Social Justice, Global Warming, and Human Impact in the Classroom

Hello, world:

A lot of amazing stuff has happened to me since my last post! I have been thinking a lot about social justice in the classroom ever since I developed that unit on heteronormativity in quinceañeras.

So, I attended Cassandra Glynn and Beth Wassell's workshop on teaching culture through the lens of social justice at this years MaFLA conference. If you have not read their book, Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice, it's a MUST buy. I am in the middle of reading it right now, and it's so unbelievably helpful!!
I also attended a session on the UN's Global Goals, and that really supplemented what I learned from Cassandra and Beth. There are social justice standards that are just a non-negotiable at this point. We have to be teaching this stuff because it's a necessity for the safety of our students, planet, etc.

This can be done with novice learners! 

I had to put this in bold and underline it because it was a huge misconception that I had in my mind before. I was always under the impression that when we talked about the 3 Ps (Products, Practices, and Perspectives), that the "perspectives" part were more for upper-level students. I was so wrong. Perspectives need to be in every unit that we teach.

This summer, I did a training at Middlebury, and a professor said that the 3 Ps were antiquated because they don't teach students how to really interact with people from other countries. However, what I think was missing in this discussion was the social justice aspect of culture. These DO help students learn to criticize, admire, and interact with their culture and the culture of others.

My units:

I had a lot of thematic units designed that touched on some of the topics from the UN's Global Goals, but I was not going deep enough. What I realized was that all of my units contained content knowledge/factual information and tools for personal reflection, but what I was missing were the tools for critical analysis and the tools for action and social change. I was not having my students come up with/learn about any solutions to the problems that we were discussing. What a missed opportunity for social change!

I started new digital portfolios with my students *this will have to be a post of its own someday*. However, in part of the portfolio, students have to write things that they are passionate about. This was the suggestion of my department head, Jorge Allen, because many students in Andover have to do this for their capstone projects. My students are not doing their own capstones per se, but I figured I could start to develop units around their passions while incorporating a social justice lens.

MY STUDENTS' ANSWERS HAVE BEEN OFF THE HOOK! I thought they were going to write things like "I like videogames," which would've been totally acceptable, but they went so much deeper (even if they did say their passion was videogames). They were giving reasons why, adding statistics, thinking about others, etc. My heart was soaring!

The first one that stood out to me was from a 7th grader. He wrote that he was passionate about the environment but added that he is specifically passionate about tree conservation. He pointed out that our society is trying to move away from plastic straws by using paper straws...buuuuuut...we have to cut down trees to make those paper straws. *MIND BLOWN* Sometimes we think we are being environmentally friendly without thinking of other possible consequences of our actions.

BUT IS THAT NOT PERFECT FOR A SOCIAL JUSTICE UNIT?!?!

I sat down with two incredible science teachers at my school, Catie and Kayley, and they helped me begin the process of writing TWO units based off of this student's interest in trees. I had already had a unit on Puerto Rico and a particular bird in danger of extinction, so we zeroed in on that and made it a unit on human impact!

The other unit that we began to develop is a unit on global warming for 6th grade. The wonderful French teacher at my school and I were talking last week about how we hate teaching the "weather" unit. It just doesn't seem to move students up much in proficiency, and it's just not fun. So, I talked with her and another Spanish teacher at my school (the third Spanish teacher is away and we miss her!), and we are going to work on developing this unit on global warming together to add some value to our weather unit.

These two units really incorporate social justice in my opinion and cultural perspectives because they say a lot about human values. We often value our own needs over the needs of our planet or over the needs of others around us, but these problems can be solved.

The solutions! I cannot stress how important it is to not only discuss social justice issues, but to also discuss solutions with the students. When we discuss greenhouse gases, we will talk about solutions like eating less meat to produce less methane, etc. When we talk about human impact, we will talk about light pollution, the use of fossil fuels, pollution, etc., but then we will also discuss the solutions. I already bought my first silicone and metal straws in preparation for discussing the solution to plastic/paper straws brilliantly brought up by my student.

Also in the works is going to be a unit on animal cruelty; A LOT of students wrote about cruelty free products, pounds that kill dogs after 14 days of not finding a home, etc. But one step at a time, Timothy! 😉🤣

Conclusion: 

These units are making me (and hopefully my students) a better person, and I am learning a lot in my research as I develop each unit. It feels so good to be excited about teaching a new unit! Thematic units are a lot of work and require a lot of research and time, but I really love the idea of not teaching the same old stuff year after year. As the world changes, my curricula will continue to change with it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I'm a happy camper!

Timothy

What I did when students didn't feel comfortable in my room!

Hola hola hola:

Teaching is hard. Last week was one of the roughest weeks in my career as a teacher aside from my first year. There were so many emotions in our building from staff and students, and it was just so hard to not get discouraged.

I had one class in particular that was giving me a hard time—not because they were bad but because I could NOT get them to answer any of my questions.

They did the work that I asked them to do; they were very very compliant. But I don't want compliant learners. I am not okay with that in my classroom. I want my students to always go above and beyond.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING?
Well, as I said, they were not answering my questions. Some might think, "Oh, perhaps they are not understanding the Spanish." NOPE. They were not answering my questions in English most of the time either! I tried to convince myself that they are all just shy kids, but I have had plenty of shy kids in the past, so I didn't have myself convinced.

THE REALITY: 

I talked to an amazing teacher, Toni Ciaccia, at my school, and she told me the honest truth. She said, "well, when kids aren't answering my questions, it usually means that they don't feel safe to answer the questions." This hit me like a BOMB! Not because I couldn't believe it, but because I realized in that moment that Toni was right; I had not created a safe enough environment for this class.

WHAT I DID NEXT:

You all know me, and I love research-based practices, so I did some research on creating a safe environment. A lot of the stuff I had already been doing: lots of brain breaks, lots of games, etc. 

So what WASN'T I doing? Well, I wasn't being patient enough; when they weren't answering my questions, I was getting visibly annoyed that they weren't answering me, and that (obviously) just was making matters worse. 

I came up with some strategies that have worked wonders for me so far. First and foremost, I wanted to give the students a voice. I always tell them on the first day of school that I want them to call me out if I am being unreasonable, but 6th graders are just not comfortable doing that. 

So, I gave the students a survey that included a few questions: 

1. Do you feel nervous to speak Spanish in class?
2. Is there someone in class who makes you feel nervous to participate? 
3. Do you feel unsafe answering questions because you don't know your classmates well enough?
4. Do I make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable? 
5. What can I do to make you feel more comfortable? 
6. Is there something I could be better at? 
7. Is there something else that you want me to know?

These questions helped so much because the feedback was way more positive than I thought it would be, but it showed the students that I am willing to admit my imperfections and address problems head on. 

THE SIGNALS: 

Two students said in the survey that they felt like I was a little impatient with them (which is something I told them that I was working on), so I created a signal for them when they feel like I am impatient and one for when they do not understand.

When the students do not understand something I say, I asked them to wiggle their fingers on their shoulders. I NEED them to do this because it's impossible to acquire a language if they cannot focus on the meaning, so this is my way of getting them to express to me that they do not understand. But here's the important aspect: I asked every student in the class to wiggle their fingers on their shoulders any time they see someone else doing it. This way, the whole class is doing it, so no one really knows who started it. It's just a signal for me to know that someone in the class needs more guidance. 

I also created a signal for when they think I am being unreasonable (they stomp their feet). This is a way for me to check myself, but I am hoping that they never have to use this signal! I think that this is important because I do think that it's necessary for students to learn that it's okay to question authority when appropriate. I am not a dictator, and I am not right all the time, so I need them to feel comfortable expressing their concerns to me. 

TURN AND TALKS: 

This is basically teaching 101, but I needed a reminder of its power. In my classes—especially the class that wasn't answering my questions—I am trying to give them more opportunities to turn and talk to a classmate about their answers before calling on students. This way, they get a little more practice and reassurance before having to speak in front of other students.

SEAT CHANGES: 

Since this class was struggling with energy, I decided to give them new seats. I told them that I wasn't doing it because I thought they deserved it, but rather because they NEEDED it. I was honest and said that I am looking for waaaaaay more energy from them, and this change also made a HUGE difference!

I am really happy so far with how things worked out; I hope it just gets better and better throughout the year.

Timothy

Updates, Thematic Units, and my Beliefs.

Hola hola:

I hope that all the teachers out there have had a great start to the year and that everyone else who is working is still having a great year.

It's so good to be back at work but also super exhausting. This year, we extended the school day by fifteen minutes, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I am totally feeling it. We used to be allowed to leave at 2:35, and now we aren't supposed to leave until 2:50. However, we rarely leave right on time, so I am finding that I am not getting home until after 4:15 or so, which means that I have a 10-hour work day. Yikes.

Normally, I like to have these blog posts be a bit more organized, but I have a lot of things that I want to say, so I think that I am just going to let my fingers do the talking.

This year, I have been working really hard (thanks to some really great friends and a really amazing boyfriend) on trying to fight for/ask for what I want more often. I often get too shy or too worried about bothering someone else, that I won't make even a simple request like asking the Dunkin' Donuts worker to add more sugar to my coffee.

I think that this is true for teachers too. It's not necessarily that we are afraid to ask for what we want, but simply that we don't do it. We complain SO MUCH but rarely actually do things about it. This got me thinking: what is the thing that I complain about most at my job? Once I thought of it, I thought of a solution. This was a solution that I was saying I wanted for a while, but I never asked for it. So, I AM GOING FOR IT! I am really proud of myself--whether the request is honored or not.

That's my advice to teachers and everyone else: instead of walking around the halls with bitter, angry faces on, do something about it! If your problems are not solved, then make a decision.  Every problem has a solution.


My wonderful students: 

As always, I have a great group of students this year who are eager to learn and laugh at my stupid antics! I kind of like being a weirdo in class.

Sadly, I did not get a lot of my students from last year back this year, which was a major bummer--especially when I had students for two years and now don't have them their last year in middle school.  However, as I look at the students that I did get back, I am SOOOO proud of them and their Spanish. I gave each class an open-ended assignment in 7th and 8th grade just to see what they can do with the language, and they remembered so much more than I expected.

As many of you may know, last year, I rewrote the curriculum to reflect a curriculum that I want to teach while still making sure that I still expose my students to the same grammar as everyone else in my district. I am so unbelievably happy that I did that because my students are writing more than ever in such brilliant Spanish; they truly are constantly exceeding the proficiency goal for the course, and I could not be happier. I LOVE THEMATIC UNITS.


Thematic Units and Myths About Communicative Language Teaching: 

The reason why I love thematic units is because my students are learning about something IN Spanish instead of just learning Spanish. This way, I can always help them focus on the MEANING of words instead of just doing grammar exercises. I can see how effective this was in my students this year, and I cannot wait to watch them continue to move up in proficiency.

Now, it seems that people are constantly under the impression that communicative language teachers do not teach grammar. This is simply not true. In order to give the students communicatively embedded input, we have to be using grammar. It just means that we don't explicitly teach grammar. In other words, the meaning is the most important thing. They could fill out a grammar chart with a verb they do not know, but if they do not know what it means, it's impossible to acquire language! That's what communicative language teaching avoids: students not needing to know what something means. They need to truly listen to understand, which is a beautiful thing.

In my class, I always tell my students that communication is the most important thing; that means that if I understand you, then you have met your communicative goal. This, however, does NOT mean that their Spanish will not get better and their accuracy will not improve. Of course it does because the more courses they take and the more MEANING that they pay attention to and express, the more they will acquire. My students cannot always give a grammatical explanation for something, but they very often can USE that structure--just like native speakers. How many of you who are not language teachers can give me an example of the pluperfect tense? I bet very few, and that is OKAY! Too often we focus on students' output and think "if I don't correct this, they won't get better," but they WILL! They will get it through more and more input.

My department head said something that really resonated with me the other day. If our hope is for our students to be as native-like as possible, then why are we beating them up for missing accent marks and misspellings when native speakers make those same mistakes??? I had never thought of it that way. Of course I want my students to use accent marks correctly (which they will acquire through reading--not from a spelling test), but in the grand scheme of the universe, how important is it?

Okay, but many people say to me: "Timothy, you love grammar, and you always want to know the grammar rules." This is wicked true. I do. I love syntax and morphology. So, if you have a Timothy in your class (I rarely do) who wants to know the grammar rule, obviously explain it! Our minds sometimes find grammar to be fascinating, but that doesn't mean that those grammar rules wind up in our heads. It just means we know a grammar rule.

Greg Duncan explained to me recently that he does believe that those Timothys can get their grammar explanations quickly along with their communicative input. It doesn't take long. He also said that you can have grammar walls for those kids to look at and the non-Timothys in the class can just never look at them and get all of their input communicatively.

However, I do believe that if there is no exchange of information--no need to TRULY listen or truly read the meaning--then there is little to no acquisition. If somebody asks me to conjugate the verb "mancar," I can totally do it:

Yo manco	Nosotros mancamos
Tú mancas	Vosotros mancáis
Él/ella/usted manca	Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes mancan

But if I do not know what that means, how can I use it? How can I acquire something without a context?

Anyway, I am really proud of the work that my students and I did last year, and I am looking forward to getting even better. All I ever want to say about my job is that I am proud of the work I do, and I really am. I'm so lucky to love what I do.

Thanks for reading,

Timothy

Discussing Heteronormativity in the Classroom

Hola hola hola:

A huge push in my district (and many other districts) is to develop lessons that incorporate social emotional learning (SEL) to help students of all types with their social and emotional growth. There is so much that goes into this--using students' names, greeting students at the door, etc. However, it's more than just interactions with students; we want to start incorporating it into our everyday lessons. This might mean using more brain breaks, doing mindfulness activities before an assessment, etc.

Given that I am a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have always wanted to make it a point to ensure that students in this community with me feel safe in my classroom/school. We have rainbow flags in our classrooms, etc. However, I hadn't really incorporated it into the curriculum yet.

The closest I used to get to talking about this in my classroom was when I would tell them things about my boyfriend. I try to normalize LGBTQ+ relationships as much as possible so that, even if it's not in the curriculum, it is present in my classroom. Since I believe in communicative language teaching, this does mean that I talk about myself with my students, so it does come up, but not as often as I would like.

HETERONORMATIVITY:

Heteronormativity is basically anything that promotes heterosexual relationships as being "the norm." At our last department meeting, my department head, Dr. Jorge Allen, had us all look at the United Nations website, and I came across the section about gender equality. It got me thinking, "if this is a goal for our department, how can I incorporate this in my classroom?" 

A few days later, IT HIT ME! 

Every year, I have to teach the "party unit." This unit drives me bonkers because it talks a lot about chores and planning for a party, which my students rarely do. Last year, I wanted to make this unit more thematic, so I decided to teach them about the quinceañera. For those of you who don't know, it's basically like a Sweet 16/Bat Mitzvah but at the age of 15. There are some really cool traditions in the quinceañera, so we would talk about those traditions and then move on. This year, however, I did the same thing, but I am now working on discussing how heteronormative quinceañeras can be. 

Here are some of the traditions (depending on the country/family):

1. The girl wears an elegant dress

2. There is a court of honor comprised of 15 pairs/couples - 15 "chambelanes" and 15 "damas"

3. They cut the cake

4. The girl changes from flats to high heels to represent becoming a woman

5. The father daughter dance (usually a waltz)

6. The grand entrance

7. The last doll (sometimes, she gives away her favorite doll. In other countries, she receives her very last doll. In other countries, this tradition doesn't exist).
etc. etc.

This got me thinking about a lot of WHAT IFs.

1. What if the girl is a lesbian? 
2. What if the girl doesn't have a dad? 
3. What if the girl doesn't want to wear high heels? Not all women wear high heels...
4. What if the girl doesn't feel comfortable wearing a dress? 
5. What if she never played with dolls? 
6. Why does the court have to be made up of fifteen boys and fifteen girls? 
7. What if they prefer gender neutral pronouns? 
8. etc. 

Now, I have to stress to my students and to you that all of these traditions are absolutely okay...IF they work for the person turning 15. However, what if these traditions do not work? Can we question these traditions? 

This year, I want my students to question these "what if" scenarios and offer other possible options. Last week, we got into the discussion of traditions. Should these traditions always apply because they are traditions? Some students said yes because otherwise traditions would never exist. I pushed back a bit and said that traditions can change without disappearing. For example, if the girl turning 15 has two mothers, she can dance with her mothers instead of a father. The tradition of having a dance doesn't disappear, it just changed a bit. The students seemed receptive to that idea. 

TPRS: 

As many of you know if you read my last blog post, I am working on thematic units and having my first few experiences with storytelling in my classroom. I watch this show called "One Day at a Time" on Netflix, and there is an episode in the first season called "Quinces." It's about a Cuban-American family, and the daughter recently comes out of the closet and is about to have her quinceañera. I decided to use this episode as the basis for the story I was going to tell. I am telling the students the story about Elena and how she struggled with some of the traditions of a quinceañera. She ends up wearing a stunning, white suit, and her father isn't okay with her being gay, so she dances with her mother, grandmother, brother, and some family friends. It's beautiful. 

The idea here is not to say that these traditions are bad, but rather to offer the possibility of other options for people who do not feel comfortable with them. I want them to recognize the possible negative effects of heteronormativity and start to understand the struggles of those of us in the LGBTQ+ community. So far, the students have been so receptive. 

Conclusion: 

As teachers, when discussing matters like this, we have to be mindful that these conversations can be difficult for some people. I made my principal and other building administrators aware of this unit before I began it and got the okay from them. The conversations can be uncomfortable, but they are so important. 

After discussing this unit with a friend of mine, she shared this New York Times article with me about "stretching the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony to accommodate gender fluidity." It's a really great read!

Thanks for reading!

Timothy

My First Experience With Storytelling

Hola hola hola:

I know that it's been a while since I wrote a blog post. This time of year is crazy for all of us, but I am feeling especially overwhelmed this year as I balance all the musicals that I'm doing, my Saturday teaching job, and my regular teaching job. 

I have heard so much in the past about the power of Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS), but I never really knew how to implement it. All the books I had read on TPRS seemed to require too much translation, which I'm not a huge fan of in my classroom. 

HOWEVER, I finally tried it, and I am sooooo happy that I did. I have to give a huge shoutout to Kara Jacobs because her resource was the one that really gave me the courage to start it. I used her story and just made some adjustments to make it my own, etc. 

As you may know, I have been working on thematic units this year, so I wanted to turn the "descriptions" unit into a unit on self-esteem and stereotypes instead of just teaching them to describe things and moving on. I used Kara Jacobs's resource on the music video "Soy yo" by Bomba Estéreo as the starting point for my unit. For those of you who haven't seen it, take a look at it. You do not need to speak Spanish to understand the message behind it. 

So, basically I told the students the story of the girl in the video before actually showing them the video. I pre-taught the essential vocabulary, and then we went right into it. I HIGHLY recommend using Pear Deck for this. It makes the presentation way more interactive and fun for the students when telling the story. 

So, I spent a few weeks working with them on this story and identifying stereotypes, retelling the story, etc. There was soooo much vocabulary and grammar in this unit that I thought I was never going to finish it. However, we did, and the results made me so happy. 

The Final Assessment:

I always end my units with a performance assessment--either a speaking or a writing assignment. This one was a writing assignment. The scenario was that my friend in Mexico has a little sister who's being made fun of for her weight at school, and the students had to write to her and tell her all about the girl in the video and remind her that she is beautiful just the way she is. 

This assessment was done a few days ago with my 6th graders. I haven't gotten through all of them, but I have been shocked and surprised by all of the ones that I have read so far. 

This is their first year studying Spanish, and I went back into one of my student's portfolios who had me in 6th grade two years ago and found a writing assignment that I did at this exact point in the year. This student's writing was really great and s/he included a lot of questions, which is something I need to remember to add to my prompt for the Soy yo writing next time. However, there is still a HUGE difference in the amount of writing included. 

March 7th, 2017 -- one of my top students wrote this: 

"Hola Ricardo! Me llamo _____. Mi familia y yo somos de Estados Unidos. Soy rubia. Soy doce años, ¿y tú? Me gusta dibujar y jugar al lacrosse. ¿Tú eres atlético? Me gusta matematica pero no me gusta escribir. Mi mejor amiga se llama _____. Ella es simpática. A _____ le gusta jugar al fútbol y esquiar. Nosotros somos altas. ¿Te gusta jugar al fútbol? Hace frío afuera. ¿Qué tiempo hace en Puerto Rico? ¿Te gusta nadar? 

Hasta luego!"

March 12th, 2019 -- my current students wrote this: 

“Querida Laura:

Hola. Mi nombre es ____. Soy de Massachusetts, USA. Soy flaco, alto, castaño, y muy extraño. Tengo pelo largo. Me gusta jugar a los videojuegos y mirar la televisión. No me gusta practicar deportes ni tomar exámines.

    Yo odio estereotipos. Gordo no es feo, flaco no es linda.

    En una video, hay una chica en una peluquería. (El nombre de el video es “Soy yo.”) A ella le encanta su nuevo pelo. La chica sale de la peluquería y dice, “Soy yo! Hasta luego.”

    Ella monta en bici por la ciudad. La bicicleta de la chica es muy especial y bonita. La chica ve a dos chicas. A ellas no les gusta la bici ni la chica. La chica toca la flauta. A ellas no les gusta la música de la chica. La chica dice, “Soy yo.” Las dos chicas salen de la esquina.

    La chica ve a unos chicos juegan al básquetbol. A ella le gusta básquetbol. Ella entra la cancha de básquetbol y roba la bola. La chica no juega bien. Ellos no aprueban. La chica dice, “Soy yo. Hasta luego, chicos.” Ella sale de la cancha de básquetbol.

    Ella baila por la ciudad y ve a unos chicos que bailan muy bien. A la chica le gusta bailar y mira ellos. Ellos dejan de bailar y mira la chica. Ella baila, pero ellos no aprueban. La chica dice, “Soy yo.”

    La chica ve a su papá y corre a él.

    No te preocupes si no aprueban. Cuando te critican, tu solo di, “Soy yo.”

De,”

" Querida Laura, 

Hola Laura. Me llamo ____. Yo soy feliz, moreno, y paciente. Me gusta nadar y dormir. En la classe de espan'ol, yo mira un “ Soy yo” video. En el video, hay una chica. La chica es en la peluqueria. La chica es muy bueno. Ella le gusta su nuevo pelo. La chica sale de peluqueria y dice “ Soy yo.” Entonces, la chica monta en bicicleta por la ciudad. La bicicleta es bonita y especial. Cuando la chica monta en bicicleta, ella ve a dos chicas. La dos chicas no les gusta bicicleta de la chica. La chica basta montar en bicicleta y toca la flauta. Las dos chicas no les gusta la musica de la chica. Asi que, la dos chicas salen de la esquina. La chica camina por la ciudad cuando la chica ve a chicos ellos juegan al basquetbol. Ella entra la cancha de basquetbol y roba la bola de ellos. La chica no es atletica. Cuando la chicos critican la chica porque ella no es atletica, la chica dice “ Soy yo.” La chica camina por la ciudad cuando ella ve ellos bailan. Ella baila y ellos bastan. Ellos ven la chica baila. La chicos no es importa de baila de la chica. Cuando ellos critican, ella dice “ Soy yo”. Entonces, la chica corre cuando ve su padre. Ella es muy feliz. Un verso en la video es, “ Que no te preocupes, si no aprueban. Cuando te critican, tu solo di. Soy yo.” Un verso dice differente es bien. Estererotipos son generalizaciones sobre de grupo de personas. Totales estereotipos es falsos. Un ejemplo es “gorda es fea.” Gorda no es fea. Totales estereotipos es falso. 

