I have been judicious about planning what virtual learning that I take part in this summer. It is so important that teachers make sure they take time to recharge especially after such a hectic spring and an unknown fall. However, I did know that I wanted to set aside some time for the NFLC Virtual Summit. However, with over 70 sessions and 12 panels, it can be overwhelming! Also, did you catch the presenter’s names?! So many people that I LOVE learning from! Luckily, I can (mostly) rely on Thomas’ suggestion to focus on my goal. (I am going to sneak some sessions in that are from regional conferences that are a bit far away from Virginia.) To be honest, I didn’t have a goal until the middle of the first day. During the first day and the middle school panel, one consistent suggestion was to give more feedback during distance learning. As I was processing (and tweeting!) my takeaways, I remembered how much I dreaded going through the process of giving feedback online. I felt like I spent a LOT of time giving feedback (and emailing!), and I am not even sure how much my students even used it. […]
“Is this for a grade?” “Are we turning this in?” “I was gone, did we do anything important yesterday?” Sigh. These student utterances are a tale as old as time for teachers. And, while they may be frustrating, they’re also indicative of other things happening (or missing) in the classroom culture and/or discourse. Expressing the aforementioned frustration only serves to punish the behavior we do actually want to see: students checking in about their grades and progress. Unfortunately, that intention gets lost in student to teacher translation. What we as classroom teachers hear is more along the lines of, “This only matters if it’s for a grade,” which may or may not be true for particular students (and that is OK). I keep myself from being annoyed by that when I honestly reflect on how I have inquired if attendance will be taken should I need to miss a meeting or when I wonder, “I have to slip out early for an appointment, I wonder if anyone will notice? Is that OK?” Knowing that teachers and students both value their time, in different ways, how, then, can we as language teachers keep our intentions transparent to communicate that what we […]
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 […]
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 […]
Planning
How does your planning of learning experiences prepare students’ Path to Proficiency?
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 […]
Maybe, just maybe, Vanilla Ice was channeling his inner teacher when he wrote the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby. And, maybe, just maybe, the Universe was trying to tell me something on my way home from work yesterday when it came on the radio. Regardless, it did, and it was immediately after one of the most frustrating last blocks in recent memory that I haven’t yet repressed. Seriously – it. was. terrible. The eager students were frustrated with their peers; I, too, was frustrated with said peers; the lesson was completely derailed by nonstop, off-topic comments, questions, interruptions, and beyond sub-optimal conditions for any kind of valuable language input. I left feeling tired, annoyed, frustrated, and generally negative. On my way to teach my methods night class, I flipped on the radio to the exact moment where the downbeat drops in the opening seconds; it had just come on. I had been thinking about what my next steps where, logistically since now that class was behind as well as behaviorally since a handful of students had controlled the fate of the group when suddenly the lyric it, “Stop. Collaborate and listen!” and it dawned on me: “That’s exactly what I need […]
Whew. I’m tired just thinking of all that went into this semester, and I’m not actually sure how it all got done. Beyond just thinking, I find that reflection, true, intentional, pointed reflection, is critical, and as tiring as anything else. Coming off of ACTFL weekend recently and looking into various PD endeavors for the spring, I can’t help but juxtapose our highlight reels and how we highlight real. Teachers attend sessions, read blogs, send tweets, listen to podcasts, and more, from the World Language Education all-stars we’ve come to know and love. Their strategies are proven, their classrooms warm, their student results impressive — but, how does that make us feel about ourselves? For me, not always awesome. I am not jumping to conclusions; psh, come on. I’m pogo sticking, high jumping, catapulting myself towards conclusions, and internalizing the verdict that 1.) they’re awesome, and 2.) I am not awesome. Truth time: they are awesome. But also, we all are in our own, different way(s). But being awesome and expecting to bring your A-game every single day isn’t sustainable, for them, for us, for students, period. Proficiency has made me a better teacher, and a better understander of my […]
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. […]
As we kick off another school year, a lot of topics are swirling about in department meetings, district PD, online forums, Twitter, workshops, and more. This organization system or that one, new seating charts or going deskless, standards-based grading or category percentages, and much more. But, as Rihanna tells us, don’t get it twisted. There are some subtle nuances that define our teaching in big ways that we may not realize, and at the beginning of the school year, they merit some reflection. “I taught it” doesn’t mean that they ‘caught’ it How many times have we said that to colleagues, “But I taught that!” Usually out of frustration because students aren’t showing mastery, this is a deceptive statement. If there are students in the class who are showing that they grasp certain language and can use it, then it was, indeed, taught. But, don’t get it twisted; are these students the exception or the rule? Do they represent other students in the class? Or, would everyone stand to benefit from some re-teaching and differentiation? The high flyers can go even higher, and the rest can finally take flight, without the pressure of knowing other students are ahead of them. We […]
Learning Experience
How do you facilitate meaningful learning experiences for students on the Path to Proficiency?
