Textbooks: a Resource or a Curriculum?

¡Hooooooola!

As many of you know, I am not a fan of textbooks, and I never use the textbook in my classroom. If you asked my 6th graders, I bet they wouldn't even know there is a textbook (although I do use a few of them to block the cold air coming from my vent in the winter, so they might know). 

What I HAVEN'T really ever written about, though, is how I have used the textbook as a resource. 

Why a textbook shouldn't be the curriculum: 

Most textbooks are not designed with language research in mind; they are designed for what the public wants. Sadly, most language teachers still want the traditional textbook, so that's what is published. 

However, there are textbooks that have communicative tasks in them like "Sol y viento" and I STILL believe that those textbooks should not be the curriculum. 

For one, textbooks do not necessarily meet the demands of the students. How can a textbook published in 1995 still be relevant? I mean those textbooks are still teaching the word "chalk" in the classroom unit, for crying out loud. 

The other issue that I have with textbooks is that they start with a preliminary unit that usually involves the alphabet, numbers, colors, stating their names (this one's good), dates, days of the week, etc. This is treating a first-year language class like a kindergarten class, BUT IT IS NOT. My students are at a much higher cognitive ability than that, and I can teach them all of those things in much better contexts. Also, kindergartners go to kindergarten with LOTS of language, believe it or not. My students are coming to me with none, so I need to give them much more useful language than just an alphabet, numbers, and dates. 

How are textbooks useful, then? 

I know all of this bashing of textbooks on blogs can be really overwhelming for teachers, and it probably pisses you off. To be honest, it pisses me off too! Not because I think that textbooks are the greatest resources but because I believe that districts should be doing a better job of giving teachers time to re-write the curriculum CONSTANTLY. A good curriculum needs to be forever changing. This is hard for a lot of teachers. I have a beloved unit that I have done for five years now. I worked so hard on it, but in my eyes, it's time for it to go so that bigger and better things can come along. However, it's really hard to do that when you're not a department of one. If teachers are required to maintain our licenses (and pay for it ourselves), then why are schools not being held accountable for rich, well developed curricula?

Anyway, when I started teaching at my current school, I asked for a curriculum, and there was just a textbook. Now that's not a stab at anyone because my department head gave me that textbook and explicitly said that I had all the freedom in the world to do what I wanted with it. So, essentially, the textbook is being used as a stepping stone for teachers who are new to the district to have something to follow, but it is not a requirement. Do I think that's better than a written curriculum of thematic units hitting on hot topics like social justice issues? Absolutely not, but it's a start, and I was able to roll with it. 

My first year there, I basically taught the textbook using as many communicative strategies as I could. The problem, though, was that I was using that textbook like a curriculum. It just can't be that way. As BVP always says, teaching communicatively is not to be seen as a method to teach the same old things in a different way. It is an approach, not a method. That's to say, if I am trying to teach textbook rules and my units are based solely around grammar points, then I am not teaching communicatively. 

After that, I started doing workshops on thematic units, and I realized VERY quickly that my units were not good. The thing is, though, there are 8 middle school Spanish teachers in my district, and I wanted to still be in line with at least the grammar that we all expose the students to. So, I couldn't just throw the book out the window like I wanted to. I had to get creative. 

One thing that textbooks are somewhat good at is picking contexts for each unit. For example, there are units on school, housing, family, food, sports, parties, clothing, etc. These units are not strong enough by themselves, in my opinion, but they are a great place to start. I took those units and made units around them; that way, I was teaching the same grammar in the textbook but in a much more interesting context, and I was also teaching the same grammar as the other Spanish teachers who have their own creative ways of facilitating language acquisition. 

So, every year, for example, my unit on "school" gets muuuuuch stronger. It is now a unit on equal access to education. The unit on parties is now a unit on quinceañeras and gender performativity and heteronormativity. The unit on food and emotions is now a unit on how sugar consumption affects our emotions. Etc. 