Sinceramente,..."

Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can tell that this is a lot more in depth. This is the same grade from the same time of year, and I attribute this improvement to four things: I didn't start this year off with the alphabet, dates, etc.; I used this story (TPRS); The students AND I strive for 90% target language use in the class; and I have been developing thematic units. 

Conclusions:

Every year, we should get better at something, and it's hard for me to not feel like I failed in the past. That student who had me two years ago was certainly capable of writing what my student this year wrote, but I wasn't at the level of teaching to help get her/him there. I sometimes feel like I failed my former students -- especially my first year when I taught grammar super explicitly. However, it's a learning process just like the path to proficiency. Every year, we improve (hopefully). This is a constant reminder for me of the importance of trying new things! I do not want to be one of those teachers who does the same old things every year. A new curriculum can be frustrating with a lot of work, but the results are worth it. As my department head, Dr. Jorge Allen, reminded us recently as we begin moving toward thematic units: we have to be willing to fail. It's hard to learn if we aren't taking risks. We tell our students that all the time, but are we doing it ourselves? 

Thanks for reading! 

Timothy

The Importance of Getting Feedback FROM Students

Hola hola:

We give our students feedback on a daily basis in our classrooms with our opening activities, assessments, quizzes, classroom conversations, etc. They are so used to getting feedback from us, but how often do we elicit feedback from them? And I mean TRUE feedback.

At my last school, it was a requirement for teachers to give a course evaluation every year at the end of the year. However, it was basically a fill in the bubble thing for most of us with very little to no opportunities for students to write open-ended feedback.

I think that a lot of people do some type of feedback at the end of the year, but I think that the end of the year is too late. 

When I was doing an evaluation at the end of the year, school was already over! If we can improve on something, don't we want to know about it before the year has come to an end?

Feedback from students about teacher surveys:

At the end of every term (there are 3 at my school), I give my students a mostly open-ended feedback form for them to fill out about me on Google Forms. This way, it can be anonymous, and I can get real feedback. 

I worked with some of my 8th graders this year to help me perfect this form. Here were some of the things the students said about surveys they've taken about teachers in the past:

1. If it is not open ended, then we are not giving the feedback that we want. If the question is something like "Do you feel like your teachers respect you? 4     3     2    1," the students said it makes it really hard for them to answer. One student said, "one of my teachers doesn't respect us, but the rest do, so what do I put? A 4? A 3?" I think that this is a valid point. 

2. The other reason for having open-ended questions is so that students can bring up topics that we might not even be considering. They said that there are specific things a teacher might do like mumble but most questions aren't "Do I mumble too much?" so how are they going to give that feedback if there's nowhere for them to write it? 

My teacher evaluation form:

Here are some important elements that I think make a good feedback form for a teacher:

1. It has to be anonymous. If it is not, students will not be honest. They will be afraid to criticize their teacher knowing that they have months left in the class. 

2. It has to have a lot of open-ended questions (as mentioned above). 

3. It has to have a way for students to reflect on their own effort in the course as well. Students agreed with me that sometimes they don't learn a lot in a course but don't always blame the teacher because they don't always do what they are supposed to. 

4. You have to remind the students over and over that they need to be honest. Otherwise, the feedback is useless. 

5. The questions cannot all be about academics. Social emotional learning is just as important. 

Here is the feedback form for me as a teacher that I developed this year with the help of some 8th graders: 

Sample Teacher Feedback Form

Here is a quick overview of the questions:

1. How do you feel this year is going for you in Spanish class? 

2. What are your strengths in this class?

3. What are you struggling with in class (if anything)?

4. Is the pace of the class too slow, too fast, or just right?

5. Do you feel you are learning in this class?

6. Do you feel like I am clear of my expectations, assignments, and grading? 

7. Do you feel like we talk about real things in this class or do you feel like it's a lot of grammar practice?

8. Do you feel like I care about your education and want you to acquire as much Spanish as possible? 

9. Do you feel like I care about my students, their lives, and their progress? 

10. Do the proficiency levels (Novice High, Intermediate Low, etc.) help you know how to improve?

11. Is there anything that I should do more of? Less of? Why?

12. What can I do to be a better teacher? Please be honest. This truly is helpful and anonymous.

13. Do you feel comfortable expressing when you do not understand what something means? 

14. Then students rate themselves on effort, classroom behavior, organization, quality of work, and checking the online gradebook for assignments. 

