Success!

I held my first two lunch clubs this week and they were a huge success!. I introduced the whole idea to all of my classes on Monday and Tuesday and had students sign up as they walked out of class. By Wednesday, I had almost 70 students signed up (about 35 each grade)! This was way more than I had bargained for so I decided to do lunch club on a rotational basis. At my school, there are 3 traditional 4th grade classes, 3 traditional 5th grade classes, and 4 4/5 multiage classes. I ended up starting with multiage this week and will switch every other week with the traditional classes. This made the numbers closer to 15-20 per lunch club, which was still twice as many students as I had hoped for. As my principal warned me, "be careful what you wish for!" However, what actually happened was much more pleasant and manageable... about 10 students showed up each day either due to absences or students choosing to no longer attend. While I probably should have been disappointed that not all the students showed up, I was actually thrilled because the numbers were much more ideal for conversing.


I started el club del almuerzo by speaking English to lay down some ground rules. I had the students restate the goal (to speak Spanish!) and talked about different ways to do that (use the place mat, use words that we know, ask me, look in a dictionary, etc.). I also reiterated the fact that if students wanted to talk to their friends in English, the lunch room was the best place to do that and I would not be offended if they didn't want to come one week. After that, the 5th graders (I forgot to do this with the 4th graders) and I came up with a list of topics to discuss in future lunch club meetings. The list includes animals (and not the normal ones we talk about in class), sharks, food, sharks, music, Great White Sharks, and hip-hop dance. Can you tell that one of my girls is obsessed with sharks? :) I plan on creating this list with the 4th graders next time we meet. Then, I played Pandora Juanes radio as they ate lunch and we all chatted. It was so much fun. Some of the boys decided to start a dance party and chant "fiesta, fiesta" over and over again which was very entertaining. They also requested playing with puzzles next time "and we promise we'll speak in Spanish Sra. Zhang!" I love that idea and am even thinking about teaching them Monopoly in Spanish. 


My biggest success story is with one of my 5th graders who is normally very, very quiet in class. She rarely volunteers to speak and is reluctant to complete partner activities. However, during lunch club, she was talking up a storm! In Spanish! I was floored. She kept asking me "como se dice (insert random word here)" and then would try to come up with a sentence that fit that word. I think lunch club is really going to help her come out of her shell. Just hearing her speak so much during the first meeting really motivates me to continue holding el club del almuerzo. I am looking forward to many more!

Curriculum, curriculum, curriculum

One thing that is really cool (and stressful and overwhelming) at my school right now is a redesign of the entire K-8 Spanish curriculum. I was hired last summer and am fortunate enough to have been a part of the redesign from the beginning. We worked about 6 days total in the summer and have met once a month since school started. "We" means me, the teacher for whom I'm subbing, the K-2 Spanish teacher, the K-2 Spanish long-term sub, the 6th/7th grade teacher, and the 8th grade teacher. Every now and then our curriculum director will drop by the meetings for an update. She is just an interim this year but is fantastic and very supportive. Also, we have been working with a wonderful consultant by the name of Helena Curtain. She is so passionate about her work and her beliefs. Her energy is contagious and we've been working very hard to create a new curriculum that will make not only her, but also ourselves, our curriculum director, and our community, proud. The work that we are doing is a lot like the unit plan projects that I had to do in my undergrad education at U of M. However this time, someone will actually be teaching/learning the final products! This certainly makes it much more nerve-racking than when I was just working for a grade (although that grade was basically on what my entire methods class was based). