My Experience as a Second Language Learner

Hola:

Lately, I have been thinking and talking a lot about other teachers. We teachers can be so rough on each other, and I say "we" because I am including myself in this. It almost reminds me of middle school sometimes when we find backhanded ways of knocking each other down to bring ourselves up or make ourselves feel better. We ALL have insecurities with regard to our teaching, and we always will. We are not perfect. However, I think we need to spend less time thinking about what other teachers are going to think about our students and more about what's best for our students.

When discussing communicative language teaching, one of the biggest questions I always hear (and ask myself) is "but am I preparing them for so-and-so's class?" or "are we preparing them for college?" This question is very valid, but how can our profession move toward communicative language teaching if everyone says that they're not going to do it because many other teachers do not? How are we going to get colleges on board with a communicative approach to language teaching (with the lower levels) and stop giving grammar entrance exams if we keep teaching that way because "the colleges expect it"?

The truth of the matter is that we are preparing our students for college and for other courses. When we teach communicatively, we are using the language for a purpose, and the students acquire more. There is no doubt in my mind about that. When we teach using paradigms that have no meaning, maybe it's cool for the students to see it, but we have to attach meaning to what we do if we want the students to actually be able to do something with the language.

I can say with full confidence that we are preparing students for college because I, myself, am an example of it. I was not lucky enough to start learning Spanish in middle school, so I really started formally learning the language in 9th grade.

Throughout the majority of my high school career, I was taught communicatively. I say majority because I can think of a few things that I was taught explicitly, but for the most part, any grammar practice was either done at home, done as a warm-up for the class, or not done at all. And I can say with great confidence that I did not acquire those structures like double object pronouns, the subjunctive, etc. until I started needing to use them for a purpose. That's just how language acquisition goes! We can be taught something explicitly and pass a test, but I can almost guarantee that those structures will not show up in our speech until we have had enough input on them/interaction with them.

Anyway, when I was in high school, we were almost always using the language for a purpose. We studied art, music, films, different foods, legends, etc. I rarely felt like I was learning language, but rather learning content in the language. I can still talk a lot about legends like "El callejón del beso," art that we studied, animals like "el colibrí abeja," films we studied, etc. from high school. There was so much meaning in all that we were doing that I will never forget it--nor will I forget the vocabulary and grammar that I acquired during that time.

When it came time for me to start applying for college, I chose Worcester State University, and I had to take a placement exam. The exam was pretty standard: grammar questions and a writing assignment. Even though I did not have a lot of explicit teaching, I did very well on that exam. As a freshman in college, I started in a 300 level course "Advanced Spanish Composition II." I was in a class with only one other freshman; the rest were juniors and seniors. I know I am a special case because I became a language teacher, but many of my friends placed out of a language at their colleges/universities, too, and they did not decide to become language teachers. All of this happened after 4 years. I cannot even begin to imagine where students would be if they were taught communicatively in every course from middle school to high school--or better yet, elementary school to high school.

Once I started college, by no means did I always have perfect grammar, but what I did have was the confidence to speak the language, and I learned so much as a result. Many of my classmates were afraid to speak in our conversation courses because they were insecure in their grammar (there were other factors for some people, of course). I truly believe this to be a result of grammar-focused classrooms. I also had a lot of knowledge of products, practices, and perspectives. I remember briefly studying "Las Meninas" in college and feeling like an expert because I had already studied it in high school. Knowing that I came from an amazing, communicative language program gave me the confidence and skills to be the Spanish speaker that I am today.

When we teach communicatively and focus on proficiency, it does not mean that we are not teaching grammar. Of course our students are picking up on grammar all the time; it just means that our focus is communication, not grammar practice. I, personally, want my students to have memories like I do of their language classrooms. I don't want them to be like "oh, remember how boring it was learning grammar and now we can't speak at all?" I have so many friends who can recite "o, as, a, amos, áis, an" or recite a dialogue that they memorized from high school, but they have no idea what any of it means. Language just doesn't work that way. We can have explicit knowledge of grammar rules, but until we really start using them for real communication, those structures really will not become part of our mental representation of language. I know that when I speak Spanish and English, I do not see a conjugation chart in my head; that's what I want for my students too.

I am so grateful for my experience as a language learner; I got so lucky in having language teachers who were knowledgeable about language acquisition in high school and college. Those teachers/professors truly changed my life, and I am now able to see that change in my students.

Timothy

Communicative Language Teaching Has Made Me Love My Job

It is no secret that I love my job, but the amount of love I have for my job has increased significantly as I have started to use a communicative approach. My first semester teaching, I thought language was grammar, and I taught that way. Fortunately, language is much more than that.

Bill Van Patten always says, "what's on page 32 [of the textbook] is not what ends up in your head," and I am realizing more and more just how true that statement is. Language really is not subject matter. We can make "mistakes" in our grammar and still communicate our message perfectly. That is the beauty of language!

When I was teaching for grammar, I was often tired, impatient and VERY frustrated with my students. It is so exhausting to have students not get things after we have drilled it over and over again. But we have to ask ourselves, "if they're not getting it, is what I'm doing not working?" The answer, for me at least, was no. I was expecting students to be able to learn and apply grammar without communicating any messages, and I DEFINITELY was not giving them enough input before asking them to produce the language. They were practicing grammar, and it was meaningless to all except for the three students who like grammar. Are you going to remember something that is meaningless? I'm definitely not.

The other thing that Bill VanPatten has stated is that a communicative approach does not mean teaching the same old textbook material in a communicative way. Last year, I had trouble wrapping my head around that. I thought, "nahhhhh, I disagree. I can take our textbook and teach the same stuff communicatively." I was wrong. Wrongo. Totally wrong. Totes magotes wrong.

The easiest thing that I can bring this back to is stem-change verbs. For those of you who do not know what they are, all you have to know is that they are words that have one thing in common: a grammatical structure. Last year, I took a group of stem-change verbs, and thought "I am going to use this grammatical structure but teach it by asking the students real questions about themselves. That's communicative!" The problem was that the students were recognizing that it was grammar practice. I knew it, and they knew it. I found myself frustrated teaching this, and it felt like I was in my first semester of teaching again when I valued grammar over communication. Don't get me wrong, though, this was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't enough because it wasn't truly communicative; there was no purpose to what we were learning.

To try to combat that this year, before I teach a lesson or before I give an assessment, I always ask myself "what do I want students to be able to do with this?" If my answer is "I want to see if they can conjugate these verbs" or anything grammar based, I scrap it. Instead, my answer needs to be "I want to see if the students can tell me ______ about themselves" or "I want to see what I can learn about my students' lives from this" or "I want to see how well my students know me." I think you get the point. In other words, they need to communicate/comprehend a message--not a grammatical structure. Grammar is a tool for communicating a message; it is not the sole purpose for learning a language.

