Whew. Fall semester is over, and it has officially been zero days since I showered and changed into real clothes clean pajamas. The stuff of teacher vacation dreams, right? Besides chugging hot chocolate, only eating food that should come with a side of Lipitor, and bingeing Netflix, I’ve also been coming back to the same reflection: Spring 2020. For me, on block schedule, it’s all new classes, a new prep, and basically the first day of school. There is a lot to think about re: routines, what went well last semester, what could use tweaking (or perhaps scrapping altogether), and so on. This year especially, I feel that my teaching and my teaching behaviors have all matured noticeably and as a consequence, my to-don’t list is getting longer and more specific. In early 2016, I started setting a #OneWordResolution for myself for the upcoming year. My word was enough and was to reinforce that I am enough, my work is enough, my effort is enough, and I am doing enough. It worked, and I saw a spike in not only productivity but also calm. Believing, really believing, that I am already doing enough made it easier to say no, set boundaries […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Usually, when someone mentions that someone else is “keeping up with the Joneses!” they’re implying that someone else is only doing something for the sake of impressing others, saving face, putting on airs, etc. My father tells the story, as it was told to him by my great grandparents, of them passing their neighbors’ house in their rural Iowa community circa 1880. About a half mile from the nearest neighbor, they would pull the wagon over, trade the dirty, road-worn bonnets for clean ones they always kept protected, and then resume the trip. In passing the neighbors’ house they would wave, engage in small talk, and then continue on their way, stopping a mile or so down the road to trade the bonnets again, back to usual ones, after the neighbors were safely out of sight. Sure, it’s worth noticing that some things don’t change, no matter the century or situation — we still like to show our best side(s) when possible. But, as I leave #ACTFL19 in Washington D.C. incredibly energized and determined, I can’t help but wonder: What if the Joneses are the incredible colleagues we have all across the country, pushing us to move forward and improve […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

So welcome to my class – I know you may not have been here before – and I know already you have asked me about how hard I ‘mark’ and if there is a final and more. You’ve even asked “is this for marks?” about something I’ve asked you to prepare for class…You’ve been well-schooled by the ‘if it has a mark attached it is important’ idea from your classes. So let’s just stop a moment and review ‘marks’ in my class…here we go… Is this for marks? Will this count? Your class is a daily opportunity to learn and receive feedback on that learning. I know you may not get that yet. You’re expecting everything I ask you to do that has any ‘value’ to have a mark. So I’ll give you a mark for it. In fact everything you do, everything I ask you do prior to the summative is worth 0.5 marks. Yes. 0.5. Almost seems not worth it does it? I mean why not skip a class, why not choose not to do something for class? Why bother. It’s not worth much. But the sum of all those experiences, all those chances to learn, all the […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

March is staring me down, dear colleagues. That long, long month with not a single day off. My classroom routines are long-established, I know my middle school students inside and out…but the end of the year is not in sight. Not at all. This period, between winter and spring breaks, represents our last long, sustained chunk of serious learning before state testing, warm weather, field trips, and general exhaustion overtake us. I find that I need glimmers of hope in March. Proof that we have accomplished something this year. Too often I am distracted by my students’ seemingly endless absences, missing work, or speaking of English (really? still?!). I ask myself, are we getting anywhere on this path to proficiency? Sometimes I’m so deep in the weeds that I can’t seem to zoom out and see the big picture. Students need a bit of a boost, too. And what better boost than seeing evidence that they are really learning and making true progress? When students are getting back assignment after assignment marked Intermediate Low, they may not realize how far they’ve come. Each sublevel takes time to master, and that incremental growth can be too hidden for impatient, young minds […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

It’s been a year of growth for the Path 2 Proficiency community: more than a dozen new teachers joined as authors and readership almost doubled, but most importantly the reflections and conversations grew well beyond this site. This blog doesn’t exist to promote anyone or anything. This blog doesn’t exist to showcase the perfect teacher. This blog doesn’t exist to provide all the answers. Instead, this blog allows regular educators like Michele, Jaime, Rebecca, John, Matt, Sharon, Tim, Christi, Maris, Paul, Juan Carlos, Holly, Rose, Amanda, Valerie, Betsy, Alyssa, Lisa and Meredith to share their reflections about what is working in their worlds, what failed, and how they plan on helping their students further their own path to proficiency. If you are a reader of this site, please take a moment to thank these brave teachers for sharing their reflections in such a public format. It’s because of them that we all become better educators. Of course with growth comes growing pains and some parts of our site are currently not functioning properly but that should all get cleaned up in January along with some other exciting updates. Since all of our posts are very personal reflections some posts hit nerves […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

I wanted to write an encouraging, end of semester blog what would linger over the holiday and inspire us to come back raring to go in January.  Unfortunately, I have to tell you, I’ve been in the weeds this semester. I felt like that 80s movie with Rick Moranis, Honey I shrunk the kids. You know, the one where the kids get lost in the backyard and have to make their way back to the house but everything is an obstacle—the blade of grass, the ladybug, the beetle carcass, the aluminum can, the water sprinkler. Our familiar world and things we never give a second thought become overwhelming hurdles that seem so daunting we feel we will never reach home. That is how I felt this semester. Wasn’t I just being super cheesy and telling everyone how much I love back to school???!!  Yes, Yes, I did write my previous post about my joy of back to school, and how it is the most wonderful time of the year. About how much I love it—I really do!  And I meant it. I really did. Then. But like the shine on a new toy, the excitement of a new school year […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

How do we convince students to stretch beyond their comfort zone when writing and speaking in the target language? I believe that teachers have to educate students about proficiency, both on a course level and the task level, so that they are invested in our collective work. Truly, we have a mighty task before us as we lead students on this journey. A standards-based rubric can be a powerful tool for undertaking this work. This year our department has a new standards-based presentational rubric that a group of us wrote over the summer to help guide our work on specific tasks. We spent four intense days at the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association’s Proficiency Academy with Thomas Sauer and Greg Duncan, and each afternoon (and some evenings after dinner…and some mornings before breakfast…) we gathered to peruse existing rubrics and think about how to craft our own. Our resulting “patchwork” product is most definitely imperfect and a work in progress, but having one common rubric forces us to hash out our questions and disagreements collectively, which has great value. I can talk to a middle school Mandarin colleague just as well as a high school French colleague as we try to decide what we mean, […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

In my education program, my professor would tell us a great analogy about grades and retakes.  She said that as teachers we should allow students to retake assessments, so they can continue to practice and improve with the language.  We want students to practice so well that they can attain a proficiency with the language.  Then, she made this analogy: if we were going to jump out of a plane, we would want to have the person who got an A in parachute packing, packing our parachutes instead of someone who earned a C.  Even if the person had to keep practicing until they earned an A, we would rather have the person who kept practicing until they earned an A instead of the person who got a C and then went to work.  Therefore, we want to let our students practice as much as we can to make them as proficient as we can.  We frequently discussed “how well is your parachute packed?”  It made sense for me; however, it was difficult to implement.  As my assessments after college mainly relied upon discrete grammar and vocabulary, it didn’t make sense to retake assessments.  I wasn’t sure how to recycle […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

“They know it for the quiz and then 15 minutes later they can’t use it properly.” How could they score so well on a scheduled quiz and then not use it correctly in a spontaneous classroom interaction? How could I make a more accurate appraisal of where they really are in acquiring a concept? How could I offer formative assessment on what they truly understand/know? And so this year I began the “Pop Check-In”. When I first announced one in my Year 3 class there were looks of horror. “A pop quiz? You hadn’t warned us! A quiz? For marks?” So I explained what the ‘pop check in’ is and isn’t: It is a chance to see what you have in your head ‘right now’ It is not ‘for marks’ but it is ‘for learning’ It’s a chance for me to see if I have further teaching to do regarding this concept Typically I “mark” the check-in that evening by putting a coloured dot next to response that needs another look  and the next day ask my students to look at/correct the problem. They receive a ‘complete’ mark when this is done. This works well but one day I returned […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

For many years I’ve wrestled with how to handle my absences from school– but generally, I have two options for my elementary and middle school students: 1) cancel classes or 2) have an adult who is not normally with the students/not a Spanish teacher supervise class time.  My struggle with this stemmed, essentially, from the fact that I was focusing on discrete grammar and vocabulary, which provided little flexibility in what a substitute could do with the students–the children were very reliant on me for their learning.  This week, I had to call in sick for the first time this year, and quickly found how shifting to teaching for proficiency has changed how my absent days look. My upper elementary students met with my teaching assistant who facilitated independent activities: FV (free and voluntary reading), choice work(fast finishers) and playing Verba. This fall, I started with FVR in class– the students love it and are in the routine of independently choosing books and articles that are a ‘good fit’ for them. I was inspired by Martina Bex and her laminated fast finishers that focus on language in context that can be completed with a dry erase marker and self-checked, when applicable. […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

My personal journey on the Path2Proficiency began when I was a teenager. I had the opportunity to learn languages in several very different settings. I started learning French in junior high school using the Audiolingual Method (yes, I know, it was a long time ago). We never saw a word written in French for at least six weeks, but I longed for visual cues, so I tried to take notes on a single sheet of notebook paper (Como talley voo?). The next year (age 12) I signed up for an “Aural-Oral” course at the University of Washington Language Learning Center to learn Modern Greek. I spent several months on Tuesday evenings with a reel-to-reel tape recorder learning to pronounce Greek, understand some words and phrases, and (fortunately) how to write the alphabet and decode words in Greek. I guess I wasn’t close to proficient in either language, and I knew it. When I was 16, I headed to Europe with a group of dancers and musicians to travel to the Balkans and become immersed in the language and culture. And immersed I was. My French came in very handy a few times (though more people spoke German), and my Greek […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

As teachers, we are constantly adjusting.  It seems like we adjust frequently with different trends that emerge- PBLs, no homework, IPAs, differentiation- you name it.  However, the best of each idea seems to stick as we work on the next idea emerging from education.  Also, as foreign language teachers, we are all adjusting our beliefs and policies since we are reading this blog!  As I have started to teach towards proficiency, I have found that I am able to adjust my instruction even more after I have reflected.  This is even more important because I am adjusting based on what my students are doing.  They are driving my adjustments instead of trends in the education world. Feedback Adjustments I love using Google Forms to collect feedback!  One of my easiest adjustments comes from weekly feedback from my students.  Wendy Farabough first taught me about Feedback Friday, and it is so easy to implement.  You can have students complete this during the last few minutes of class.  It not only lets me know what activities I should repeat, but it also gives me an insight into what they are thinking that week.  I can easily add an optional question like “is […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Anybody else out there have a long commute? Mine really gets to me some days. Fortunately, podcasts keep my brain fed and me from being on the news when somebody ignores the rules of the road. I recommend the latest batch of podcasts I stumbled across called The Masters of Scale. Reed Hoffman, one of the creators of LinkedIn, interviews successful entrepreneurs about how they got started. Smart people. Successful people. Ever heard of Air BnB, Facebook, or Apple? Each of the founders of these companies started with a small idea and wanted it to grow. Each founder had to learn how to take their little sprout of an idea and scale it bigger for the masses. Sound familiar? Teachers often have ideas that they want to bring to their students. We stumble onto a nugget of an idea online or attend an event that sparks our passion and fires us up. We get an idea that shows us a glimpse of the positive impact we can make on our students. Have you ever had a seed of an idea sprout in you, but you’re not sure what to do with it? How many of us stop watering our ideas […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Often when I’m just up to my eyeballs in to-do lists, I’m reminded of the catchy phrase in the Scrubs theme song that simply goes “I’m no Superman.” When I first started chatting weekly on #langchat back in 2014, I was elated to find a community of like-minded teachers who taught the same way I did, who used the same types of teaching methods I did, who used the target language the same ways I did, and who were a wealth of information. I thought so often simultaneously “I could never be like that person!” and “How can I be more like that person?” After every #langchat or local professional development session I went to, I felt like I just needed to uproot everything I’d ever done before and start from scratch. I’ve often said that being a teacher isn’t a 9-5 job; it’s more of a 5-9. And as much as I’ve worked hard for my students to have a learning process that was relevant to them, I always felt like I was never as good enough as others in my department who had just one more prompt, one more extension activity, one more manipulative or one more trick […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

This fall, I’m returning to the high school classroom after being away from teaching students for five years.   During this time, I made an effort to remain professionally active and connected, and I learned more than I would have if I had been working full-time, thanks to social media, professional organization, podcasts, and conferences.   Since the day I opened the door to my new classroom, I have been in a period of deep reflection.  Frankly – I’m unpacking.  Unpacking how I used to teach and my old approaches to language learning and teaching.  I’m keeping some treasured practices and items, and getting rid of a lot.  I need to move forward to a new way of teaching, focused on proficiency. What am I keeping from my “old” classroom? I am keeping some of my old beliefs.  I believe that: Connections are central to student success, and that I need to empower and engage learners. Each learner is a unique individual with unique skill sets and experiences. The use of the target language is key to student success. Teaching should reflect how the brain learns. Good unit and curriculum design, and reflective planning are critical. Assessment is integral to the cycle […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

It’s important to confess right here at the beginning that I am a firm believer in learning and playing being one and the same—specifically every step along the way from Novice Zero to “survival language” Intermediate Mid-ish. So, the lessons, materials and activities I present and discuss here are firmly rooted in the idea that students need to be doing things (and HAVING FUN) to acquire language in the short term and stick it out long term. I should preface the rest of this blog post with a quick “About me”. The truly curious can take a peak at my bio, but for now I will briefly say that my name is Matt, I am 23 years old and currently pursuing my M.A. in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Maryland. I have been a Spanish teacher since the age of 16, and a Chinese teacher since the age of 19. As a full time student, I don’t have much time to teach during the school year, but I currently still teach Chinese every summer at a STARTALK program. For those who are not already aware, STARTALK is a federally funded grant program that trains language teachers and provides […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

This year, I am taking on a big goal, and it is to become more of a language advocate.  First, I had to admit that I had not really been a language advocate.  In some ways, I thought that I was already doing so.  I taught a language, and I believed that if students enjoyed my class they would see the benefit of learning a language and keep studying it.  However, I have realized that is not enough.  We all know how long it takes for a student to actually become proficient.  Two years of a foreign language will not give them a strong proficiency.  Also, students have many other passions that cause them to edge language out of their studies.  My one class in Middle School or Spanish 2 with them is not enough to motivate them to continue to study language.  I want to teach and reinforce the idea that learning a language is important, so they will continue their language studies a long time after they have been in my class.  This year, I plan on not only letting students know why they should study a language, but also how I became proficient myself and ways for […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

As teachers, we often don’t see ourselves as leaders outside the realm of our classroom.  We are in charge of our students and our classrooms.  And we think that is it.  Generally, that is the way we like it.  It allows us to go into our domain, close the door and do our thing. Unbothered, uninterested and unchallenged.  However, what if I told you that you are a leader and that you possess incredible attributes for being a great leader?  Like it or not, you have leadership skills, albeit laden leadership skills, but you possess great potential to influence those around you.  Not just your students.  Not just your colleagues, but your administration, your district, your state and perhaps at the national level.  However, you have not realized that potential because like I was, you are considered a reluctant leader.  Someone who often was voluntold to do something and you just haven’t figured out how to say the word “no.”  So you reluctantly go about the task at hand and because you are a teacher (as we all know, they are die hard perfectionist – even if you don’t want to admit it) you want to do your very best […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Are you considering transitioning your world language program from a traditional one to an oral-proficiency based one? In this blog post, I will share the basic steps that we, the University School of Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, have taken to make such a shift in the last few years in our PK-12 World Language department. Shifting to an Oral Proficiency-based program First, since we knew the shift to an oral-proficiency program would not be an easy one, we hired a consultant to guide us through the process. If you can prioritize this in your budget, I highly recommend it. Department members may have more confidence in the process when an expert and outside consultant leads rather than a department chair who may have no particular expertise in developing an oral-proficiency based program. With the help of our consultant, we became familiar with the basic terminology of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency guidelines. For example, we began to learn what defines Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced level speakers. Even though we were familiar with this terminology, it wasn’t until we were all deferring to an expert that we began to understand more fully what they meant […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

I think the biggest benefit of blogging for teachers is that it increases their ability to be reflective and articulate about their practice.  Stray thoughts and half-awarenesses get fleshed out into full-fledged epiphanies as teachers figure out how to talk with their colleagues about what they do in the classroom.  Back in April, I ended a blog post with four target areas for growth in my practice, one of them being Interpersonal Mode at the Intermediate level: “My Level 1 classes have a lively and robust environment that makes room for well-supported and scaffolded conversational interactions.  But in each subsequent level, I prioritize the interpersonal mode less and less, even as students are working towards pushing their proficiency ever further.  I need to take a hard look at my unit themes and objectives, and consider how I can make more space for interpersonal communication — the heart of why most people want to learn another language.” Interpersonal communication comes naturally to a first-year language course.  The early Novice curriculum is teeming with questions: first memorized ones (“What’s your name? How old are you? Where are you from?”), then open-ended ones (“What do you like to do in your free time? […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

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 […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

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 […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Yes.  I’ll admit it.  I’m a nerd. A big one. I’ll own it.  Grammar really gets me going.  Word origin, homophones, rhetorical devices and literary analysis excite me.  Old AP fill-ins were a challenging game I played against myself.  The Académie Française has nothing on me! (You French teachers know what I mean!) I won’t ask for a show of hands (no need to embarrass anyone) but I would hazard a guess that many of you are like me.  We love words and how they sound and all their subtle definition and connotation. We can spot a grammar error a mile away.  So it’s no wonder that sometimes the path to proficiency causes me to break out into a sweat when I realize the language functions needed for this unit don’t incorporate all the rules of say, the imperfect subjunctive.  In my enthusiasm, I want to teach (torture?) my students with all of the tiny grammar rules of every single one.  Because they’ll love it as much as I do—right? Wrong! Anyone who’s been teaching any amount of time knows that the majority of kids out there could care less about the past participle agreement with preceding direct objects or the […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Hello, and Happy Spring! I just got back from the SCOLT conference for the 2nd time ever, and this time I got to present!  So this post, fair warning, is going to be partly about my process of submitting and doing a presentation, and the other part about the actual stations presentation as it happened.  If you hang with me, I promise there will be something here you can use.  Also, I HIGHLY SUGGEST that you submit a presentation to your local state organization, or if that freaks you out, offer to present something at a department meeting or something like that.  We don’t have enough PD in the world that’s practical and done by teachers about what’s really working (or not working) in our classrooms.  Every one of you out there reading this has some type of success in your classroom that should be showcased, and some insight to share…please share it with us!  I mean, seriously…this is me at the presentation, basically hanging out with a bunch of teachers and talking about what I do in my classroom. What’s more fun than that? Ok, so the first step is the conference proposal part (which I always do on […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Recently, I had coffee with a colleague from another elementary school to talk shop. She’s pretty new to the school where she’s the only Spanish teacher, teaches preschool through 8th grade, and is being asked to create a curriculum. To say that she is concerned and feeling a high level of stress, is an obvious understatement. I listened supportively as she unfolded her struggle to find the time and resources to create thematic units while figuring out what to do with the children in the meantime.  My friend is a good teacher, and of course, is looking to attend training and build a network of colleagues who can support her efforts.   All things that take time. Our coffee was an effort to get information and advice on where to head next, and I answered her questions, suggesting some nice, inexpensive materials to use while she works on developing her own curriculum and set reasonable goals for the class time allotted her program. I ended our conversation by simply saying, “Remember, at the end of the day, if you speak Spanish, the children are interested and understand and maybe use some themselves, that’s what it’s all about.” As I walked away, […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Elena Giudice considers herself fortunate to have lived and worked in international schools in France, Puerto Rico, USA, The Bahamas, and Malta. Her studies in Intercultural Communications influenced her personal and professional growth in such positive ways that she strives to reach her students not only in their language growth but in the development of their social-emotional and cultural intelligence skills. Elena is currently Chair of the World Languages and Cultures Department at Saint Andrew’s School. I always look to lower school for inspiration. I firmly believe that many lower school learning experiences model best teaching practices that can be adapted easily to the WL classroom at any level. Sometimes, we don’t even realize we are modeling lower school experiences.  For example, the lower school circle time is the moment in upper school when we begin class as a group, warm up, hook the students, share current events, and then move on to more differentiated or pair work, or small group activities. We may not be sitting on a carpet in a circle but we are starting class as a community – together. I have always loved the concept of student roles in the lower school. I was always amazed […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Here are some of the blog posts that I “loved” this week. A year of Growth This practical post by Spanish elementary school teacher, Jennifer Kennedy, may be one of my favorites of the new year so far. Reflecting on her own growth as a teacher, Jennifer gives three recommendations that any teacher can follow to help them become a better teacher. What a great model of reflective practice! “We are happy when we are growing.”  Read Jennifer’s post –>  The Global Goals French and Spanish teacher, Lynn Johnston, shares a great resource that has inspired her in this original post and a follow-up post to think how she can move from just a standard topical approach to language learning to larger thematic and a truly real life focus. Move from vocabulary to service learning. And do all of that with her novice-level language learners in mind. The authentic resource link she shares is gold!  Read Lynn’s post –>  Blogs to watch 2017 If you can’t get enough of world language teacher blogs like me, you’ll like Spanish educator, Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell’s annual list of blogs. I always like finding new ones and who knows, whose post will end up in […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

So it’s not a surprise to anyone that I am a super fan of foldables, but I’ve realized that Twitter is not really the place to try to explain how to make and use them, so here we go.  Some of them are really complicated (the secret door foldable), but this one is really basic, so here it goes … a step by step of how I make my city foldable, and a way to use it communicatively. What I’ve found is that foldables give me three really great things that I want in my classes.  First, they store the vocabulary and structures in a way that is simple, organized, and somewhat artistic. Second, that vocab-storage thing requires listening to me speaking in Spanish the whole time, and trying to make their creation look like mine. (Sra. Spanglish and I started a #foldablefailures hashtag for when the listening and the creating get out of sync) Finally, the foldable is the tool they use as their scaffolded security blanket resource for speaking.   I have started to put speaking activities in the middle of things instead of after just to help chunk the content a little more and squeeze in more targeted […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

In October, I laid out here the goals I set in the summer and, motivated by Alyssa Villareal’s fall post, committed to reporting back and holding myself accountable to them. This fall, without going down the rabbit hole of politics, I’ve found myself struggling to stay on my path and focus on teaching–as I have in the past when facing personal or family challenges.  From time to time, we all have stumbles for one reason or another. Going back to those goals I set months ago, is helping me to refocus and not lose sight of getting better at what I do. Here’s where I am so far on my goal of providing more comprehensible input (overlaps some with cultural goal). First and foremost, my biggest lesson so far is that I don’t have to create everything myself–lots of talented teachers have come before me, created, found and share great materials. What I need to do is exercise good judgement in choosing rich materials that provide engaging comprehensible input. This fall: I put together a lesson on Mexican Independence Day for elementary ages (a holiday I’ve avoided because I didn’t think I could stay in the TL).  I used a […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

We are all so busy and it’s hard to keep up with blogs, social media. Many of you told me that you liked the weekly blog summaries I started last year and you missed reading them. It’s a new year and a new attempt at keeping up, even though I’m not making it my goal for 2017. In order to last longer than April this year, I need your help. What are your favorite language teacher blogs? Comment here or send me a message. See a post that is a mind grenade, let me know via social media so that I can include it in these summaries. Here are the posts that caught my attention over the past couple of weeks. Resolutions (Systems!) 2017: Become Officer Hopps We still can’t escape all the New Year’s teacher posts. Spanish educator, Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, got in on the game and provided her own unique spin on it and reminding us that “the difference between a good and a bad teacher is not the presence of mistakes, but whether they are OLD or NEW.” Read Sara-Elizabeth’ post –>  ACTFL16 – Big Idea Spanish teacher, Jennifer Kennedy, continues her reflection on the learning at the 2016 ACTFL […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