15. Lastly, they make a goal for improvement. 

DISCLAIMER: These evaluations can be hard to read:

It is NEVER easy to read negative feedback about yourself, and it is hard to focus on the good--even if it wayyyyy outweighs the bad. However, this is way more important than our egos. If we are not trying to improve our teaching, then we are not doing the best job we can. 

Take the negative comments with a grain of salt; we all have students who don't love us or don't love the way/things we teach. That is SO normal. However, we have to look for patterns. If more than one student is saying the same thing, then it is a problem. There's a difference between, "I hate you. You suck" and "I think that you should work on getting grades back quicker." 

What I learned this year:

After reading my course evaluations, I learned a lot of great stuff about myself as a teacher! Here were some of the amazing comments: 

"i feel like you have a good mind set to help the class grow"

"I feel that I have learned a lot thus far in the year. I have also been able to use some of the Spanish used in class to communicate at home."

"I think you are a great teacher and that the way you teach the class has improved my Spanish speaking a lot."

"NOTHING I TOLD YOU, YOU WERE A PERFECT TEACHER!"

"I feel that I improved a lot from last year and learn a lot quicker in this class"

"I feel really good, I came into Spanish this year and I did not feel confident and was really scared since I was really bad but even in the last 2-3 months I feel like I have learned more than I have last year and feel like in have really grown as a Spanish speaker."

"We talk about lots of real things, and really never work on just grammar sheets. We have pages of cierto falso which help us repeat things we are learning in class by writing them and when someone has a grammar question you can answer it. Otherwise it is not too much grammar practice."

And here were some of the negative ones: 

"Be a bit more patient."

"I think you should be more patient with some kids."

"I feel that you could perhaps be more patient as you seem to get frustrated easily."

"I think you could be less strict when students do or get something wrong. Although you are usually not strict just when you are in a bad mood."

Final Thoughts: 

These are never easy to read, but I had to remind myself just how amazing the positive comments were, and 90% of them were all positive. But, I noticed a pattern. Clearly, a lot of my students were feeling that I was not being patient enough. THIS IS A PROBLEM, and if I did not learn this when I did, the whole year probably would have remained the same. So, I did research on how to keep my patience and have been working hard to make sure that I don't sweat the small stuff anymore.  I told my students that this was a pattern and I promised them to be better about it. Students have said that things have gotten so much better since first term, and that makes me feel a lot better. I cannot wait to see what they say when I give them a feedback form for the end of the second term. 

My main point is: don't be afraid to get feedback from students. It's not always constructive because they're kids, and they don't always know how to be constructive with their criticism, but that doesn't make their opinions any less valid. This is too important to not do. Just re-read all the positive comments as much as you have to in order to help you remember how amazing of a teacher you are, and find patterns of criticism in the not-so-happy comments to help you be even more amazing. 

Keep being amazing,

Timothy

Why I think it's a mistake to start Spanish 1 with dates and the alphabet

Hola hola:

How many of you start out year one talking about dates, numbers, the alphabet, colors, etc.? This blog post is about why I think that this practice should not continue in language classrooms.

I know that this post may ruffle up some feathers, so I want to start by saying these three things:

1. You are not a bad teacher if you do this.
2. Up until this year, I had done this.
3. This is my opinion.

My experience in the past: 

In my few years as a language teacher, I have always started out the year with the concepts that I have mentioned above. But what does this mean? To me, it means that we are not really communicating much information about ourselves for at least the first month (maybe more) of school. It just seems like a loss to me because we are hoping to get our students to really start communicating as soon as possible, but how much can they really do with the date, numbers, and the alphabet?

Last year, I noticed that I wasn't really learning about my students in the target language until about two months into school because we start with those concepts mentioned above and then go to weather (which is communication but not communication about themselves).

Why is this a problem? 

Well, for those of us who see the power in target language use by the students AND the teacher in the classroom, this is a huge issue because we are not giving our students tools to express much right off the bat. This makes it nearly impossible for the first few weeks of the language to be "full immersion."

The other problem is that we are spending a lot of time on a "unit" that really could just be an everyday routine. Why do we need to even do a unit on the date? Can't we just talk about the date every day and give students input that way?

In the past, I have always told myself that my classroom is like a kindergarten class, and that's what they start with in kindergarten, so it makes sense to start with that in a language classroom. But my class is NOT a kindergarten class (and even if yours is, I still don't think that this is what we should be starting with). Here's my thinking behind that: kindergarteners have already had years of exposure to the language. Kindergarteners go to kindergarten with some ability to communicate in their native languages. They know how to express their wants and needs, likes and dislikes, etc. So, starting with the date in kindergarten does make more sense.