This year, the power of input has truly hit me. I knew input was great last year, but I was not doing enough of it. I was not spending enough class time checking to see what students could understand without producing the language; I was focused more on what they could produce. Production is great, but it really only works if they have been exposed to the language enough. It's amazing how much they can produce once they have had the opportunity to take in the language.

I am working very hard this year to develop thematic units, and this has made the world of difference for me. I had a professor, Doctora Guillermina Elissondo, in college who used to always say "learning a language is more than just learning to speak the language; it is learning to think in a different way and appreciate those who have had different experiences." With thematic units, I feel like the students are acquiring the language as we discuss a painting, an artist, a product, a practice, a different perspective, a similar perspective, a musician, etc as opposed to just learning grammar. The students and I are learning so much more, and class is fun! Another reason to be happy!  We just have so much to talk about! I look around my class, and I watch all my students speaking with each other in Spanish, and I can't even keep up with all of the conversations. How can I not love my job when I am surrounded by that?!

When grammar was my focus, we did the same activities over and over again; it was boring, monotonous, and it didn't work. As I learn more and more about communicative language teaching, the more I notice that my students are engaged and "getting it." It's easier for them, it's more interesting to them and to me, we learn so much about each other, art, etc. That's what language is about.

This year, although there are still many flaws in my teaching, I finally am starting to feel like I am not teaching the students a textbook. This makes me so happy, and this is a huge part of why I believe that I leave school with a goofy smile on my face every day. I am teaching content and the students are getting it and constantly exceeding my expectations. It feels AMAZING. They are happy, and I am happy. Communicative language teaching has saved me from becoming a cranky, annoyed teacher. I cannot say enough how much I truly love my job.

Thanks for reading and please comment!

Timothy

Ninety Percent Target Language Use

Hola a todxs:

90% Spanish:

In a previous post, I mentioned that I give out a flamingo (sometimes more than one) to students who are speaking a lot of Spanish in the classroom. This has been amazing and has gotten a lot of students to speak Spanish with me in class. The problem was that students were not speaking Spanish with each other, and I was still getting a lot of English like "¿Cómo se dice 'car' en español?" 

Recently, the principal of my school observed my class, and I asked her to look at how much Spanish I was speaking. She did an amazing job evaluating my target-language use. I realized, however, that me speaking Spanish is just not enough. 

A few weeks ago, I attended the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association's (MaFLA's) conference for language teachers, and I attended two sessions with regard to the use of the target language (in my case, Spanish) in the classroom. In both presentations, we discussed the language use of the teacher AND the students. This is where I was falling flat. My students were still not speaking enough Spanish. 

The flamingo is great for rewarding target language use above and beyond what is expected in the classroom, but how do I get the students to speak Spanish as often as possible? Well, a wonderful teacher in Arlington Public Schools, Na Lu-Hogan, mentioned something during Joshua Cabral's session on target language use that really got me thinking. I do not want to quote her exactly because I do not remember exactly what she said she does in the classroom, but she mentioned using hearts to get the students to speak more target language. I decided to do the same. 

I had each student make two hearts (this way, I have a lot of extras). I started a new routine in which the students come into the classroom and immediately grab a heart. If they speak English for any reason without permission, I take the heart away. It seems harsh; I know. However, it has really worked because I have given them the tools to not use English. They can earn the heart back by speaking a lot of Spanish. 

The Incentive:

With the hearts, I knew I needed an incentive to get the students on board. So, each group has a secretary who keeps track of the group points. Each heart is worth 1 point, so no matter what, the secretaries are adding points just for keeping the hearts. If, at the end of the class period, though, every student has a heart, the whole class gets a point (I keep track of this). I teach six classes, so it is a competition between all six classes. At the end of the term, the class with the most points will get some type of prize. So far, this has worked incredibly well. 

The Tools Needed:

The first step for me was developing a circumlocution poster. I based mine off of Joshua Cabral's circumlocution posters (thank you, Joshua!). I have one section for descriptions and one for questions the students can ask. This poster gives the students some tools to describe items instead of switching to English. Ex. it's an animal. It's a place. It's round. It's used for... is it ___ or ____? etc. 

I also told the students that they should rely on gestures if the circumlocution chart isn't sufficing. The reason I allow this is because it is communicating without using English, and this is so important for students who are interacting with a non-English-speaking person. If they go to Cuba and speak with someone who doesn't speak English, switching to English is useless, but movements can be very communicative. 

The other tool--by suggestion of a student--was to have a specific place on one of my whiteboards for students to draw. I am SO thankful to the student who thought of this because I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, so their language skills can be very limited. Having a section for drawings is amazing. Today, I had a student who was looking for the word "ground," and he kept saying "the place underneath the house" by using the circumlocution chart, but I wasn't getting it because I thought he was looking for "basement." Eventually, after much negotiation of meeting (and me failing to understand), he drew a picture, and it clicked for me what he was looking for. 

If, even after all three options above, I am still not getting it, I ask the student "is it super important for me to understand this right now?" Most of the time, the student says "no," so I ask the student to tell me after class and we move on. 

The Concerns:

At first, I was skeptical of circumlocution charts and stuff because I thought it would take up too much class time. First of all, it usually doesn't. These interactions are very quick. However, even if it does, the students are using the language to communicate real messages in a meaningful way. Isn't that what we want? 

My other concern was for the younger students who can basically only tell me their names and where they are from. How are they going to be able to do this? Trust me. They do. They rely more on movements and pictures, but I had a sixth grader tell me that he spoke in Spanish with the waitress at Casa Blanca, and he told me this without having to use English. They find very creative ways to communicate their message. 

The other concern that my team has brought up, which is also a current concern of mine, is: are we getting to know our students still even though they are not speaking their native language with us? Are we building relationships with them? I still struggle with this concern, but as I think about my sixth graders and the students I did not have last year, I still feel like I am learning a lot about them. I suppose my argument is that, even though I am asking them to speak a language that is not native to them, I am asking them to do so in a communicative classroom. Communication is the expression, interpretation and negotiation of meaning in a given context. So, if I am giving the students communicative tasks, I am learning about them every day because we are using the language realistically. I am curious what other language teachers think about this. 

Below, I am sharing a picture of my make-shift circumlocution chart and the section of my whiteboard for drawings. 

Gracias por leer,

Timothy

Interpersonal Assessments

Interpersonal Assessments:

I think that most world language teachers will agree with me that interpersonal assessments (assessments on which two or more students interact with each other) are very hard to get right, but they are arguably the most important. Most of us have learned that there has to be some type of problem for the students to solve; otherwise, the students spit information at each other without actually having to interact. However, they also need to be prompts that allow/require both (or more) students to communicate. 

