Star Wars Saga, which is actually a connection to Japanese culture because George Lucas based Yoda's speech patterns on Japanese, Darth Vader's helmet on Samurai helmets, and the LightSaber on a Samarai stick. Very interesting stuff.
The other thing that she was constantly doing was something called SEL (social emotional learning). She didn't talk a whole lot about what this is, but rather consistently used it as we worked through the day. We were working a lot with partners, and we would "choose" who went first by figuring out things like: who has the most siblings, who traveled the farthest, who has longer hair, etc. In the classroom, this should begin to foster a sense of community as students work with other students and begin to learn a little more about them in a very low pressure situation.
As for the partner work, this is something that I lack because I was always under the impression that it is forced output, and bad forced output at that. But what I realized as I was doing it, was that it is just another way for our brains to start to figure out the language. Betsy says that this is her way to build confidence in her students because she never corrects them during partner work...she only praises. I also noticed that my brain was picking out the errors in my partner's dialogue, so I was able to avoid those same mistakes when it was my turn to produce. I am definitely planning on doing this more next year. It's a great break from sitting and listening and gets the kids to feel like they are "learning".
Betsy also talked about her pacing over a week's time. She says that she tries to vary her pace throughout the week...keeping most days at a medium pace, but allowing for one day to go REALLY SLOWLY to help pick up some of the strugglers and has one day where she goes faster to keep the high flyers excited about the language. It's a very interesting idea and I wonder if I could make it work. It would definitely take some conversation with my students so that they know what is going on.
One thing that I will definitely be trying in my classroom is what I call Betsy's verbal cloze activity. I don't even think she realizes she's doing this at this point, but it was extremely beneficial. As she was re-telling an earlier part of the story or re-phrasing, she would pause before a word that she knew we knew. We filled in the blank, thus proving comprehension and getting a little more practice on forming the words. I loved it!
When we came back from our break, we went to a reading, using the strategies I saw Betsy use last year and explained in this blog entry.
Some new things that I saw her use this year was a print-out of her story slides. She projected the written story and we worked with our partners again. One partner would read off the projected story while the other student pointed to the appropriate slide. We must have read that story a hundred times, but because the language was so interesting, we didn't mind. I have to admit that the story was actually very boring if you read it in English, but again, we didn't mind. That was pretty cool to see as well. She then did a little embedded reading of the story. Again, it wasn't anything earth-shattering or publishable, but we enjoyed being successful. When we came to the last version, she asked us to expand the story even farther, adding details and sentences. Then, she had us stand in two lines facing each other and read it to the person across from us, greeting them and thanking them in the traditional Japanese manner. One line moved down and we repeated this several times with different partners (again...SEL).
Our final activity was to use the language we had learned to write a draw a six-frame comic strip and then read it to our partner. She had some volunteers share with the whole class, and you could see brains working to spot errors, comprehend, and support. Every volunteer felt like a star, no matter their level of creativity or the amount of errors in their story.
That's another thing that Betsy is a rock star at: making kids feel successful and helping them spot their own errors. She NEVER corrects a student. NEVER. She always says "Oh that's great!" and then repeats what they should have said.
Oh man...it's time for breakfast and I haven't even talked about what she did with songs...I'll just make that a separate post later I guess. So come back for that and for what I learned from Michele Whaley about PDL...definitely the buzz of the conference so far.
The first thing that I took away is not really anything new, but still a nice reminder. Betsy told us a story based on the Star Wars Saga, which is actually a connection to Japanese culture because George Lucas based Yoda's speech patterns on Japanese, Darth Vader's helmet on Samurai helmets, and the LightSaber on a Samarai stick. Very interesting stuff.
The other thing that she was constantly doing was something called SEL (social emotional learning). She didn't talk a whole lot about what this is, but rather consistently used it as we worked through the day. We were working a lot with partners, and we would "choose" who went first by figuring out things like: who has the most siblings, who traveled the farthest, who has longer hair, etc. In the classroom, this should begin to foster a sense of community as students work with other students and begin to learn a little more about them in a very low pressure situation.
As for the partner work, this is something that I lack because I was always under the impression that it is forced output, and bad forced output at that. But what I realized as I was doing it, was that it is just another way for our brains to start to figure out the language. Betsy says that this is her way to build confidence in her students because she never corrects them during partner work...she only praises. I also noticed that my brain was picking out the errors in my partner's dialogue, so I was able to avoid those same mistakes when it was my turn to produce. I am definitely planning on doing this more next year. It's a great break from sitting and listening and gets the kids to feel like they are "learning".