However, in Avancemos at least, there are a few units that have no topic and are really just focused on a grammatical structure. Sometimes, those units have to be thrown out. For example, I will never ever do a unit on stem-change verbs ever again. I am trusting that stem-change verbs show up naturally throughout my curriculum (and they do). Other units, for example, can be worked with. Our textbook has a unit on prepositional phrases (in front of, behind, next to, etc.). Right now, I have that as a unit on teen technology use and focus on statistics about how much time we spend in front of screens, the percentage of us who sleep next to our cellphones, etc. This is one of my weaker units, so I have cut it down to a two-week mini-unit, but I still think it's stronger than just teaching the vocabulary out of context. Hopefully, I can get rid of this unit soon and fill it with something stronger. Like I said, our curricula in EVERY subject should be constantly changing. 

I am at the point in my career where I am ready to throw that textbook completely out. I would never replace it with a new one, but I thought it was time to be transparent that the textbook was useful to me in getting me started on rewriting the curriculum. It's okay to use a textbook as a resource, but when we are spending three months on learning to tell the date, numbers, days of the week, etc. just because the textbook demands it is when it gets a little problematic. I believe that we can get our students to much higher proficiency levels when our curricula are more designed to meet our students at their cognitive AND language level. 

Thanks for reading!!

Timothy

Distance Teaching: I Feel Like a First-Year Teacher Again

I think this is probably the longest I've gone without writing on my blog. I just got so overwhelmed when all my teaching switched to online. All these amazing teachers were sharing all of these great resources, and I was ignoring it all. My brain shut down, and I did not want to think about it until I had to. 

Teaching online has made me feel like a first-year teacher again, which is both infuriating and relieving. I look back on the way I taught my first year and regret it with every fiber of my being, so it's nice to kind of feel like I'm getting a do-over. I had a great mentor and was beginning to dabble in communicative language teaching, but I still had no clue how languages are acquired. So, being a new teacher again, it would've been really easy to resort back to grammar practice and language-based units. 

I'm too stubborn for that now, and I am grateful now more than ever that my units have changed from units on indefinite/definite articles, direct object pronouns, present tense, etc. to units on pollution and resolutions in Mexico City, human values with regard to sports/entertainment and education, etc. If I were to resort back to units based on a specific grammatical structure, I would've lost way more students than I did (because, let's be real, many of them are not doing the work now that it's optional and online). My students would've picked up on the inauthenticity (whoa, what the heck?! Did I make this word up?! Why are there red lines under it?!), and they would not have done the work.

The Interpretive Mode

I've always learned that speaking and writing are not necessary for language acquisition (that's not to say that they're not important for skill development). However, throughout this process, my goal is for my students to ACQUIRE as much Spanish as possible now that I am down to two days a week of teaching (and hours more work than ever in planning!). 

This has been a great opportunity for me to focus on the interpretive mode (listening and reading). It's honestly the only thing I can do right now because I cannot really monitor the use of Google Translate and other resources from home. Thanks to the help of Ronie Webster for sharing many resources, I have gone further in depth than ever with my unit on pollution in Mexico City. It's also been great because listening has always been the lowest for our students on the STAMP test at the end of eighth grade, so it's given me a lot of chances to develop listening assignments.

The 6th graders have been emailing me saying how much they're enjoying learning about solutions to pollution (I really believe these kids will change the world someday). It's cool to see that they're this engaged and lots of them are asking questions! They're also thinking critically and criticizing the possible solutions as well; every idea is flawed and can be improved! 

One of the things I teach about in this unit is how Mexico City has strict laws as to when people can drive. For example, if you have a yellow sticker, you cannot drive on Mondays. I'm sorry but isn't learning colors and days of the week by learning about driving regulations in Mexico City much more interesting than having a "unit" on telling the days of the week at the beginning of the year??? I really think so. I cannot imagine spending so much time on language that barely helps my students communicate about real things anymore. I want to meet my students at their cognitive level--not just their linguistic level. 