Twice in my very short career (and I am sure this number will increase), I have had to have the students redo an interpersonal assessment because my prompt just did not fit the bill. This week, I gave the students an interpersonal assessment that I thought was going to be amazing, and it totally flopped...and it was totally my fault. We all make mistakes, right? 

What went wrong:

So, the students did an interpretive reading on tapas in Spain, and we have been working with that material for a while. On the original interpersonal assessment that I developed, the students were given a hotel name and a tapas bar, and they were leaving from the same place; they had to discuss how long it would take, how they would get there, what metro line they would take, what tapas they wanted to eat, and they only had a certain amount of euros, so they had to make sure that they did not overspend. The problem was that one student was pretty much saying everything because my prompt wasn't interpersonal enough. One person could easily just agree, state the tapa he/she/they wanted and be done with it. 

How did I remedy this? 

Unfortunately, I did not realize how bad my prompt was until after one of my classes had already taken the assessment. But I was not willing to assess students who only said two sentences because the teacher (that's me!) gave them a terrible prompt. Surprisingly, the students were not mad at me when I made them redo it with the new prompt. They were actually happy about it. Weirdos (just kidding. I love them).

To fix the prompt, each student had a different hotel. This made the world of difference because they had to listen to each other, and they each had different information to share. If they decided that they were going to go "tapa-ing" at 8 PM, then they had to make sure that they arrived there at the same time. They pulled up Google Maps and were able to figure out the fastest route from their individual hotels to the restaurant. Once they did that, they needed to decide what time they, personally, were going to leave to get there on time. For example, if the metro said it would take 18 minutes, then they had to leave at 7:42 to get there for 8:00. Here is the link to the assessment if you want to take a gander at the prompt. 

The results:

The results have been amazing so far. Students are asking each other clarifying questions and negotiating meaning in their videos. In the first prompt, there was really no reason for them to clarify anything. However, once they were leaving from different places, they had to make sure they would get there on time at the same time. At first, I worried that the prompt would be too hard, but it wasn't. They did such a great job communicating with each other. If we are really focusing on our students' ability to communicate as opposed to their ability to speak perfectly, then our students can accomplish tasks like these without being discouraged by a bad grade because of their language accuracy. 

I am very happy with this assessment, but I would love to improve it, so feedback would be awesome!

Thanks for reading,

Timothy

The Flamingo, Listening, and Culture

Hola hola:

The Spanish Flamingo:

This year has been absolutely incredible so far. As I stated in my last blog post, I started a new thing where I pass a flamingo around the room to students who are going above and beyond to speak Spanish in the class. This has been such a great motivator for students to speak the target language in the class.  I was worried about implementing this with the sixth graders because they have such limited language skills at the beginning of the year, but they are finding amazing ways to communicate in Spanish. A lot of them have been saying things like "Señor Chávez, ¿computadoras? ¿Sí o no?" "Mr. Chávez, computers? Yes or no?" I have never had students speaking this much Spanish in my classes, and it is causing them to pick up on more. I highly recommend this.

Interpretive Listening Assessments: 

As I may have mentioned in this blog before, I always have the students keep portfolios that help them see their progress throughout the year and from year to year. As I was looking at student portfolios, I realized that interpretive listening was a huge gap in my teaching. I was using some videos and songs and doing tiny activities, but I was never really giving students feedback on their listening skills. So, I decided to make that my goal this year; I want to develop more listening assessments.

Having written down this goal was very inspiring for me, so I already developed one using the song "Puerto Rico" by Jerry Rivera. I used the ACTFL template for interpretive assessments (which I had already used many times for reading assignments) and I made some tiny adjustments to gear it more towards listening. I used the assessment with my 7th graders, and I was so happy with the results. The students did very well, and they picked up on much more than I expected! I still have some concerns about how I did the Key Word Recognition and Supporting Details, so I am very open to ideas. Any world language teachers willing to share some listening assessments that you have developed? I love having the students make inferences, cultural comparisons, etc. but I am not completely convinced that my Supporting Details and Key Word Recognition sections are the best that they can be.

Culture in the Classroom:

I am also trying very hard to focus more on culture in my classroom with regard to products, practices and perspectives this year. It is clear to me that we have not done enough of this with our students.  I am going more in depth with my students about Tapas this year, and I am already so happy. It feels like it gives my teaching a purpose when we can make cultural comparisons, and I find that this is the stuff the students get the most out of. When I ask my students from last year about Puerto Rico, it seems like they haven't forgotten anything! I think it gives them more context to what they are learning. Whatever it is, it works, and it is great for me to do more research about other cultures!

I am still falling more and more in love with my job every day. <3

Gracias por leer,

Timothy

The Start of a New Year

Hola a todxs:

I am off to a great start of the year this year. It's nice to be at the same school for a second year because I already know a decent amount of the students, so it made learning names much easier this year! Phew!

Anyway, last year, at the beginning of the year, I was working with a new curriculum, new students, new colleagues, etc. and it was very overwhelming (but great!). I was not fully invested in teaching for proficiency at the beginning of the year, so I am still developing a lot of new materials because I do not want to use what I used at the beginning of the year last year.

I decided to give 7th and 8th grade a performance assessment at the beginning of the year to see where they were at, and I was very impressed by the students' work.  It showed me that the students were really ready for new material, which is great. On the feedback form (rubric) that I use, there is a section for cultural knowledge. I noticed a HUGE lack of cultural knowledge from our students, which means there is a gap in our curriculum in both sixth and seventh grade. I am going to try very hard this year to look more at products, practices and perspectives, because I think that this is extremely important. We are not just teaching students to speak another language; we are teaching them to think in different ways. If we are not discussing cultural topics in the target language, then I think that we are missing a huge chunk of world language teaching.

The sixth graders are eating the language up, and it is making me so happy. We are working on the alphabet right now, and this year, I thought to have them look up Spanish words instead of spelling English words to me and the rest of the class. This has been a really nice advantage because the students do not know the words that the other students are spelling, so they HAVE to rely on the Spanish alphabet. For example, I used to have the students choose any word, so they might choose something like "football." When they spell that to the rest of the class, I used to notice that the other students would often have the word "football" already spelled out on their mini-white boards before the student finished because they figured out the word. This year, if they want to spell "football," they have to look up the Spanish word, and spell "fútbol americano" to the class. This is great because the students have to actually listen to the person spelling until he/she/they finish. Phew! I am happy to have solved that problem.

With the 7th and 8th graders, I have been able to get to know them using the target language. We did a language pledge in our department this year, and it basically states that the students' first attempt at speaking will always be in the target language. If this means they have to use baby talk like "me want pen," then so be it! It's much better than having them rely on English all the time. This has been great for getting the students to express themselves, but has also been a great reminder for me to stay in the target language as well.

