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

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