Teaching Online

Not being in class to deliver this content has been so challenging; I'm not going to lie, though, I've enjoyed the creativity. I, like many other teachers, was convinced that my students were not acquiring much language. However, I did a Google Meets with my 7th graders the other day and was really happy to see that they were having no trouble understanding and producing the language from the unit. It goes to show that engaging content really makes a difference. It also goes to show that input has so much power--even if it's only two days a week. They were using phrases like "le da" which includes an indirect object pronoun. I know that phrase is so "teachery" but just trust me that, if I had a unit specifically on indirect object pronouns, they would not be using them today. 

The technology part has been kind of fun for me, and I am so grateful to all the companies that are giving teachers free access to their stuff during this pandemic. It's made my life so much easier. I have found some really awesome ways to deliver my lessons even when I am not actually there in person. This took me so long to get good at, but I can actually say that I still feel like I am being a great teacher right now, and I DO believe that my students are acquiring language (just not as much as before). I found ways to embed videos of myself teaching the materials into interactive lessons thanks to Pear Deck, Screencastify, EdPuzzle, and many more. For example, my students can watch a video of me telling a story, interact with it, and then see the correct answer. Here's a quick sample below:

Although this is not my IDEAL way of teaching, I have still enjoyed doing it. I think if I had not stayed true to what I know about language acquisition, this would've been torture for both me and my students. 

The cool thing about all this is that it didn't happen overnight. That's why I felt like a new teacher again, exploring new tools again, figuring out what works, keeping track of student work in different ways, etc. And just when I feel like I am getting the hang of it, it's coming to an end! haha! That's life, but all I can say is that my sub plans are going to be bad ass from now on! 

Anyway, thanks for reading. It was nice to do something different for a change. 

Timothy

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

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

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.

Authentic Language Use and Thematic Units

Hola, mi gente:

This year has been an exceptionally amazing year for me in both my personal and teaching life. This year, I have seen the power of developing thematic units to allow for more authentic use of language.

In the past (as early as last year), I have felt like my teaching has been pretty choppy. What I mean by this is that I wasn't connecting the material of my units enough. Right now, the textbook is our curriculum; however, we are lucky in Andover to have a lot of freedom.

What do I mean when I say my teaching was "choppy"? 

I think that we all have done it/still do it. We teach vocabulary, then grammar and then maybe something cultural (if even that). However, I wasn't very good at connecting those three things together; I may have tried, but it wasn't authentic use of language. I also wasn't keeping in mind whether or not the material I was teaching was going to move students forward in their proficiency. The whole point of a unit is that the lessons all connect to an overarching theme and essential question and a textbook just doesn't cut it. 

What am I working on now? 

As I said above, I am doing my best to work on developing thematic units, but we are moving through material so much faster than before now that our language use is more communicative and authentic, so I am finding that I cannot do it all alone anymore. Luckily, the goal of our curriculum advisory board this year is to develop thematic units! WOOOO! 

As I have mentioned before, our curriculum is the textbook, and we all just make our own adjustments as we see fit. This year, I have been making huge adjustments with these thematic units, but I have to make sure that I am being consistent with what the other teachers are teaching. Otherwise, our department will have no consistency, and it will make it very hard for students to move from teacher to teacher. 

As a result, I have been trying to take the topics that our textbook supplies and some of the grammar to make them into thematic units. It's not easy because a textbook shouldn't be a curriculum, but I have been making it work. As our advisory board works through the curriculum, we will definitely have to remove and add certain things to make it more authentic, but until then, I am sticking to what I have been doing. 

I've also learned that we do not have to teach all the forms of something--we only need to teach the things we need for the unit. For example, I do not need to teach the yo, tú, él, ella, nosotros, etc. forms of the past tense if the unit doesn't require all forms yet. Otherwise, the language use becomes less authentic. We use the ones we need and the rest will come when it becomes necessary.

