¡Aventuras! My take on Real World (choice) Homework

There has been a movement by language teachers all over the world to use real world experiences as a way to practice using the target language outside of school. This is particularly useful for those who live in communities that are not lucky enough to have a population of native speakers available.

From: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/23000.html 
First column is Maine statistic, second column is USA

Over the past two years, I have assigned "Adventure Points" to my students. There are a variety of ways students can complete the assignment, but each student must complete a total of 3 points every two weeks.  I had them due on THURSDAYS this year because students also have Problems of the Week (POWs) due with most of their math teachers, so I figured if they were both due on the same day, it would be easier for them to remember. We are on an A/B block schedule, so any time they had Spanish on a Thursday, their points were due.  I was not overly strict about when they submitted their points, just as long as they were in before I added up the points from the Google Spreadsheet created by the form.

The various assignments and their point values are not unique. You can see the descriptions and the point values here. You will notice that they are similar to ones used by +Laura Sexton, +Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, and +Megan Kara of the Creative Language Classroom. For any one that they choose, students must answer the questions listed on the description page in addition to the questions asked in the Google Form.

The Form: 
I LOVE Google Forms. I create at least one a week. Using a form for this assignment has saved a lot of time for me, but I feel that I might get more buy-in if I had to collect something else-to "prove" that the students actually did the work. I am going to think more about this as I roll out the assignment to my classes this year. 

On the form, found here,  Students choose their class, and then their names from a drop down menu. This is a lot of work up front for the teacher, but it is SO MUCH EASIER to sort the spreadsheet in the long run. The first year I did this, students wrote their own names. Even if I asked specifically for their LAST name, some would write their first name, or misspell their name, which would ruin how I ultimately wanted to be able to use the information-sorted and easy to add up the points! I also made a menu of assignment choices so that students could not "forget" how much their activity was worth and "accidentally" submit a Facebook language change as a 6 point activity. Again-a little bit more work on the front end, but more seamless for you throughout the year. I also made sure to add an option for each point value: Other Approved by Señora. Students are creative and can sometimes see options that are not listed yet. It also allows for me to throw other events at them during the year. 

In addition to specific questions asked for each activity, all had to answer the following reflection questions: 

 As students submit their answers, I can go into the spreadsheet to see who has their activity done. Before sorting, it looks like this: 

There are 5 columns asking for last names-one for each of the Spanish classes that did the activity. There are also 6 columns for the activities-one for each point value. As you can see above, most students just choose from the 3 point list.

After seeing the quality of some of the entries, I spoke to the classes and asked them to be more specific about what they did for their activities. After sorting the entries alphabetically by last name in each class column, I entered a 10/10 for completion in my grade book. When a grade was entered I would color-fill the table. You can see the first and 4th entry are from the same class more easily and I could keep track of the hundreds of entries throughout the year. 

Every year I make adjustments to what I am doing. This year I am going to still have the Adventure Points, but have them more specific to the unit we are on. I bought some of the Real World Homework from The Creative Language Classroom TpT store, and plan on using that as a guide to have one for each unit I teach. I would also love to change up how I collect some of the points. How would your students submit their choice homework? How has it worked for you? 
 

#blogamonth

The hardest part of teaching for me is reflection. I do not give myself or my students enough time to sit and reflect on anything! After a strong Pirate start, I was just barely treading water leading up to midterms. Lucky for me, a new semester is a fresh start! It doesn't feel quite as clean as a new school year, but I'll take it.

I recently stumbled upon the hashtag #blogamonth and I am going to stick to that idea-to write one blog post a month. I have this blog for a reason-to help MYSELF become a more reflective teacher. I am only letting myself down if I don't keep it-but that's the problem, isn't it? I'm quite OK with letting myself down in too many aspects of my life. I would never drop the ball with those who I am accountable to the way I do with myself. I would feel incredibly guilty if I were to give up on my colleagues or students in the same way I give up on myself. So-here it is. My first blog of the year in trying to be a more reflective and purposeful teacher.

The good, the bad and the ugly. 

I am proud of quite a bit of what I have done so far this year. I really like the emphasis being placed by my entire department on the modes of communication. We have common units with similar assessments for the 3 different languages, and rubrics for the different levels. As a group, we are reflecting on the units as we go to make adjustments as we see fit. I have also made a conscious effort to be more organized in my classroom. I have created a lot of tools with our new Google Accounts For Education to make life easier for myself and for my students.

I am horrible at planning for my singleton class. I teach two classes of Spanish 4 and two classes of Spanish 5-which I spend most of my time preparing for. I also have one small class of novice learners in Spanish 1. That class flies so far under the radar that I often start class without a clear objective in my mind. We just go where the wind takes us. These are my most vulnerable learners and they deserve so much more from me. The content is simple-I just need to work at making it more relevant to them and help them use what I am teaching them in real life situations.