I’m packing.  No.  Not guns.  Strategies, activities, techniques, differentiation.  All the materials I need to tackle the path to proficiency.  I love the title-Path to proficiency.  The word is so apt.  A path is long & winding, with mountains and valleys, obstacles, and rewards.  When we set off, we’re full of optimism and excitement, but we can quickly tire and feel that the end is nowhere in sight as the unforeseen challenges of the path rise up to thwart us and to steal the energy and joy we had at the outset.  So, we must be sure to think carefully about the things we will need to travel the path, especially when it’s a new one, like the path to proficiency is for me.  Luckily, along the way we meet other travelers, who share the trail with us, and even offer some of the goodies they’ve packed or picked up on the way. Training for the path I walk. A lot.  In fact, I’m training with a friend to hike part of the Camino in Spain.  And the one thing I’ve learned is that being well-prepared and packing the right things makes all the difference. We’ve done other races and hikes […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

“Should old acquaintances be forgotten, And never brought to mind?” … it only takes this song and a couple of hours of reflection on the just-completed calendar year and our list of resolutions or goals for the new year is longer than the grocery list for Christmas dinner. Of course, it’s easy to set goals and in our profession getting that winter break is like starting the school year all over again. We get to reset what happened in the fall. We get a second chance. And this time we’re gonna get it right and here are all the goals that are going to help us make that happen. Slow down for just a second … What if the idea of setting goals is the last thing you should be focusing on this time of year? Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead. Take a moment to read this insightful post shared with me by a good friend: Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead. … Did you click on the link and read the post? No. It’s ok. Here are the main points James Clear is trying to make and that resonated with me from the world language educator perspective. 1. […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

I’ve been struggling hardcore with my one of my classes recently.  They’re an upper-level class, and I feel like we’re doing the same style of thing every day, or most days at least.  Their interest in conversation and authentic resources and real-life issues is not really that high, and I’m at the point where I don’t want to try because the class has a weird vibe and it’s stressful.  It’s a course where I have a ton of freedom, and the students and I have picked the topics and themes we were learning about based on our interests, and up until recently, that had gone pretty well.  In the few weeks before Thanksgiving, it started floundering, and I was stressing myself out and making myself really sick. I spent Thanksgiving hanging out with my family from different places, and the more my cousins and I talked about what it was like when we were kids, the more this idea began to creep into the back of my brain.  I was going to take that class I was struggling with and do a mini-unit about their childhoods and their family traditions.  I was betting on the fact that they’d actually have […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

I was so glad I was able to attend ACTFL this year in Boston! Though it was my first time attending an ACTFL convention, it really felt like a class reunion more than attending a convention because there were so many friends and colleagues I got to catch up with that I had seen at other events around the country in the previous year! The past 18 months have been a time of incredible personal and professional growth for me, and I have been able to meet some really tremendous people who have pushed me in my world language teaching. Whether it was through participating through #langchat on Twitter or the Leadership Initiative in Language Learning in the summer of 2015 or the TELL Collabs in Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee, I have had some extremely validating and challenging conversations with astounding professionals and leaders in our field who believe that students can grow and become proficient communicators of another language. These are leaders who are making impactful changes in their schools and districts day after day. And that’s exactly what the theme of this year’s convention was: ImpACTFL. We, as language teachers, make an impact on our students to reach beyond the […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

#ACTFL16 was, again, an exciting, worthwhile experience for me. I find it incredibly energizing to be in setting after setting with like-minded language educators, be it a session, a meal, or a champagne toast, with dear friends or new acquaintances. It is important to sustain the energy that a convention activates and to reflect on what you would change if you left feeling like you missed something (confession: been there!). As our careers transition and evolve, so does how we consider professional development – we begin to need it in different quantities and qualities, and this really resonated with me this year at ACTFL. Professional development happens in waves, and like any good tide, the timing is purposeful and exact, and we must be expecting it. If not, we’ll either drown unexpectedly or obsess over the lack thereof. We must realize that developing in our profession does not mean that the figurative water is always at the same level – it adjusts and therefore we must adjust according to what we need to receive. Don’t drown: If you left with a lot of ideas and new considerations, that is wonderful! Give them a few days, especially over break, to float […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Going to a conference, especially one as large as this year’s ACTFL Convention with over 8,500 attendees, can be incredibly invigorating. Meeting so many teachers who seem to understand just how you think, who understand your struggles, and who are trying to figure how to make this “proficiency thing” happen with their students. But even if you went in with a carefully designed conference plan, after three days of attending workshops and sessions there will come a point at which you get to information overload and you might end up feeling like this: In a post #actfl16 funk. Learned so much to improve classes but not sure where to begin … — Melissa McIntosh (@MMMCINTO) November 21, 2016 How can you continue on your conference path so that your new ideas don’t become forgotten plans? Last summer, I ran across a wonderful blog post by Pernille Ripp that outlines some steps for implementing change at the beginning of the school year. Since going to a conference, especially one so close to the holidays and the change of the semester is almost like getting a second new beginning of the school year, I thought it would be worthwhile to explore some of Pernille’s […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Have you ever had someone say something so startling that, in an instant, their words seem to smack you in the face with a reality check? I recently had one of those moments: an abrupt and much-needed a-ha! moment, that reminded me to be my best teacher self, I need to give myself grace and keep it all in perspective. My former student, Teresa, was on a break from Georgetown University and we arranged for her to visit my classroom to catch up before she headed back to DC. She met my current students, and during my planning period afterward we chatted. At one point she asked, “So, how are things going? Are you liking your new school?” (I’ve recently moved.)  I said, “Yes, definitely, but I have really got to get it together, I’m a little behind,” and gestured toward my computer and planner. Teresa smiled wryly and without missing a beat asked, “Like, actually behind? Or behind for you?” In that moment, I felt a pang of relief and a surge of reflection, as if her words had come out of her mouth, grabbed my shoulders, and shaken me. WOW. Teresa, knowing my love for teaching and desire to serve my students well, to […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