I have heard of many language teachers using some type of item that the students have to keep on their desks for using English too much. Then, they have to get rid of it by catching someone else speaking English. I am sure that this works great, but I was worried that it would become a distraction and would get the students to focus more on who's speaking English and less on the lesson (but I could be wrong!). My colleague, Kate McGonagle, had a great idea, however. She is planning on doing it the opposite way. She is going to give her mini-Eiffel Tower to the student who speaks the most French. In other words, it's more of a reward. I think I am going to try to do the same, so I will let you know how it goes!

We are talking about food in 8th grade, and it is so interesting to see what their likes and dislikes are. We also discovered that a lot of the students in the class have very different eating habits, which really really really surprised me! It's nice to use the language to really discover things about each other.

I did a check for understanding that I really liked this year. So, basically, they had just learned some food items, but I did not believe they were ready to produce the language yet. I wanted to know if they were recognizing the words for certain items without having to produce them, so I played this game "what color do you associate with..." It was really interesting to see some of the responses, and it actually sparked some good conversation. For example, when I said (in Spanish) "what color do you associate with steak," most kids said "brown," but some added "pink" or both. It was an awesome way for me to see that they understood the word for "steak" without making them produce the word themselves.

All in all, I feel much more prepared this year, and I am SO happy. I really really love my job.

Thanks for reading,

Timothy

The End of the Year

This year has certainly had its ups and downs. The good thing is that a lot of things clicked for me this year. As a new teacher, there are so many experts around you throwing out all these buzz words, and you're just trying to stay afloat to understand it all.

At the end of the Proficiency Academy last summer, one of the speakers said to me "you know what the second year means, don't you? It means you throw out everything you did last year and start over." I thought he was a netball for saying that. It turns out he was right. I only used maybe one or two things that I developed last year. It wasn't because those things were bad, but rather because I had ways of making them better.  

This year, as you can tell if you have kept up with my blog, I have tried to dive head first into teaching for proficiency. I am so proud of all that I have learned and done this year, but it is amazing that I am still sitting here thinking of how I want to improve next year.  Despite all the research that I have done this year, I certainly had some failures, and I can't wait to fix those failures and fail some more. That is how we learn, right? 

One thing that has been stressed to me is that, if it is not open ended and not spontaneous, then we really cannot assess someone's language proficiency. On my course evaluations, that was one of the biggest complaints I received from my students. "Stop giving surprise tests." I think that I need to explain my reasoning behind this better next year. I want them to understand that, if it's not spontaneous, then it doesn't really show me or them what they can do in the language; or rather, it doesn't show them what is in their head and can come out naturally.

I did an open-ended final with all six of my Spanish classes, and boy did that stress me out. However, I would not change it for the world because it is so beautiful to see what my students could do at the end of the year. My only complaint is that, because I was assessing all six classes at a time, the feedback I gave the students was not as in-depth as I would have liked. 

Each assessment had a prompt that involved a lot of what each grade had learned that year. In other words, they were cumulative assessments. It was really good for me to see where the students were the strongest and where they were the weakest, but I take pride in the fact that each student was able to communicate in the language. I was so proud to see my students focusing more on meaning and less on grammar. This type of assessment is so much more meaningful than a non-communicative grammar quiz. 

I have learned that teaching for proficiency takes a lot of time and creativity, but it is not as scary as I had imagined. I was so worried about "doing it wrong" at the beginning of this year and last year that I held back a bit. Once I committed, I learned more and more, and I have really grown as an educator. All that they have taught us at the proficiency academy is true; the students really do learn a lot faster and can communicate a lot when they are taught using a communicative approach. This all has made me love my job even more, and I am so unbelievably proud of my students. I cannot wait to see what next year brings. 

Con cariño,

Timothy

Verbs Verbs Verbs

Hola a todos:

In my last post, I mentioned the issue of separating language such as AR verbs from IR and ER verbs. I ended up not doing that with my sixth graders this year to see how it went. If they wanted to use an "ir verb" when stating something they do, then I gave them the tools to do that. It feels nice to not restrict them by saying "oh, you'll learn how to conjugate ir and er verbs in 7th grade."

It has been really fun watching them progress in their language over this school year. We played "Two Truths and a Lie" last week, and it was so cool to see how well they were using their Spanish to guess each other's lies. They have really impressed me, and I am not so sure that my lessons would have been as communicative if I had only taught them how to use AR verbs. Also, I have noticed fewer "errors" in their grammar when they are communicating. Over the years, I have noticed that language learners always want to make everything into an AR verb. Perhaps the reason for that is because we often teach it all separately. They learn AR verbs first and so they think that that is the way all verbs work. At first, I was worried about not teaching that way this year, but then I thought about it and realized that Spanish-speaking parents do not raise their kids only using AR verbs until their child has mastered those and then moved on to ER verbs. So far, it seems to have been successful.

One thing that is driving me crazy is stem-change verbs. For those of you who do not know, these are verbs that change a letter to another letter(s). For example, the "e" in "pensar" becomes "ie," so it looks like this: "pienso" instead of "penso." Honestly, you don't really need to understand what I just said to understand why I am struggling teaching this. All of the stem-change verbs have one thing in common: the grammatical structure. It is SO HARD to teach these in a meaningful way because it is so clear to the students that they are learning them to learn that the E changes to IE. They don't view it as learning to communicate, which, once again, is the sole purpose for speaking a language. When we focus on meaning and communication, the language gets into their heads. When we don't, the language stays as explicit knowledge in their heads for a bit, but they do not use it naturally. I firmly believe that. If I ask my current eighth graders to use the stem changers that my 7th graders are using right now, I have a feeling most of them will not be able to do it, and the same goes for the stem changers that they learned this year. It has never really been meaningful to them, so it mostly ends up being memorization.

My sixth graders, however, have inspired me this week, and I think that I have come up with a solution thanks to them. Two of the verbs that my sixth graders know are stem changers. Now that they have begun to state what they and others do, they have tried to use those stem changers. In the past, I might have said, "oh that verb is confusing; try to write something else." This year, I simply told them quickly how to do it. Now, they know that "I play" is "juego" and I sleep is "duermo," and a lot of them have been using it correctly ever since. I think the huge difference here is that, with my sixth graders, we have always been focusing on meaning. They learned that it was "juego" instead of "jugo" because they wanted to use it for a purpose. I have tried to make a purpose for it with my seventh graders, but it has been a lot harder since we are trying to ONLY use stem-change verbs that have nothing to do with one another. So, this summer, I am going to look at the curriculum and try to find ways of incorporating these stem-changers in a meaningful way throughout the year instead of all at once. This way, they will still be learning the grammatical structure that our curriculum demands, but they will be doing it in a more meaningful way.