Our students in Spanish 1 (in my case, 6th grade), do not usually have that language, so I think that that's where we should begin our Spanish 1 curricula.

What I did this year: 

If you read my last blog post, then you know that I have been developing a lot of thematic units this year. My goal was to do it just for 8th grade, but it's just too good to only do with one grade.

Before beginning use of the target language in my 6th grade classroom, I spent the first few days talking about the various proficiency levels with regard to presentational skills. I wanted the students to understand the various levels; otherwise, my feedback on assignments is useless to the students.

It is important to start out with essential vocabulary for the classroom. This includes stating your name, answering how you are, etc. I don't think we can leave this out because we need to get to know our students, and knowing their names is essential.

After that, I started with useful classroom phrases to help the students express their needs. These phrases include things like: can I go to the bathroom? Can I go to the water fountain? I don't know. Can I have a pencil/paper/a pen? Can I go to my locker? I forgot. My computer is dead. How do you say...? Never mind. How do you spell...? Etc. 

I think a lot of us do that, which is great. But I think there should be more. I have a circumlocution wall, and I want the students to know how to use it as soon as possible. As a result, this becomes the next part of our language acquisition process. We learn to describe things: It's an animal. It's a person. It's *insert color*, etc. Now, these things are on the wall all year, so as long as students can recognize what they mean, then that's the most important thing. They do not have to produce every single one of these yet by any means.

Now, this is where I used to go into teaching dates, numbers, the alphabet, etc. This year, however, I brushed that stuff aside, and taught the students how to express their likes and dislikes. For the first time ever, I had the students really talking to me about themselves in the first few weeks of school, and I was able to implement a Spanish only classroom MUCH sooner than in the past. And this does not just include "I like" and "I don't like." I just don't think that's enough. What about "I love," "I hate," "I kind of like," "I don't care about," etc.? Seeing where my sixth graders are at this year compared to last year is a HUGE difference--and I mean huge. I also learned A LOT about them, and they learned a lot about me from my input. My sixth graders actually call me "Señor Pepinillos" (Mister Pickles) this year because they learned early on how much I despise pickles. (I threw in the alphabet at the end of this unit, but I only spent a day or two using the letters because they picked up on them so quickly. And I did NOT teach them the alphabet by teaching the alphabet song this year, which is another thing I highly suggest.)

I had read in many blogs/heard at many conferences that people do not explicitly teach numbers. I never understood how that worked until I pushed this stuff to a later time. Finally, my students have acquired numbers in a much more authentic way. I give out group points, so they were exposed to them that way. We play quizlet live, so they were exposed to them upon entering the game code. There were so many times that I was using numbers in class without having to explicitly teach them.

Now come the thematic units. I won't get into the details of this thematic unit because that's not the point of this post, but I started a unit on the weather (but in much more detail than in the past). This has allowed me to teach about other countries and has given me the chance to use numbers again in a more realistic way. I had the students learn how to convert Celsius and Fahrenheit for the first time this year. This has required students to use numbers (obviously). Each day, they were assigned a Spanish-speaking country, and they had to state the date in that country (aha! I found a way to include the date later on in the year!), guess the weather in that country, look up the weather and temperature, guess the season based on the weather/location of the country, and state the time in that country to see the time difference. This unit requires A LOT of input (as does any unit).

There's a lot here, but it works out. I was able to teach dates, time, numbers and weather expressions in a meaningful way. This will mean that, later down the line, I won't have to spend much time teaching "time" because they have already used it. This will give me more time for more thematic units! We have kept a running list of the countries/territories and have marked the seasons for each after each lesson. At the end of the unit, students are to discover the different seasons for Central America, South America, etc. based on the information they have gathered throughout the unit.

Conclusion: 

I think it's important to reiterate that I really do not think that you are a bad teacher if you do this, and you are welcome to disagree with me! I just think we have spent so many years following textbooks as if they were the curriculum that we haven't stopped to think about what's truly essential to our students' communication skills. It's important to be willing to make changes and try new things. I was nervous to not teach numbers explicitly this year, but I went for it, and I am really happy with the results.

On my end-of-term-one evaluations, all my sixth graders wrote that they felt that we talked about real things/people in class. This is the first year that I have ever gotten that response from sixth graders on this feedback form at the end of term one. They always used to write that they felt like we were not really communicating in class, so I think the students see the value in the language more if we teach them to talk about themselves sooner rather than later.

My amazing roommate, Megan Waring, reminded me today: "Don't ever feel the need to apologize for trying to be the best." I love this quote. On your road of curriculum development, there will be some rough patches with administrators, colleagues, students, etc. Just keep doing what YOU believe is best.