Listen to understand, not to respond. When I heard those words two years ago, they really resonated with me. The context was teaching toward proficiency, but really, I think they’re good advice for life in general. Listen to understand, not to respond. Since 2014, in teaching toward the goal of student proficiency, I have become a better teacher. Obviously a better teacher of language and SLA, but really, I have become a better teacher of people. I’ll say that again: proficiency has made me a better teacher of people. In learning the rubrics and indicators, I’ve had to really hone my ability to analyze my students’ language development (or lack thereof, sometimes). What is the difference, really, between novice low and novice mid? Novice high and intermediate low? And then, how do I articulate that to a student? i.e. “You can level-up your language here by ______,” in student-friendly language that’s measurable and attainable. Whew – it’s a lot to think about! And then to lesson plan around being able to actually have time to have those conversations while not tearing your hair out and/or wondering what the other 35+ are doing? Ha! Sorcery, I tell you, sorcery. That listening, […]

Three seconds. Research has shown that giving students at least three seconds of think time after asking a question increases results in a number of ways. Yet, with time constraints and our students’ waning attention spans, we are continually pressured to crank out questions and answers, call on a variety of students, make sure everyone feels good, bada bing, bada boom, ready to move on. How long do teachers, on average, wait? ≤ 1.5 seconds. I just asked my husband a series of six questions, easy and personalized ones about his life that he could answer quickly, and only waited 1.5 seconds between before cranking out the next one. He answered the first rapid fire, hesitated on the second, then stopped washing dishes and slow-turned to look at me like, “Really?” as I continued over his hesitation with the next four. Granted, they were back-to-back, but I highly recommend you try it – once he missed a beat, he got frustrated at my impatience, and students do, too. High-flying students see it as a motivating challenge (remember, like us, they aren’t normal) and the rest/majority see it as an impossibility, even if they can respond; they already see that they won’t be given time to have […]

One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is to relinquish the floor. I am not proud of it, but being aware of it has helped me find ways to cope with the allure of being the sage on stage. As I work with language learners who are increasingly proficient, I’ve realized they need more opportunities for authentic production, with opportunities for reflection and self-correction. In a very real way, this is a #humblebrag, since our students get so linguistically advanced because I am lucky to be part of an incredible team of linguists/teachers who get them going early. By the time they get to me, they are NOT in the mood to do a family tree, tell me about their daily routine, or discuss their childhood while illustrating correct usage of imperfect vs. preterite. What’s a simple profe to do? Turn them into the teachers! That’s what! I teach a class of intermediate high to advanced-mid language learners, who have been loved and supported through their monosyllabic stages all the way to their complex multi-clause sentences in the subjunctive mood -pluscuamperfecto. Often, one of the biggest challenges I have is to find a meaningful balance to develop all areas […]

When I started to teach towards proficiency, I knew what the end product was, but I was not always clear how to get there.  What would I do each day in class?  However, once I started asking students more and more proficiency questions on my assessments, I would start to notice the gaps in their learning and understanding that needed to be filled.  I realized that for interpretive reading, my students missed some key literacy skills.  Many times, they would overlook basic text structures that would allow them to understand the text or their description of the theme was vague.  Luckily, I combined some of my previous activities and I stole borrowed some ideas from our sixth grade English teacher!  These ideas can really support novices as they interpret a variety of authentic texts. One of my favorite pre-reading strategies is having students brainstorm all of the words they can think of in the target language around one topic.  Ever since I have read John Medina’s Brain Rules, I like to have students brainstorm and recycle vocabulary as much as I can to help students remember it.  I allow students to take one minute to write down as many words as they […]

Ah, yes, technology. Coming fresh out of a fabulous #SCOLT17 in Orlando, there were lots of technology ideas that floated around in sessions and conversations. These are great, because we do, indeed, live in the Information Age, a time where we can find nearly any piece of information at our fingertips. Therefore, we should definitely be using them with our students, and, even better, design learning opportunities with the technology in the hands of our students (not just us). Yet, school and how we ‘do‘ school largely hasn’t changed. We still require a certain number of hours, days, and credit hours, and students sit in front of adults all day largely sitting-and-getting, playing the game. We offer professional development sessions for teachers on how to get your students “up and moving” because what learning and learning in classrooms ‘look like’ has been ingrained into us to not include that, necessarily. Don’t believe me? Do a Google image search ‘students learning’ or ‘effective classroom’ or ‘good class’. Seriously – search that now. All done? All those fresh, scrubbed, smiling faces; don’t they look like our classrooms every day? Fed, prepared, excited, motivated. Ah yes, our students. Some days, absolutely. Other days? Not so much. […]

