Beginning of year 13...reflections on Week 1

Whew!  Back in the classroom and ready to rock and roll.  I had a great but busy summer taking kids to France, celebrating my 40th in Puerto Rico with my rockstar colleague Profe Deida, her hubby and my hubby (I now know the joys of reggaeton), attending and emceeing NTPRS, presenting a workshop in Minneapolis, and trying to keep my own kids entertained.

With all that, I didn't have a ton of time to really reflect on my teaching.  Nonetheless, I did make some changes this year.  Here's my list:

• Room set-up: Last year I had students grab a chair of their choice and move it to their assigned seat.  This set-up and tear-down took way too much time and there were kids who picked the comfortable seats every day so that they could veg out.  This year, I moved the comfy chairs to a reading nook that is only used during FVR time and my "normal" chairs are always in a horseshoe.  Every hour, I take the notebooks for that hour and set them on the chairs so that there is a new seating chart every day.  I can't remember who I stole that idea from, but I read it in a blog, I'm sure.
• So far, I think this is working very well.  I don't have to take so much time at the end of class having them "clean up" and the kids seem more engaged sitting in a more traditional chair.  Plus, the comfortable chairs in the reading nooks seem to get kids more excited about FVR time!
• Better use of notebooks: last year I started with composition notebooks for each student, thinking that they would be able to easily keep everything in one place.  With a disorganized teacher, that became absolute mayhem as there were papers shoved everywhere.  So this year, I decided to follow my dear friend Elicia's techniques to create a better organized notebook.
• So far, so much better!  Kids' things are on a specific page and it should be easy for them to find and use in the future.  
• Starting with special person: I decided to mix special person with "regular" stories and units so that I can get started more quickly.  Last year and the years before, special person was taking until October to get through and the kids were getting bored with it.
• I think this is working well, but we are only one week in so far, so I'll have to re-evaluate in a month or so.

How about you guys?  What did you change this year and how is it going?

Resources from Minneapolis workshop

I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to get this published.  I had an incredible time with you all!  Please never hesitate to reach out if you have questions or need anything.

Rubrics

• Writing semester 1
• Writing semester 2
• Speaking semester 1
• Speaking semester 2

Sample of powerpoint  Remember that TPRS Books sells a DVD with all the powerpoint stories you could ever want...

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Watch the deer video but only if you are okay with crying a little bit...

More Than a Choice NTPRS presentation

This past week, I got to go to my NINTH NTPRS!!!  Hopefully I will have time soon to sit down and digest my thoughts for you.

In the meantime, Eric Richards, my friend and co-presenter at NTPRS, asked me to upload our presentation on using a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel on this blog.  So, here it is!  Please let me or Eric know if you have any questions!

End-of-year Review

I was encouraged to share what I've been doing this week by my dear friend Elicia Cardenas (http://www.desklessclassroom.com/), so here goes!

Our seniors last day was THREE school days ago and I still had FOURTEEN days with the rest of my students, who, like me, really want summer to start.  I thought about doing a new story with new structures, but I feel like some students could really use some extra repetition without trying to cram more structures into their spring-fevered brains.

I decided to go back to the first story we did this year and do a post-reading review "game" with each story: one story per day.  So, the first day, we did the Lucky Reading Game.  This game is a great low-stress way to play a game where everyone can get the right answer and still there is a winner.  It worked very well, reminding me of what structures I let fall away throughout the year.

Next day, the second story of the school year with Snowball/Paper Airplace reading.   I projected the story and then had them translate one sentence of the story into English on their paper.  Then, they threw them at me (this part made it feel like a game even though it really isn't), picked up a different paper, and wrote the sentence following the sentence written on the paper.  Repeat until it gets boring and then offer three bonus points (worth absolutely nothing) if they can make a basket into the recycle bin.

Today, we did Write, Draw, Pass with them writing a sentence from the third story in French, then drawing the next sentence, then writing the third sentence, and so on.  Tomorrow I will hand them out and they can "read" the story as we pass them around the room to laugh at the drawings.

I'm not sure what tomorrow's post-reading activity will be yet.  Any ideas for me?

Resources

I have hesitated to share too many resources here because a lot of what I do has been borrowed/translated/stolen from others and I use pictures from the internet without siting my sources...  But I was encouraged to do so by my main teacher man Jeremy Jordan, who shares SO MUCH for free.  

So here goes.  I only ask four things:

1. A lot of these were done in haste, as I have five preps and only one prep period.  So, if you see a typo or an error, please email me and let me know so that I can fix it!
2. If you want to make changes for your class, just make a copy of the google document and go ahead!  I know my students pretty well, so there are probably some things that I share with my students that you would not feel comfortable sharing with your students.  For example, I show my kids Cyprien videos, even though he sometimes curses in French.
3. Use anything all you want in your classes, but please don't sell anything and if you remember it came from me, a shout-out would be nice.
4. If you see anything that came from you and want it sited, please let me know and I will be happy to add a HUGE shout-out for sharing.

• Daily info for the beginning of class PowerPoint:  This is the best thing I added this year.  It gives me a great opportunity to use some high-frequency structures that don't always come up in a natural story-asking day.  It is a work in progress, as I usually add the slide the day before/morning of.
• My daily PowerPoints so far: This is how I organize my life.  With 5 different classes, it's nice to have one place to go.  I'm not sure if the sharing is on for every source, so if you click on something that doesn't work, let me know.  Also, most of the things I do in French 4/5 were created by my colleagues Nicole and Caitlin (BIG SHOUT OUT!!!) and they may not want to share their work.

Hope somebody finds this helpful.  If not, oh well!  I got nothing to lose!

ACTFL presentation-Saturday 4:30

Here is my presentation.

Hello everyone!  I haven't blogged much this year because I've been trying a lot of new things that I can't wait to share once I stop drowning.  So...more about that later.  But two things I just have to say before I forget:

1. FIND A SMALL, INTIMATE PLC:  A few years ago, my friend Andrea Schweitzer and I started a weekly Skype session with Jeremy Jordan (who then abandoned us and was promptly replaced by Elicia Cardenas).  These sessions are invaluable to my life as a TPRS/CI teacher.  Just today, Elicia and I talked about classroom management, communicative ideas that our beginner students can use to communicate without spewing terrible French/Spanish, and supported each other through a couple of rough spots.  I left our conversation feeling uplifted and ready for my next class.  So, find someone (or a couple of someones) to meet virtually with NOW.

2.  I will be presenting a session called "Time Saving Tips for the CI Classroom" on Saturday at 4:30.  If you were going to attend my session, what would you want me to tell you?  What would you hope to learn at such a session?  I have a bunch of ideas, but I would love to hear of other ideas that I might not be thinking of.

See you at ACTFL!

Beginning of the year

I feel like I post the same things at the same time of year every year, but here goes.  Every year is an experiment and here is how I'm experimenting this year:

1. Away with the password at the door.  I've done it for several years, but it just wasn't connecting.  The kids weren't acquiring it.  So instead, I'm going to use rejoinder posters during stories because I've had better luck getting them to use them at appropriate times and continue using them that way.  But I'm still checking in with my kids at the door.  I ask them a question that they should be able to answer with no problem.  With my first and second year kids, that is something like "What's your name?" "Where do you come from?" "What grade are you in?" (from Special Person interviews).  With my upper-level kids, I try to ask them something that is a bit more thought provoking.  Some questions I've used this year, "Do you prefer your mom or your dad?" "What would you change about school?" "Who is your favorite visual artist?" 
2. I changed my rules from a huge list of what it takes to participate to Six Keys to Listening (taken from TPRS Books trainings) Look at me Involve yourself Show understanding Tune back in En français No talking over me  It's very easy to figure out which "rule" is being broken.
3. Party points and a brain break for every 8 minutes in French.  We used our party points on Friday and the kids were way more excited for what we were doing.  Maybe because they earned the time instead of begging for it?
4. Breaking up La Personne Spéciale.  It used to be my only plans for the first few weeks of school for French 1 and 2, but this year I am breaking it up with classic TPR and mini-stories.  I got some great ideas for easy, introductory stories that could be told quickly from Tina Beard (a colleague from Kansas).  It really makes class go quickly, I don't get as worn out, and the kids are more engaged.
5. Starting class with a "date talk".  I really don't know how everything in CI became a ____ talk, but I made a powerpoint with every day of the school year with a fun fact about that day.  For example, August 21st was the day the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian patriot.  I adapt my language for each class so that I use the same slide for every level, but the discussion is different for each level.  
6. Intentional planning for each hour.  I know this seems like...duh!, but with 5 preps, I haven't exactly been the greatest at this in past years.  So this year, I am trying to be very intentional with my planning, having ideas for brain breaks and switching activities several times to keep the students' attention.

Those are some things that I've started doing, and, as we enter our third week of school, I'm pretty excited!