Examples:

Technology use:

In 7th grade, I am supposed to teach them emotions, prepositions, and comparatives. I realized that I can take the AP theme of Science and Technology and the sub-theme/topic of "the effects of technology on oneself and society." In this unit, I had to do a lot of research, but it was SO worth it because we are now using language to talk about real things. 

I hadn't thought of this theme soon enough, so I did not tie in emotions, but next year I plan on talking about how technology affects our emotions. 

However, I was able to tie in prepositions and comparatives to make sure I am consistent with the grammar in our current textbook curriculum. Prepositions: How much time do adolescents spend in front of a screen? The average adolescent spends around _____ hours using.... Do you sleep next to your phone? Etc.
Comparatives: I spend more time using _____ than _____. Etc. Etc. 

The great thing about this unit is that we are learning about technology statistics and how it affects us while also using vocabulary that is authentic and WAY more useful than textbook vocabulary. For example, I had to teach my students the word for "should" in Spanish because we are making recommendations about how to limit screen time. "Should" is such a useful word and NO ONE TEACHES IT (I know I am being dramatic; some people do).

*Grammar rant. You can skip this part if you want!* This is also an awesome preview of the conditional tense because, in Spanish, "should" is "debería/deberías'/deberíamos, etc." which is the conditional tense of the verb "deber" which, when conjugated normally, means "to have to/must." Maybe this will be helpful to them when they get to the high school and learn the conditional tense! 

Architecture:

Another unit that I am sure we all have is the unit on the house. I used to hate this unit because I felt like I was teaching vocabulary and nothing useful with regard to true communication. We basically learned housing vocabulary, and the students talked about their homes and ideal homes and blah blah blah. But how often do we talk about our ideal home in our native language? Maybe sometimes, but I really do not think that the students see the benefit of this unit, and what is the essential question attached to that? 

*Side note* An essential question is a question that does not have one specific answer, NOT questions like ,"what key event caused the start of World War I?"

This year, I have decided to make the house unit about architecture instead. I did spend a little time on house vocabulary but mostly because it was going to be useful for the unit on architecture that I was previewing. 

Right now, the students and I are in the process of learning about the architect Antoni Gaudí's architecture--in particular, the elements of nature found in La Casa Batlló. I created a Google Slides presentation using Pear Deck and put in pictures I took from my trip to Barcelona. Pear Deck allows you to create interactive PowerPoints, so I would show the students the piece of architecture, then have them use pear deck to draw the element of nature that they thought the piece of architecture was modeled after, and then we would talk about the answers. This has been one of my favorite units I have ever developed, and the students were SO into it! 

Now that I developed this unit, I don't feel like I am teaching just vocabulary. They are learning so much vocabulary but also learning useful grammar at the same time; we have incorporated a lot of past tense and even the impersonal "se" in Spanish because they need to learn phrases like "it was built to look like..."

I have to give a huge shoutout to two people who have helped me a lot: Laura Terrill and Diana Zawil. Laura did a workshop on thematic unit development at the MaFLA conference, and I learned SO MUCH. Diana is one of the AP teachers in my district, and she provided me with lots of sheets containing the AP themes to help me with my unit development. She has also helped me a lot in the unit I am working on about the Vejigante in Puerto Rico. THANK YOU! 

Conclusion:

I am relatively new to thematic unit development, but it truly has been amazing for me so far. I have developed 4 new units this year and I have a lot more in the works. It has been a really productive year and has made me love teaching even more. Sometimes, I can be a creature of habit, but being a creature of habit as a teacher can be dangerous. We HAVE to constantly be updating our curriculum, materials, and teaching styles. If not, we are doing our students an injustice. Fear of change has no place in education, in my opinion.

Teaching has to be relevant no matter what the subject area is. Teaching household items because they "might need to know the vocabulary someday" is not making the material relevant enough. It's a start, but it's not enough. Having an essential question, a theme, and topics for all of our units is so important and unbelievably useful. If you haven't tried thematic units, I urge you to try it this year--even if it's only one! We have to start somewhere. 

Thanks for reading!

Timothy