Through my posts on this blog, I’m tracking my experiences, as both a novice teacher (in regards to proficiency) and as a more veteran teacher, with ten years of public high school teaching in my past. This first two months of being back in the classroom, after five years outside of public schools, have been the most engaging and tiring of my career. I finally have a spare minute to write this post. I’ve been looking at student work through the lens of communication, and this new perspective has significantly improved my classroom. I’m seeing student work with fresh eyes – and I’m uplifted and inspired by what students can do. At the beginning of the year, I spent the first class establishing French as a the language of communication. I also began the process of engaging students through comprehensible input and an authentic resource. For example, in level 2, I used an excellent video from 1jour1actu about rock music. Leading with input was incredibly fun, and the video provided ideal subject matter for reviewing functions from level 1, including expressing preferences, describing family, and asking and responding to questions. As an added benefit, the content was interesting to students, […]
University School of Milwaukee World Language Teachers Share Their Notes From Visit to the Singapore American School This past May 2017, my colleagues, Alison Dupee, LS French teacher; Neelie Barthenheier, a MS French teacher and LS and MS World Language Chair; and I returned on fire with inspiration to grow as 21st-century world language educators. We had heard about the Singapore American School’s exemplary world language program from our consultant, Greg Duncan. He described it as one of the best elementary school language programs in the world. When I attended a 2016 ACTFL session last fall conducted by SAS’ Upper School WL Chair, Jean Rueckert, and the MS principal, Lauren Merhbach, I was struck by the similarity of their program and ours. The difference was that they had been working with Greg several years longer than we had, and they had already overcome some of the hurdles we were facing. They had renamed their classes according to proficiency levels, developed an efficient three-year rotating cross-divisional culture plan by language, and most impressively shared video footage showcasing the intermediate skill development of an elementary Chinese and Spanish student. How were they developing such communicative facility so early in their students’ language […]
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 […]
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 […]
Performance & Feedback
How do you and your students use performance & feedback on the Path to Proficiency?
Back in September 2017, we’d just adopted our newly-revised performance feedback form/rubric for our program. Eight teachers had worked that summer for many hours to create it. (See my 2017 post, I’ve never met a rubric I liked to read about that journey and my prediction for where we’d be a year later). We began that school year on a mission—to use the rubric as a tool to help us calibrate our standards, to help students have a clear picture of those standards, and to help them move up on the proficiency ladder. In practice, the rubric still seemed clunky and uncomfortable for most of us —which had been the problem motivating us to redesign it in the first place. My response options were exasperation or perseverance. I chose perseverance (Well, OK, maybe, possibly, probably, I chose exasperation too at some points in the year). We had to figure out what the trouble was. Why was it so challenging for teachers to hold student work up against the performance targets we’d so carefully described and to give them feedback on their work? Why was it so hard to assign a grade to that work? One of the challenges teachers reported […]
Maybe, just maybe, Vanilla Ice was channeling his inner teacher when he wrote the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby. And, maybe, just maybe, the Universe was trying to tell me something on my way home from work yesterday when it came on the radio. Regardless, it did, and it was immediately after one of the most frustrating last blocks in recent memory that I haven’t yet repressed. Seriously – it. was. terrible. The eager students were frustrated with their peers; I, too, was frustrated with said peers; the lesson was completely derailed by nonstop, off-topic comments, questions, interruptions, and beyond sub-optimal conditions for any kind of valuable language input. I left feeling tired, annoyed, frustrated, and generally negative. On my way to teach my methods night class, I flipped on the radio to the exact moment where the downbeat drops in the opening seconds; it had just come on. I had been thinking about what my next steps where, logistically since now that class was behind as well as behaviorally since a handful of students had controlled the fate of the group when suddenly the lyric it, “Stop. Collaborate and listen!” and it dawned on me: “That’s exactly what I need […]
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 […]
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 […]
I took a look at my gradebook at the end of last year. My tasks were all jumbled together and still classified in the traditional 4 language skills: reading, writing, listening. I had evolved to using descriptors instead of numbers, but nothing else had changed. I couldn’t easily tell you how proficient a student was in any particular skill – in part because the information wasn’t easy to find. It certainly did not reflect my journey down the proficiency path. So this fall my colleague Connie and I decided that if we were implementing proficiency then we also needed to fully make the jump to modes. And if we were going to use modes of communication in class, our gradebook had to change as well. At the start of the year I put my new gradebook together with 4 separate pages: Interpersonal, Presentational, Interpretive and “Out Of Class Prep” (our take on what work at home really is). Doing this led to some revelations about my practice, some surprises and, ultimately, necessary changes. Interpersonal – We set these tasks as anything requiring a possible negotiation of meaning between two (or more) students. Wow – if you had asked me BEFORE […]
Professionalism
How does your continued growth as a professional support you on the Path to Proficiency?
I have been judicious about planning what virtual learning that I take part in this summer. It is so important that teachers make sure they take time to recharge especially after such a hectic spring and an unknown fall. However, I did know that I wanted to set aside some time for the NFLC Virtual Summit. However, with over 70 sessions and 12 panels, it can be overwhelming! Also, did you catch the presenter’s names?! So many people that I LOVE learning from! Luckily, I can (mostly) rely on Thomas’ suggestion to focus on my goal. (I am going to sneak some sessions in that are from regional conferences that are a bit far away from Virginia.) To be honest, I didn’t have a goal until the middle of the first day. During the first day and the middle school panel, one consistent suggestion was to give more feedback during distance learning. As I was processing (and tweeting!) my takeaways, I remembered how much I dreaded going through the process of giving feedback online. I felt like I spent a LOT of time giving feedback (and emailing!), and I am not even sure how much my students even used it. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Whew, here comes 2018! Can you believe it? New year, new you? New students? New routines? For some, all of the above; for others perhaps none, or one. I teach on block schedule, so when we come back to school in January, I have all new students, a new prep, and a new schedule. I have a LOT of goals for second semester, and they’re all intertwined and interdependent. Best of all, I’m really excited about them. A lot of good things happened in the fall, but much still needs rethinking, reworking, and revamping. So, I don’t have New Year’s Resolutions; rather, I have New Year’s Revolutions. Over the holidays, I was able to get out of town to relax and recharge. Hmm, I’m sensing a pattern. REvolutions, REthinking, REworking, REvamping, RElax, REcharge – we get to REdo many things in life, and as teachers, coaches, and mentors, we know the power of REpetition. As World Language teachers who teach toward proficiency, we are confident in the influence that comes from “do it again,” performance, and performance over time (proficiency). These ring true in language acquisition, pedagogy, and life. My goals this semester can only happen if I reflect often […]
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 […]