What happened to my 90% target language goal????  I have fallen so far behind on that! I gave up speaking Spanish in class because I feel like what we're doing is important culturally-and it's just EASIER to do it in English. I was so proud of how well the kids were doing with the immersion classroom the first few weeks of school, and I am embarrassed of how little Spanish we're speaking in the classroom on a regular basis.

New Semester-clean start. Time to get my head back into the game and work as hard as I expect my students to work.

Interpersonally exhausted

It's been a month. I have thought about blogging and then I picture my head exploding, so I have put it off. Teaching Like a PIRATE is exhausting! There is so much planning that goes into making class both exciting and informative that there is very little time for any extras-grading, family time, and time for myself have definitely gotten the shaft this past month.

Last year my entire department went to a free workshop based on Standards-based Instruction and Assessment. There, we were introduced to the three modes of communication (Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational) and various ways to use them in class and even more importantly, assess them.

My level 4 and 5 students are currently in the same unit based on chronologies which basically asks students to discuss, debate, and learn about famous Latin Americans whom they would like to see speak at their graduation. I narrowed down the field a bit and asked students to focus on Latin American philanthropists. This is a unit that my entire department planned together during Summer Institute days in our district. It is always a work in progress, and we plan on changing it as we need to. It is intended for level 4 students, but since my 5's didn't get it last year, I thought it would be beneficial for them to review.

The Interpersonal Assessment requires students to debate with a partner about who they want to hear speak at their graduation. Students are presenting tomorrow during class. I have paired them up with people in their class who are basically the same proficiency level, but will not disclose the information until tomorrow when we are in the DiLL Lab. (Our language lab uses DiLL software...very cool stuff, I highly recommend it.) This is the first time I have spent a lot of organized time on preparing for the assessment, and I am crossing my fingers that it goes well.

The rubric we are using for interpersonal assessments is a hybrid of Paul Sandrock's The KEYS to Assessing Language Performance and the PALS assessment rubrics used in Fairfax County, Virginia. I handed out the rubric Friday (the day before the assessment) and we went over each strand, focusing a bit more attention on the comprehensibility strand and the communication strands. I want kids to focus their attention on how well they are able to get their point across instead of the accuracy of their grammar or vocabulary. In the future I would probably give the rubric out farther in advance and work on individual strands in more detail, but since we just collaborated on the rubric the day before in a meeting, I'm glad I didn't since we would have been using a totally different document.

I am feeling pretty comfortable with the progression of this assessment. Students first individually chose three people who they would like to hear speak at their graduation. The only criteria was that they be Spanish-speaking and I pushed for them to be philanthropists. Then in pairs, students researched 4 people from the compiled class list or from a livebinder I created for them. Using this form, students focused on personal characteristics, profession, acts of charity, as well as listing 4-6 important moments in their lives with dates. From there, (still in pairs-and during the next class block) students narrowed their list down to the one person they would like to argue for and made sure both partners had the same information. They filled out this chart in order to expand on their content and vocabulary. Their homework was to be sure the chart was completed entirely.

The next class, Students worked with the same partner and first spoke in English to ensure that they understood their compiled information, as well as to see how much time they could talk about their person in their native language. Next they had 6 minutes to speak in Spanish with their partner. I had students keep a list of words they did not know how to say in Spanish while they were speaking. I wanted them to just make a note of them, not spend time looking them up just yet. This really helped them to see what vocabulary was necessary for their side of the debate. We went over the list as a class and then did one more 6 minute trial run. This one went smoother and I think the kids were surprised at how much easier it was for them to have the conversation for 6 whole minutes. The final debates in level 4 will be 8 minutes long, and in Spanish 5 they will be 10 minutes.

The moment of truth is here tomorrow. I want to start the class with students working with the same partner to do their final preparations. I will give them one last organizational form to create their outlines. I have the desks arranged in a circle with half of the desks facing out, and half facing in. They will practice speaking with a few people before going to the lab halfway through the block. I was going to have them just speak with a partner for 5 minutes and rotate around, but I think I will give them a specific topic to speak about for the 5 minutes before they rotate. Maybe have them try to ask each other as many questions as possible during one of the rotations, and describe their people for one, their accomplishments for another. I am really excited to get feedback about the assessment and my fingers are crossed that they feel confident and well-prepared.

Overall, preparation for this interpersonal assessment took about 5 class blocks. Starting with brainstorming their own class set of debate vocabulary (I believe that, you're wrong, I disagree, etc) and ending with practice runs and an outline they can reference during the assessment. Of course the entire blocks haven't been dedicated to this, but probably about half of each.

How do you have your students prepare for an interpersonal assessment? DO you have them prepare at all? How long do you ask them to speak?