Thanks for reading,
Timothy

What I Did When I Really Missed the Mark

These past few weeks have been hard ones. I gave my seventh grade students a writing assignment, and one class absolutely soared. I was in absolute shock at their writing ability. Some of these students already started to reach the intermediate level. For those of you who are not world language teachers, my mom recommended that I do a better explanation of what a novice learner looks like versus an intermediate learner. To help, here is a link to an infographic that I give my students to help them understand it.

I was so happy after reading these assessments; there was so much cultural knowledge tied in with their own opinions of Puerto Rico. I felt like super teacher.

Then, I read the same assignment that I gave to my other seventh grade class. I have never ever seen such a gap between students who are supposed to be at a similar level. Now, we know that there are individual differences for language learners in all languages. However, these differences were way too big for me to ignore. A colleague reminded me that these students are very different and are in a very different environment. I certainly understand that, but I was still feeling very very discouraged. I felt like crying, screaming, etc, and I did not know how to address this with the students.

I sat the students down, asked them to close their eyes and be honest. I asked them to raise their hands if they felt they put a lot of effort into the writing. No one raised a hand. When I asked if they put zero effort into it, the majority raised their hands. That actually made me feel better. Instead of getting angry with them, I decided to make them help each other. I did what I learned at the ACTFL conference this year, and I had the students form columns and write an opening line on their own. Then, they got into groups and picked things that they liked from each person's opening. Then, they got back into columns and write one tiny paragraph on their own with a focus on something they wanted to see in Puerto Rico, the definition of that place and then their personal opinion of that place. They returned to groups and had to give each person in their group feedback onto what they could add to make the paragraph better.

About a week later, I gave them the same writing assignment on their own unannounced. They did SOOOO much better. Mind you, they had practice with the prompt, but I believe that that's what this class needed. The issue wasn't so much the Spanish but rather basic writing skills. Once they knew how to set it up, they did much better. Fingers crossed that they do better on the next writing without any practice!

I also came across an issue with some of my sixth graders on a quiz in one of my classes. They recently learned how to express things that they have to do, which was very easy to teach communicatively. I realized, however, based on this quiz, that I did not give the students enough input with the "Ustedes (you all)" form of the verb. Since I do not give them paradigms, enough input is essential if I have any desire for them to acquire the language. To clarify, input basically means that they have to hear it and see it enough to be able to use it.

Quite often, I give all the students whiteboards and have them make guesses about me and other students, which ends up causing them to need to use the word "ustedes (you all)." I did not do that this much with this material because I feared that it was getting boring for them. It turns out that I was wrong. I sat the students down and asked them why that section of the quiz was so difficult, and they pretty much told me exactly what I thought. "We did not really use that very much." They also told me that they wished we had done the whiteboard activity because they said it really helps and is fun! Who knew?!

Now, we have moved on to stating what they can and cannot do. This has raised a question for me: we world language teachers often teach ar, er and ir verbs separately. If we are teaching communicatively, should we be separating language like that? I'm not so sure. If the students want to use an er verb to communicate a message, then they should be given the tools to do so. We, as teachers, should not always be saying "oh, you'll learn that next year." If our hope is for the students to be able to communicate, then we need to let them communicate what they actually want to communicate in that moment (within reason).

Trying to Make Non-communicative Topics Communicative

Hola:

As you may know if you have spoken with me or read my earlier blog posts, I have really had a tough time with the curriculum for the eighth graders at my school. There's a lot in there that does not necessarily relate to a classroom. Let me explain what I mean by that:

Something with which I have been struggling a lot is the topic that I think appears in nearly every world language classroom: the restaurant. This is tough for me because I really want my class to always be real and, unfortunately for me, my classroom is not a restaurant. I really struggled with this from the get-go this year. We were pretending that the classroom was a restaurant.  The problem I now see with that is that the students know the classroom is not a restaurant, and they start to view it as language practice; "my teacher wants us to pretend that the classroom is a restaurant so that we can learn this vocabulary/grammar." That really goes against my desire to make the language real and have as communicative of a classroom as possible.

I have been thinking about it, though, and I believe that there are ways to give the students the skills to be successful in places like a restaurant without pretending like the classroom is a restaurant. Phrases like "may I have...?" are phrases that can be used in the class without having to pretend to order something. One thing that I did this year that I liked was having the students guess each other's food preferences. That was fun because we were learning about each other, but next year, I will try to make a greater task attached to it.

I was also struggling with the sports vocabulary because it was soooo non-communicative. At the recommendation of a colleague--shoutout to Lauren Hayes--I decided to have the students start doing the best that they could to explain the rules of a sport. What I found was that, when the students tried to explain the rules, they came across vocabulary that they really wanted to use. When they came across something that they couldn't say, I told them to work around it and just jot down what they wanted to say. Toward the end, we worked as a class to communicate the messages they wanted in the target language. As we have continued to do this, I have been really impressed by the students' abilities to circumlocute and explain things using their limited language ability.

If there is one thing I have learned this year, it is the importance of staying up to date on the research in language acquisition and language teaching. Right now, my Amazon wishlist is a bunch of books about language acquisition because I just find it so fascinating! My love of learning about language acquisition has given me an even greater love of teaching. I really look forward to learning more and challenging myself, and hopefully I will soon find more teachers who understand language acquisition and proficiency to help me grow as an educator.

The Benefit of Tasks and the Textbook Trap

Hola a todos:

These recent weeks have been quite hectic, but I am back. I've learned a lot in the past few weeks, though. In my last post, I discussed the creation of tasks to help students see a purpose for the language. The more I am doing this, the more I am seeing the positive effects it is having on my students. 

Last week, a sixth grade math teacher mentioned that her students came into her class and kept saying "this class is the most popular math class out of all the kids in our Spanish class!" She wasn't exactly sure what that meant, so I explained to her that our task for that day was to figure out which math class had the most students. Since my sixth graders were working on time and many of them have different math classes, I thought it would be cool to have them discover which class had the most kids. I put up all the possible times for the math classes that day, and the kids went around and asked each student the time of their math class. In the end, we came back together and they reported which class had the most kids. I was so happy to hear that the kids left thinking "we used Spanish to learn something about our math class" instead of "I learned how to tell time in Spanish today." 

I've been thinking a lot about my objective boards. At the proficiency academy last summer, I learned about the importance of daily objectives (if you're not doing this, consider it! It really makes a difference). I also learned that each objective should always have a language function and that it should most likely be different each day. At that time, I thought "but if I work on something new each day, I'll be moving too quickly and not giving enough input." I think I get it now, though. The objective should reflect the language function and the task for the day, and the task might be what makes the objective different. What do my fellow language facilitators think about that? Am I on the right track? 