Betsy also talked about her pacing over a week's time. She says that she tries to vary her pace throughout the week...keeping most days at a medium pace, but allowing for one day to go REALLY SLOWLY to help pick up some of the strugglers and has one day where she goes faster to keep the high flyers excited about the language. It's a very interesting idea and I wonder if I could make it work. It would definitely take some conversation with my students so that they know what is going on.
One thing that I will definitely be trying in my classroom is what I call Betsy's verbal cloze activity. I don't even think she realizes she's doing this at this point, but it was extremely beneficial. As she was re-telling an earlier part of the story or re-phrasing, she would pause before a word that she knew we knew. We filled in the blank, thus proving comprehension and getting a little more practice on forming the words. I loved it!
When we came back from our break, we went to a reading, using the strategies I saw Betsy use last year and explained in this blog entry.
Some new things that I saw her use this year was a print-out of her story slides. She projected the written story and we worked with our partners again. One partner would read off the projected story while the other student pointed to the appropriate slide. We must have read that story a hundred times, but because the language was so interesting, we didn't mind. I have to admit that the story was actually very boring if you read it in English, but again, we didn't mind. That was pretty cool to see as well. She then did a little embedded reading of the story. Again, it wasn't anything earth-shattering or publishable, but we enjoyed being successful. When we came to the last version, she asked us to expand the story even farther, adding details and sentences. Then, she had us stand in two lines facing each other and read it to the person across from us, greeting them and thanking them in the traditional Japanese manner. One line moved down and we repeated this several times with different partners (again...SEL).
Our final activity was to use the language we had learned to write a draw a six-frame comic strip and then read it to our partner. She had some volunteers share with the whole class, and you could see brains working to spot errors, comprehend, and support. Every volunteer felt like a star, no matter their level of creativity or the amount of errors in their story.
That's another thing that Betsy is a rock star at: making kids feel successful and helping them spot their own errors. She NEVER corrects a student. NEVER. She always says "Oh that's great!" and then repeats what they should have said.
Oh man...it's time for breakfast and I haven't even talked about what she did with songs...I'll just make that a separate post later I guess. So come back for that and for what I learned from Michele Whaley about PDL...definitely the buzz of the conference so far.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Welcome back to NTPRS!
Hello you crazy readers, you! Yes, I know it's been awhile. I've been crazy and busy and trying to keep my sanity for the past year with my new job. But now it's under my belt. I have survived the year of insanity and I have KUDOS to prove it!
Now, I canNOT take credit for this, because I only had this student for one year, but he emailed me to congratulate me, so I'll copy it here:
I had a French 5/IB student who emailed me during the summer to tell me about his experiences in Paris talking with the native speakers. He told me that they all were amazed at his accent, which he attributed to his year with me!! Now, I am not insane enough to give his words any real credence, but it does feel good. And, at the very least, I gave him the confidence to be able to speak to native speakers. AND he got a 6 on the IB exam.
I've really loved my year in this high school environment...and my biggest KUDOS for the year are that I've increased the enrollment by 50% for next year!
Anyway...enough about me and the awesomeness that is teaching with TPRS. I am in Chicago for NTPRS and surrounded by my kind of folks and sucking up all the knowledge I possibly can.
I have to admit (and don't ever tell my husband this) that I am always a little cynical when I show up to NTPRS, thinking that I've heard everything and that everything that I need to do in the classroom I know about and am just sucking at, but I am learning a TON and it's only day 1.
So, if you are interested in hearing what I'm learning this week, follow along!
Now, I canNOT take credit for this, because I only had this student for one year, but he emailed me to congratulate me, so I'll copy it here:
I had a French 5/IB student who emailed me during the summer to tell me about his experiences in Paris talking with the native speakers. He told me that they all were amazed at his accent, which he attributed to his year with me!! Now, I am not insane enough to give his words any real credence, but it does feel good. And, at the very least, I gave him the confidence to be able to speak to native speakers. AND he got a 6 on the IB exam.
I've really loved my year in this high school environment...and my biggest KUDOS for the year are that I've increased the enrollment by 50% for next year!
Anyway...enough about me and the awesomeness that is teaching with TPRS. I am in Chicago for NTPRS and surrounded by my kind of folks and sucking up all the knowledge I possibly can.
I have to admit (and don't ever tell my husband this) that I am always a little cynical when I show up to NTPRS, thinking that I've heard everything and that everything that I need to do in the classroom I know about and am just sucking at, but I am learning a TON and it's only day 1.
So, if you are interested in hearing what I'm learning this week, follow along!
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Movie Talk Revelation!
Today I decided to do a movie talk. I try to do about one a month, because the students really enjoy them, and I don't want to bore them by doing it too many times. I like the novelty of doing it infrequently...
So today, I didn't have time to pre-view the movie clip (I had already seen it, but I didn't have time to make a list of vocabulary). I decided to show the whole clip to the students without talking/pausing and have them brainstorm vocabulary by making two lists: one list of words they know that they saw in the clip and one list of words that are necessary, but that they don't know yet.
It worked REALLY well. We watched the film Alma, so the students came up with words like snow, girl, writes, plays, door, window, etc that they already know in French. For words they need to know, they said doll, twin, locked, store, etc. I gave them the words in French and then starred two or three as "essential" for the story. I added those words into the story as I narrated and used circumlocution to talk around words like locked and twin.
At then end, I asked the class if they liked this new way of doing Movie Talk, and they said yes. I stopped a couple of my lower-level kids and asked if they understood more this way, and they emphatically agreed that it was easier.
I don't know why I never thought of this before...it's a great way to predict vocabulary and to get their minds thinking in French before I start spouting it.
So today, I didn't have time to pre-view the movie clip (I had already seen it, but I didn't have time to make a list of vocabulary). I decided to show the whole clip to the students without talking/pausing and have them brainstorm vocabulary by making two lists: one list of words they know that they saw in the clip and one list of words that are necessary, but that they don't know yet.
It worked REALLY well. We watched the film Alma, so the students came up with words like snow, girl, writes, plays, door, window, etc that they already know in French. For words they need to know, they said doll, twin, locked, store, etc. I gave them the words in French and then starred two or three as "essential" for the story. I added those words into the story as I narrated and used circumlocution to talk around words like locked and twin.
At then end, I asked the class if they liked this new way of doing Movie Talk, and they said yes. I stopped a couple of my lower-level kids and asked if they understood more this way, and they emphatically agreed that it was easier.
I don't know why I never thought of this before...it's a great way to predict vocabulary and to get their minds thinking in French before I start spouting it.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Kindergarten Day!
This year, I've decided to start reading to my kids once a week. On Wednesdays, we have a shortened schedule, so I've set aside about 15 minutes per week to read to my kids. I asked my neighbors if anyone was getting new carpet soon, and got a big chunk of carpet to put down for kids to sit on.
The first week, I chose a very simple "I Can Read!"-type book about playing in the snow. VERY little plot. Afterwards, I apologized to the students and said that as their knowledge increases, the interest of the books will increase also. Then, I read a harder book to them for a few minutes. The students told me that they preferred the easier, boring book to the interesting difficult one! I was amazed! I thought that the books had to be interesting in order for them to pay attention, but NO! They were just excited that they understood.
Since then, we've done several other books and, since I'm choosing books in French or English and then "writing" my own words, I can vary the difficulty depending on the level of the class. For my French 1s, for example, we read Rainbow fish and we talked about the colors, swimming, sad, happy, etc, but for my French 4/5 class, I read the book as it was written to give them authentic input.
It's working very well! We've had a couple of crazy weeks, schedule wise, and my kids are asking where my rug is...they can't wait to get back to our routine.
I'm having a hard time picking the perfect books to go with each class, so I've been winging it. I've created a "database" on my google drive to kind of help me remember what I was teaching them as I was reading the books. If you use Kindergarten Day and would like to add to my list, please do!
Just click here and add anything you wish. Just be careful because if you change it, it changes my copy too (and anyone else will be able to see it also).
The first week, I chose a very simple "I Can Read!"-type book about playing in the snow. VERY little plot. Afterwards, I apologized to the students and said that as their knowledge increases, the interest of the books will increase also. Then, I read a harder book to them for a few minutes. The students told me that they preferred the easier, boring book to the interesting difficult one! I was amazed! I thought that the books had to be interesting in order for them to pay attention, but NO! They were just excited that they understood.
Since then, we've done several other books and, since I'm choosing books in French or English and then "writing" my own words, I can vary the difficulty depending on the level of the class. For my French 1s, for example, we read Rainbow fish and we talked about the colors, swimming, sad, happy, etc, but for my French 4/5 class, I read the book as it was written to give them authentic input.
It's working very well! We've had a couple of crazy weeks, schedule wise, and my kids are asking where my rug is...they can't wait to get back to our routine.
I'm having a hard time picking the perfect books to go with each class, so I've been winging it. I've created a "database" on my google drive to kind of help me remember what I was teaching them as I was reading the books. If you use Kindergarten Day and would like to add to my list, please do!
Just click here and add anything you wish. Just be careful because if you change it, it changes my copy too (and anyone else will be able to see it also).