So lots of people have asked me about this post I made on Twitter about speaking circles, and I can explain it better here than in Tweets. Best day! Whole-class speaking circle but w/ teams, new topic every 8 min, TL earns pts for team, Eng loses pts, top team & Indiv get prizes — Rosalyn Rhodes (@spanish_rhodes) September 30, 2016 I need to start by admitting that this activity was completely on the fly, unplanned, and a change from what I was going to do in this particular class.  This is my rundown of what I did and how it went, and I welcome any feedback of how it could be improved. To set the scene, this was Friday of a 3-day weekend, the day of the Homecoming game AND the last period before the Pep Rally…let’s go TEACHING & LEARNING! My class is Spanish IV, not honors-AP track, full of exclusively juniors and seniors.  Most of them are athletes or band people, so they were going to be in the pep rally in 40 minutes and they were hyped up! They rolled into my class loud, excited, covered in blue and white everything (t-shirts, pom poms, beads, etc) and […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

We all talk about building classroom community and building relationships with the students, but I have to share a story with you all. I recently lost my voice for two weeks, which really messed with my identity as a teacher, much less a language teacher. But even though we’d only been in school a few weeks, I’m very proud of how my students worked hard on their interpretive skills since I could only whisper. Each day, one class kept a tally of how many days I had been without my voice, and they even marked their papers with the hashtags #FindProfesVoice2k16 and other fun hashtags like #StillNoSignOfIt. They asked about my voice and were concerned because they knew they were missing out on the excitement to grow that we had built upon during the first couple of weeks of school. This year, I have tables instead of the traditional desks, so my students are able to facilitate more of a community and collaborate more on their work, and I think it’s really working so far because we have “Table Talk” (said in my best/worst imitation Brooklyn accent) before we have any whole group discussion. I think “Table Talk” really solidified the […]

How many times have you set a goal? It may be too many to count. Perhaps the better question is how many times have you set the SAME goal? The question becomes do we have the right goal for the right time and if we have the right goal, how do we see it through to fruition? The answer is deceptively simple. The answer is consistency. It’s easy to say but difficult for many of us to put into action. So what will be your goal for this school year? How will you ensure you work on it consistently? Here are some ideas to get you started on an EPIC Year. 1. Be Honest Where are you right now? What evidence do you have to support your opinions about your current status? I’d encourage you to use a TELL Self-Assessment to get started. Pick a topic, or a domain or the foundational criteria and jump in. The more frank with yourself you are the better. You cannot make focused, sustainable growth if you do not have a solid grasp on where you are right now. The more accurate you are the better the results. It’s not always easy to look […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

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 […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

In thinking about assessing proficiency and growth as I approach the end of the year, I sometimes feel overwhelmed and a bit of self-inflicted pressure. Since making the switch to teaching for proficiency, I’ve come to understand the importance of assessment and feedback like never before.  I am greatly influenced and inspired by the wonderful proficiency focused teachers on #langchat–many of whom work in secondary education, and have planned creative, effective IPAs for the end of the year. At the elementary level, the process of assessment looks a little different– and when I feel overwhelmed with the task of assessing all of the levels I lead, I try to remember what makes language learning in elementary so unique–it’s the long haul. The privilege of teaching elementary world language is developing a long term relationship with my students and the students’ long term relationship with the language. What this means in my school setting, is that I’m not looking at where the children are at the end of 2nd or 3rd grade always, rather where they are functioning at the end of 8th grade. It may take up to two years to see real measurable growth–especially because I only see my […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