I also had a very helpful discussion with my boss today--shoutout to Dr. Jorge Allen--about feeling trapped by the textbook. This year, I have been trying very hard to let the students take control over the vocabulary that they learn. After all, if it's not vocabulary that they want and can use, why teach it? However, I was trying to do both; I was trying to let the students take control over their vocabulary and mandating the vocabulary in the book. Hence feeling trapped. I don't give vocabulary quizzes or anything, so it hasn't been horrible, but it hasn't felt right, either. 

I've also noticed how afraid my eighth graders are to speak and to use the language, but my sixth graders are trying to speak only in Spanish whenever possible. Where does this disconnect happen? I don't think it's because they're older and care less (for most of them). Perhaps they are scared to speak because they got used to explicit grammar tests and being corrected all the time. They aren't accustomed to using the language and focusing on communication. I am certainly a recovering grammarian, but I gave them the opportunity to speak without being corrected today, and I was so proud of them. And when they came across vocabulary that they wanted, THAT'S when we added new vocabulary as opposed to me mandating it.  I definitely need to give them more opportunities for interaction like this to feel comfortable speaking--not just writing. And I need to remind myself: input, input, input.

As always, please share your thoughts and ideas. 

Thanks,

Timothy

Tasks

Hola amig@s:

One thing I learned this week--thanks to Tea with BVP again--is that it is possible for something to be partially communicative. It turns out that a lot of what I had been doing in my classroom was only partially communicative. This is not bad, but it's definitely not as great as being fully communicative.

According to Bill Van Patten, in order for something to be fully communicative, there must be a task. Sometimes, I thought things like "oh, the task is to better get to know each other," but I am not convinced that my students really bought into that. They were simply asking and answering questions to complete the activity.

So, I have been trying my hardest to create realistic tasks for my students to show them that we are using the language for a purpose. With my 7th graders, I showed them a video in which people in Spain were asked "What do you want to do with your life?" Since my students just learned how to express their age, this video was awesome because they listed the age of all the people interviewed.  First, I asked the students to watch the video and just look for the people's ages. Then, we watched the video, and I asked them to try to get as much as they could out of the responses the people gave.

Then, I asked the students--in Spanish--if the question seemed difficult for the children, then for the teens and then for the adults. Most of the children in the video answered quickly with their job that they wanted. The teens had a more difficult time choosing what they wanted to do. The adults had a very difficult time. One guy called the question "complicado" and another woman said "What do I want to do with my life?.....I want to know what I want to do with my life." She couldn't answer it.

The students picked up on this very easily. We then discussed why the question was easier for the younger kids versus the adults. The conversation was awesome, and it was all in Spanish! Booyah! I then asked them to answer "is the question difficult for you?" We looked at the percent who said yes versus those who said no, and compared that to the ages of the people in the video.

With my sixth graders, they are learning about important people and places in Mexico City, so I had them go around and interview each other about the place/person that they would want to see most. The students took tallies of the responses their classmates said. I then had them report how many people wanted to see each place, and then we calculated the percentage of students who wanted to see each place. (Ex. 14% of the students want to see El Zócalo, etc.) So, essentially, the task for the students isn't practicing the phrase "I want to see" but rather finding out how many people want to see each place/person so that we can see the most popular place/person. When we develop tasks like this, the students see a real purpose for the language as opposed to "I am asking people what they want to see and then doing nothing with it because my teacher really only wants me to practice the language."

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can keep developing new tasks because I don't want it to always be the percentage! Otherwise, I worry that will start to lose its meaning too.

Timothy

IPAs

I have a huge gap in my assessments because I am lacking in interpersonal assessments (transferring information with another person or people). This is probably the most important skill when acquiring another language. After all, if you cant interact with someone, then what's the point of the language?!

In world language, we have what are called IPAs (don't get excited; there's no alcohol involved). Basically this means that you do an interpretive assignment (reading, listening), which leads to an interpersonal and then a presentational (speaking or writing but not interacting). I figured it was time for me to get my act together and start making more of these kinds of assessments, but a huge question has been raised for me, and I am hoping that my world language educators can help me out with this!

Based on feedback from students, the IPAs drive them crazy in the sense that they don't like doing the interpretive, interpersonal and then presentational back-to-back. They say it's tiring and it's just too much. Is it ridiculous to do the interpretive, teach a little, do the interpersonal, teach a bit more, and then do the presentational? I'm really not sure. I am trying it both ways. What do you think?

Although these assessments are super time consuming, I think that they are so much better than a test with a bunch of questions on it, which I used to give last year. And just giving a quiz on one concept isn't enough. As teachers, it's easy to think "I don't have time to do all these things in the classroom." However, it's so important for us to do what is best for our students, and take the time necessary to do so. Even though I have had to take a lot of time developing new stuff, I actually feel like it has made my classroom move much faster and more smoothly than last year. And, these assessments take about the same time--if not less time--to evaluate than the tests I used to give. I hope that, years from now, I am still able to reflect on my teaching and am willing to improve or replace old materials.

These assessments have also made me reflect a lot more on my teaching. When I give quizzes on one concept, the students often do very well and it looks like they are "getting it." But that is not really an accurate evaluation of a student's language acquisition. It just isn't. Unless we are giving them the opportunity to speak/write using open-ended assignments, how can we truly say that they can communicate in the target language? And how can we truly reflect on our own teaching if we aren't seeing the students use the language realistically?

Please let me know what you think about all this!

Timothy

Assessments

I have truly fallen in love with my job. I have spent so much time in the past few months trying to gather as much information as I can about language acquisition, assessments, etc. The great thing is that it doesn't feel like work. It's truly fascinating to me, and I love putting what I learn into practice.

I am very proud of the assessments that I give. I have worked very hard to make them as communicative as possible. For those of you who have taken a language, I am sure that you have seen the conjugation chart. (I dance, you dance, she dances, etc.) I have gotten rid of that on my assessments because it isn't very useful. I don't remember learning English that way. We acquire language through input--that is, interaction with the language; we do not acquire a language through explicit grammatical instruction. Teachers get frustrated that their students--after years of explicit instruction--are still not conjugating correctly. Why is that? Well, I think that there are many factors, and it depends on the student. It may have to do with that students' willingness to actively participate in the course, of course. But I think a huge part of it is that these "conjugations" have not become a part of the students' inner language. What I mean by inner language--which I got from Bill VanPatten--is what is in the students' heads and is natural to them. It is not just explicit grammatical knowledge, which is what that conjugation chart pretty much represents.  With explicit grammar instruction, students start to learn about the language as opposed to acquiring it. That's not really the point of a class unless you're teaching a linguistics course, which most of us are not.

So, back to my assessments. When I assess the students, even when I am giving a short quiz, I make it as communicative as possible. They have to answer questions about themselves, their classmates, me, etc. Why would I have them do a conjugation chart when I can see what they can do with the language by actually using it?