Monday, August 19, 2013
What I did with my new (to me) 4/5s
I had a question about what I did with my upper levels this week, since I have NO CLUE what they learned/remember from past levels of French. Here was my response:
First off, I had them do a 5-minute free-write the first day. They didn't do so well on that. So, for better or worse, I am adapting the circling with balls activity for my 4/5s. They haven't ever had me before, so we are starting with that. The first two days, we talked about one student who played baseball at Kauffman Stadium at midnight because he was playing against the Australians. Luckily, Scarlett Johansen (his choice) was in the stands and fell madly in love with him because he was the best baseball player in the world. After the game (which he won, of course), Scarlett waited for him outside the stadium while he showered....and on and on. They were loving it and it was super awesome for me to hear them spontaneously give dialogue for the characters. Imagine how fun it was when the SRO entered the classroom to see three students standing together, with one male student wearing a blue wig and "flirting" with the baseball player. It was awesome!
First off, I had them do a 5-minute free-write the first day. They didn't do so well on that. So, for better or worse, I am adapting the circling with balls activity for my 4/5s. They haven't ever had me before, so we are starting with that. The first two days, we talked about one student who played baseball at Kauffman Stadium at midnight because he was playing against the Australians. Luckily, Scarlett Johansen (his choice) was in the stands and fell madly in love with him because he was the best baseball player in the world. After the game (which he won, of course), Scarlett waited for him outside the stadium while he showered....and on and on. They were loving it and it was super awesome for me to hear them spontaneously give dialogue for the characters. Imagine how fun it was when the SRO entered the classroom to see three students standing together, with one male student wearing a blue wig and "flirting" with the baseball player. It was awesome!
Friday, August 16, 2013
First days excitement!
Well, after an exceptional time at NTPRS this summer, I am back at school and more enthusiastic than ever!
As you know if you read my blog regularly, I recently changed positions and am now working closer to home with a much larger work load. I moved to a high school and am the ONLY French teacher, so I teach levels 1-5 and IB. I was a little scared to take the job for fear of the unknown, but I now know that I made the right choice. My students, parents, and colleagues are outstanding, and the increased work load hasn't killed me (yet).
This year, I am doing some new things in my classroom. I took Bryce Hedstrom's ideas (outlined in my blog entry here) and started FVR in the class. I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough books for it to be successful, but found a treasure trove left behind by the French teacher before me. They might not be the newest books, but they are filling their purpose until I can get some money to get some new books. So, I did just what Bryce outlined. I printed off the reading quotes, hung them in my room, divided books by level and talked it up! Then, we went over the process of picking a book, I sat in the front of the room, set the timer, and we read. It was silent. It worked wonderfully. I really like Bryce's assertion that we have to start from the beginning. I even had my level one's complete this five minute read, but I told them that they would be doing more of a picture walk like they did in kindergarten than they would be really reading for comprehension. Fantastic! Thank you SOOOOO much Bryce.
Another thing that I did this year is to add a desk calendar outside my room. I call this my "invite me" calendar. I'm pretty sure I got this idea from Twitter, during a Teach Like a Pirate chat. I explained to kids that if they ever had an event that they needed a cheerleader for, they could put the time on the calendar and I would try to make it. So far, no one has taken me up on it, but I have a feeling they will. I'll let you know how it goes.
So happy!!!
As you know if you read my blog regularly, I recently changed positions and am now working closer to home with a much larger work load. I moved to a high school and am the ONLY French teacher, so I teach levels 1-5 and IB. I was a little scared to take the job for fear of the unknown, but I now know that I made the right choice. My students, parents, and colleagues are outstanding, and the increased work load hasn't killed me (yet).
This year, I am doing some new things in my classroom. I took Bryce Hedstrom's ideas (outlined in my blog entry here) and started FVR in the class. I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough books for it to be successful, but found a treasure trove left behind by the French teacher before me. They might not be the newest books, but they are filling their purpose until I can get some money to get some new books. So, I did just what Bryce outlined. I printed off the reading quotes, hung them in my room, divided books by level and talked it up! Then, we went over the process of picking a book, I sat in the front of the room, set the timer, and we read. It was silent. It worked wonderfully. I really like Bryce's assertion that we have to start from the beginning. I even had my level one's complete this five minute read, but I told them that they would be doing more of a picture walk like they did in kindergarten than they would be really reading for comprehension. Fantastic! Thank you SOOOOO much Bryce.
Another thing that I did this year is to add a desk calendar outside my room. I call this my "invite me" calendar. I'm pretty sure I got this idea from Twitter, during a Teach Like a Pirate chat. I explained to kids that if they ever had an event that they needed a cheerleader for, they could put the time on the calendar and I would try to make it. So far, no one has taken me up on it, but I have a feeling they will. I'll let you know how it goes.
So happy!!!
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