The countdown has begun! Ok who am I kidding, the count down has been ongoing since mid February but nonetheless the end is in sight! I don’t know about you but the closer to the end the faster is all seems to fly! SO here’s three things I think you HAVE to do before you blink and your time is gone! Get feedback You have just spent a year together. No one is better suited to give you feedback than the people you have been with day in and day out. The vast majority of your students will give you meaningful feedback. What worked best? What could I do better? What advice would you give to future students of mine? If you could tell me anything what would it be? No names, no identifying content just feedback. Teachers get told all kinds of things and many messages are mixed. Administrators, parents, colleagues all provide us feedback based on a variety of motivations. The most critical feedback we can get is that from our students. They see us at our best and unfortunately some days, less than our best. We are human and they get that. So if you are serious […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

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 […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

There was a time not long ago that I would write a week’s worth of lesson plans at a time. On Friday I sat down (with my textbook teacher’s edition) and planned out the next week’s lessons, pulling the support materials, and then following the set plan.  Since making the shift to teaching for proficiency, I’ve found that, for me, that practice had to be left behind along with my 15 year old textbooks. I find that by following a thematic unit, and planning a lesson at a time, I am able to be more responsive to the children’s needs and language development.  But, it’s more work and has required a shift in how I use my planning time.  I am in the process of writing units, and a normal teaching day involves 7 classes spanning an age range of 7-14.  Truly, I love teaching the various levels, but at the end of the day, working with a rapid fire class schedule, there’s never enough time and something is often missing: Reflection. It’s this piece that is often left off in the time crunch, but it’s so, so important to me. Reflection is when I can assess how effective (or ineffective) […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Feedback is critical to any learning endeavor but I would pose that more important than feedback is to feed forward. It is one thing to tell learners what they did right and what they did wrong. We do that rather naturally because that is what any graded paper tells students. All too often though those papers or rubrics end up on the floor or in the trash as soon as students see a score. When this happens, there is an obviously disconnect between the feedback we have provided and what the students find helpful or useful. We need to ask ourselves how then can we provide feedback that feeds forward improving student performance?  First, focus on clear expectations for performance. Next, use evidence to provide feedback on the performance. Finally, devise a plan for continued growth based on the focus and evidence. Focus Annual performance targets are very important but looping those performances through every unit and every assessment is just as important. Embedding these expectations in every nuance of our classrooms is critical to success. Once you have focused on a target you now have something to compare the student performance with. Using the ACTFL Proficiency guidelines, you can […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

It was a busy week on the Path to Proficiency blog that took a very reflective turn. Four new posts, including a new author, that shared some vulnerabilities and reminded me of the human side of teachers. I’ve been saying for years, I often know how effective a teacher is by their reflections. Many of the most effective teachers are often also the most reflective teachers. Blogging certainly is one way of reflecting on your practice and perhaps even processing your own reflections. I’m thankful for teachers who have chosen to share that important process with us publicly.  Here are the reflections that caught my attention this week. EPIC Telenovela PBL Unit & Final Exam Spanish teacher, Laura Sexton, recently attended the TELL Collab Nashville and shares how the EPIC Growth Plan model is now playing out in her classroom as she prepares to close the school year on a high note, developing a PBL Unit for her students. Read Laura’s post –>  The “Level Up” Writing Workshop Class… Allowing students to provide peer feedback on their work can be a daunting task that requires a carefully designed structure to ensure it truly supports the performance & feedback process. Japanese teacher, Colleen […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Disclaimer: I’m going to share a very vulnerable confession, which as a teacher is extremely dangerous because it puts me in a perceived “weak” position.  Although I confess that I struggle teaching Spanish 1, I choose to view it as a strength because it helps me evaluate what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and what I can do to improve.  For any other educator out there, I would encourage you to do the same. During my first few years of teaching, my mentor teacher created my schedule so that I taught only Spanish 2.  Being that I was fresh out of college, I appreciated that she wanted to help me hone my teaching skills and classroom management.  As I became more comfortable teaching Spanish 2 and the proficiency targets and descriptors, Spanish 1 was added to my plate.  I was so excited.  The growth in Spanish 1 is magical.  They literally start with nothing and you get to see their growth.  As an educator this is very empowering.  It is also very empowering for the students to think about their metacognition.  For the past few years, I have drawn some conclusions about Spanish 1.  Somedays, I feel like I am […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Sometimes I feel like a broken record but I will keep saying clear targets that guide instruction are key to success. The World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages outline what we should teach. And the first standard is communication. If you agree that the reason to teach students a language is so they can communicate, then the next natural question is “how well will they communicate?”. It is NOT up to us to decide the details of how students will communicate, such as when or where or with whom. We do not know what the future holds for our students. Nor should we make assumptions that ultimately limit their opportunity by deciding their future. We cannot decide that they aren’t really going to travel abroad so they only need to learn xyz. Our job as teachers is to open the world to our students and prepare them to the best of our ability for what the future could present our students. It is also to provide hope and opportunity to students who may not have even realized or considered that it was possible. My academic career has been focused in a large urban district. Many of our students have not left their […] Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)