However, these quizzes are usually on one concept. That is SO unrealistic with language because none of us wake up in the morning and think "oh, I am only going to have to state what I have to do today." So, I always give the students an assessment that requires them to use multiple aspects of the language in a real way. This is where errors come in. Obviously, a quiz on one concept is much easier than a speaking assessment that requires them to use a lot of what they have (hopefully) acquired. However, I love these assessments because it really gives me a true understanding of what the students can communicate.

The truth of the matter is that I think we all--myself included--expect our students to do more with the language than their language proficiency really allows. If we are expecting first-year students to use a complete sentence accurately on everything, then we are expecting too much. And I am not saying that we should stop giving them tasks that require full sentences, but I am saying that we should adjust our expectations and assess their ability to communicate--not their ability to use full sentences.

I gave my sixth graders a writing assignment a few days ago, and it was amazing to see how willing they were to take risks. They were trying to form questions (many did it successfully!) and communicate using the little exposure they have had to the language. When I graded this, if they wrote something like "my family and I from Massachusetts," obviously they missed a verb, but I understood what they said, and I emphasized the importance of that. When I gave feedback, I did not criticize them for grammatical mistakes (because THAT is why students stop being willing to take risks in the language). Instead, I praised them for making their writing comprehensible, and I gave them tools to improve by suggesting phrases like "I am very funny" as opposed to just "I am funny." When there was something I could not understand, I underlined it, and I just said "I had trouble understanding this sentence. Could you clarify for me?" I don't want students to have the expectation that they speak perfectly because they will start to be afraid to speak the language, and that is what I believe teaching for accuracy does.

That's all fine and dandy. However, my problem this year has been with my quizzes. I was giving them these quizzes and giving them half a point for communication and half a point for accuracy. Okay, but then I'm contradicting myself. On my big assessments, I tell them to focus on communication, but then on these quizzes I grade partly for accuracy? That's stupid. I talked to my boss about it, and he put it in perspective when he said this: "you have to ask yourself what you are assessing. Are you assessing their ability to use the proper conjugations or are you assessing their ability to communicate?" That did it for me. I cannot be doing both if I want them to feel comfortable using the language. At the proficiency academy, I learned that a goal must contain a language function. My goal for the students should not and will not be "I can conjugate verbs." So, if my goal is "I can express such and such a thing," then shouldn't that also be my goal for the assessments I give? The answer is yes. No more grading for accuracy in my classroom. If they have had the right amount of input, and I don't force them into output before they are ready, they will communicate successfully. That is the sole purpose for language.

Communication Versus Accuracy

Hello, everyone!

We just got back from Costa Rica (which was an absolutely incredible experience), and one thing I took away from that is the true value of teaching for communication as opposed to teaching for grammatical perfection. Our students made many mistakes when they were speaking Spanish on the trip, but they made themselves understood. Isn't that the whole purpose of language? 

I've been listening to the podcast Tea with BVP--Tea with Bill Van Patten--and one thing that he has pointed out is that explicit grammar instruction is not what the students remember. They remember the language that they have TRULY used and acquired. When they are speaking, they don't think "oh, I just used the conditional tense, so now I have to use the imperfect subjunctive after my 'if clause.'" I think that that is so true. Our students use what has been real for them. He has also said that sometimes explicit grammar instruction can even hinder the students' language acquisition. I'm only six episodes in, but I am sure he will give me a lot more to talk about soon. 

The grammarian in me has a tough time with this, but it makes sense. If we are constantly correcting our students mid-sentence or expecting them to speak perfectly and remember every single detail of what we have taught them, then we won't be developing speakers of the language. Students are afraid to speak and take risks because they are afraid to make mistakes. Why are they afraid to make mistakes? Well, I have to say that I think it is because teachers focus on the grammar and not on the communication. Why are teachers giving quizzes on using the correct form of "the" (el, la, los, or las)? It just doesn't make sense to me. 

Last year, I remember marking students off when they would say "¿Ustedes salen de la escuela a las 2:05? Are you guys leaving school at 2:05?" instead of "¿Salen ustedes de la escuela..." I marked them off because they didn't put the subject after the verb when forming a question. Even native speakers say the first option, and the communicative goal WAS met. Another example: teachers--my former self included--grow so obsessed with teaching time the way it is in the textbook. We make them say "8 minus twenty" instead of "seven forty." I, personally, have never heard a native speaker use this (not saying that some don't), and if they say "seven forty," it's not wrong and it is MORE COMMON. Why do we do this to them? So sorry to my students from last year! 

I find myself struggling at times with certain things that are in the curriculum. I am finishing up talking about chores in preparation for a party with my 8th graders, but the students even keep saying "I don't do any of these things." It has been so hard to relate it to their lives. We have basically made a joke out of it by trying to guess who does what chore. It was successful, but I don't feel that there was much meaning behind it. One thing that I have found, though, is that many of the mistakes that I saw last year when I was a bit more traditional haven't happened this year. I have focused a lot on providing enough input before I ask the students to produce the language. I think this has caused their minds to just know what sounds right and what sounds wrong, and they have just naturally begun to produce the language based on what they've heard. 

I have so much more I want to say and discuss, so please comment! I just don't want the post to be too long. 

See ya next time, amigos. 

Timothy

Burning Out

Hola amigxs:

Something with which I have struggled is separating my life from my job. This week, I have been so devoted to getting everything graded to give back to the students the next day that I forgot to sleep. All week, I've been telling myself that turning down plans with friends and working on all this feedback (of which I am proud--don't get me wrong) meant I was devoted. Obviously, that is true, but it is very hard to be fully present in the classroom without enough sleep. For the first time in my life, I have been relying on coffee. Yikes.

I think that this is something people don't always realize about teachers. We go home and have to still do work. Most people get to leave work and be done with work until the next day (not saying that other jobs are not stressful!). We have to assess, plan, worry about students, etc. If I'm not careful, I work from 7 AM until 9 PM. That was my problem this week. I really do believe in getting the students back their work with really valuable feedback the next day. Otherwise, the feedback isn't as meaningful. However, sometimes I need to remind myself that it's okay to take two days if I need. I think I will struggle with this for the rest of my career, honestly.

In great news: my seventh graders have been working with Puerto Rico, and I am loving what they are doing. The curriculum calls for teaching "ir" and "er" verbs at this point. I was struggling with that. How do I make it so that the students don't feel like they are learning and practicing a grammatical concept? How do I make this communicative? Well, I did this through Puerto Rico. They are making connections between animals, places, people, etc. in Puerto Rico, and they are using "er" and "ir" verbs while barely even realizing it.

I'd like to give one example: the students have learned some things about the Taínos--the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. At first, they were talking about the Taínos in the third person plural form (The Taínos are...they write using...). Then, I had them imagine that they were the indigenous people, so they were using the first person (we are...we write using...I am...etc.).