OK.  I’m just going to say it.  I hate grading.  When I was a kid and helped my mom grade it seemed like so much fun.   Then I became a teacher and it seemed like the punishment for a job well-done.  I think it’s because I’ve always felt like this was the area where I am least prepared. Don’t misunderstand, I know my subject content. I can talk about grammar and vocabulary and word choice and syntax.  I love all those things and I know the rules backwards and forwards.  Imperfect subjunctive is exciting to a language nerd like me.  And of course, my education courses in college talked about positive, negative and constructive feedback. Teacher training boiled down to the basics:  “good job” and “that’s interesting, but perhaps next time you could try it this way (insert correct answer)” were acceptable.  “That’s stupid” and “Wrong!” were obviously to be avoided.   Quizzes and tests were marked for correctness, distributed back to students and the next lesson/unit begun. But I don’t think I really understood what effective feedback looked like and just how valuable it could be. Then a few things happened that radically changed my whole practice and perspective regarding […]

… as in, a self-assessment, on proficiency. Ask yourself: “What exactly do I know about the levels and what they look like? Can I explain it to students, and/or parents? Can I hear, read, and observe examples and then rate them?” For me, a lot of work went into the paradigm shift that is proficiency-based teaching, and the next step was educating myself on the ‘when’ and ‘how’. I knew that before I could teach it I had to know it backward and forward. Teaching it, in turn, reinforced it, and I continue to learn and see it more holistically every day. Then, at TELL Collab 2015 (left), I made it my E.P.I.C. teacher goal to “make proficiency levels and performance routine, accessible, and empowering for my students.” My 2016 goal (right) was then to not just do it but then do it more frequently. But first, I had to figure out what the heck to do and where to start. Back in 2015, I explored and studied these resources from Shelby County Schools in Memphis. There are proficiency explanations in parent- and student-friendly language as well as curriculum examples and much more. Click around, there’s a LOT and it’s refreshing that they share graciously […]

Well, we’ve arrived. My husband and I are now thick in the stage of life where nearly each of our friends have one child and most have more than one. In the age of social media, we get to see these children grow up, which is pretty cool – I think of social media pictures and updates as a constant holiday card, always there when you’re ready for it. Technology can be an amazing thing! And, of course, in said pictures are activities: karate, music, soccer, basketball, math team, anime club, and much more. I can’t help but notice, more often than not, however, so many participation trophies, medals, and ribbons. Sigh. I hate even typing that. I am a millenial, and while my mind says, “We aren’t all special snowflakes, people!” my heart whispers, “But you are different, you can be anything…” That’s all well and great for character and confidence, and my parents made keeping our egos in check a main priority in a number of common-sense, now-comical ways. Society, however, didn’t. Society, and most of the input those of us under 35 received from the time of conception was that by golly we showed up and did our best and […]

Summer is here in Memphis and it is arriving quickly for the rest of you, even if it doesn’t feel that it is. So this is the time of the year that we work long hours grading final exams and doing more math than many of us care to do normally in order to get grades submitted on time. So my question to you is this, what do your grades communicate? Do your grades paint a picture of the language your students have developed this year? Do they communicate how well they followed directions? Perhaps this is something that you haven’t thought about. As an administrator and working with many principals I can tell you it is an important distinction. Now or as school closes is the time to reflect over the year and the messages we send on the permanent records of our students to advocate for or against language learning. I say it like a broken record, every day in our classrooms we send messages to kids about who they are as language learners. Grades, send the biggest, loudest message. So what do they say? Let me share two interesting situations I experienced this school year to get […]

This post is not shiny or flashy with great pictures of my kids engaged and working on creative, fun, or culturally relevant tasks.  This is a reflection on a week that ended with crying and an unhealthy amount of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.  This was my week of EPIC failure, and I feel that you should know when it falls apart for me as much as when things are clicking along on this proficiency path.  Sometimes, for any number of reasons, we don’t do what we know we should do, and our kids fail.  This is what happened in my class this week.  Someone once said, “no student has ever died from bad world language instruction”, which I’m sure is true although I haven’t fact-checked that statement, so I would like you to come with me and reflect on the results of my recent experience with my own “bad world language instruction.” Let me set the scene for you…I am giving a Benchmark exam: the summative assessment of the whole unit.  The listening passage plays, the speaker is speaking, and my children are staring at their tests with expressions ranging from slight confusion to horrified awareness that they […]