Their assessment on this is going to be a speaking assignment. I am giving them the pictures of the many things we've discussed with regard to Puerto Rico, and they have to explain some of them.  Our goal is that they will make connections between the items/people/places. Instead of simply defining each person/place/animal, they will also discuss how they are related. Some of the students have already built some connections that I hadn't even expected. I am really excited to listen to the final results next week. This is something I got from Ronie Webster; she did this when I was her student with "La comida mexicana," and I remember how powerful I felt after. It's nice to be able to connect ideas as opposed to just spitting out facts.

Thanks for reading! <3

Timothy

Do we reward extroversion?

Hola a todos:

Last Thursday, I gave the students in my flex class (basically a class that does not have to be related to Spanish) a test to see if they were more introverted or more extroverted. Along with this, I gave them an assignment in which they had to reflect on their results and state how it impacts them in school and in their social lives. This raised a question for me: do we, as teachers, reward extroversion?

One student wrote that he/she feels that his/her intelligence is overlooked because she/he is an introvert; he/she referenced participation points, stating something along the lines of: I know all the material, I get 90s-100s on quizzes, but my grade is lowered because I am shy and do not feel comfortable talking in front of the whole class.

I think this goes the other way around too. Are our participation points only rewarding extroverts? Are our participation points inflating students' grades and making them think that they have skills that they do not? I'm not sure what the answer is. I have been considering eliminating participation points from my gradebook--mostly because the students are constantly interacting with each other. It's almost impossible for students to not be participating because I am not calling on one person at a time. They're walking around talking to each other, etc.

Another student wrote about group projects. It was an interesting perspective. I do not give group projects, so it was hard for me to reflect on my own practice through this student's writing, but the student pointed out that he/she would like to be responsible for her/his own grade as opposed to someone else (another student) having an impact on that grade. There's so much to consider!


Another great discussion this week was with regard to growth. I gave my students back a reading assignment on which they received a percentage grade and an evaluation of their proficiency level (Novice High, Novice Mid, etc.) I talked to the students about growth because I wanted them to understand that a lower percentage does not mean lack of growth. I gave them this scenario:

If you received an 88 on this assignment, and then, at the end of the year, you receive an 85 on another reading assignment, did you improve? They all said no. Then, I pointed out that the reading assignment at the end of the year would be harder with a different proficiency target. Therefore, they DID improve. They may have been evaluated at a Novice High 2 on this assignment and then at a Novice High 3 on the next one. Although the percentage may have gone down, the proficiency evaluation went up! My hope is to get them to care more about growth and less about percentage. So, we are keeping portfolios in which they are tracking their own path to proficiency.

I am really curious to hear what people think about all this! I know it's a lot, and my mind is racing with thoughts!

Timothy

Who likes it?

This week has been such a positive one (but also the longest week in the world). My seventh graders had me jumping for joy. Not one of them got below a B on their assessment on their and others' likes and dislikes.

This is how we did it: Once I felt that they were ready to start producing the language, we took food items, and they answered questions about their own likes and dislikes. I would mention a food item, and they would write whether they liked it or disliked it. This didn't take long.

Soon, I had them going around and asking others what they liked. We did this by having them play human BINGO. They had to go around asking and answering questions of each other. If they found someone who liked the item, they could cross it off and write that person's name. When they got BINGO, I gave them group points. It was so fun, and we continued to do activities similar to that.

Then, I wanted them to start talking about others, so I gave them all mini white boards. At first, I would have one student come to the front, and I would mention a food item. The students sitting had to guess if the student standing liked it or disliked it. They would show their boards, and then the student standing would reveal the correct answer. Eventually, this game progressed, and I would have the students guess if both the students standing liked or disliked the food item, and the students standing would reveal it by saying "yes, we like..." or "no, we don't like..."

For the assessment, we did the same thing. I gave them pictures of food items and, in some parts, they had to talk about themselves. In others, they had to pick a group of students and guess whether they liked the item or not. In one part, they talked about their best friend's likes and dislikes. Etcetera.

 The results were phenomenal! It is amazing how the students can pick up on grammatical concepts without even realizing it! I told myself that I wouldn't be too picky with the grading; I have to remind myself that communicating is the most important aspect of a language. If the students wrote "Me gustan bananas" instead of "me gustan las bananas," they would still be understood--thus communicating the message. However, I didn't even have to worry about it because these errors were VERY FEW and far between! And zero students made this mistake throughout; they just made it on maybe one or two questions (probably from writing too quickly). I am gleaming. <3

Introduction

Hello, everyone!

My name is Timothy Chávez, and I am a second-year Spanish teacher. I taught high school last year and recently switched to middle school. The switch has been amazing for me; my students are always coming into class with smiles on their faces and with excitement for the material.  I remember that, my first week, I kept leaving work thinking "if everyone were as happy as middle school students, the world would be a better place."

Let me start out by explaining the purpose of this blog. I have been working very hard to move toward proficiency in my classroom this year, and I just felt that I needed an outlet for expressing myself and reflecting on my work.  Yes, I think it would be incredible for people to read this--especially people who are willing to give feedback--but I need to do this for myself above anything else.

Two summers ago, I attended the Novice level Proficiency Academy through the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA) thanks to an incredible colleague and former teacher who taught me so much of what I know. Shoutout to Ronie Webster--you still inspire me every day. This was the beginning of my love for proficiency, but it was so out of the box from what I knew.  For those of you who don't know--and I am putting this in the simplest of terms because proficiency is complicated--proficiency, to me, means giving the students a purpose for the language. Essentially, we, as foreign language teachers, should be teaching our students that conveying a message is the most important aspect of learning another language. Basically, can I and others understand what you are trying to say? I tell my students now that, though it would be great, we are not striving for grammatical perfection. We are striving to communicate. Grammar is a tool to help us communicate, but it is not the sole purpose of learning a language.

We've all seen it....the conjugation charts. Some of us probably even loved them because we are lovers of grammar! But how to we get our students who DON'T love grammar to love a foreign language? Well, the truth of the matter is that we need to stop giving grammar quizzes and fill-in-the-blank quizzes with the correct article (el, la, los, las). Instead, we need to give assessments with real-life scenarios that still require our students to use what they have acquired but allow them some freedom.

I remember being given quizzes on which I had to state what Paco likes and dislikes. But who the heck was Paco?! I was being given a quiz to test my ability to say "he likes..." and I knew it. The grammar was the important thing--not the message. Instead, why don't we ask the students to make guesses about others in the class? REAL PEOPLE. Or have them think of a friend and guess if that friend likes or dislikes something. It's the same concept but application to their real lives.

I know this is getting a bit long, so I will end with this: I am so excited about what I have learned and discovered about teaching Spanish through proficiency, and I am hungry to learn more! I truly welcome any comments, questions, feedback, etc. .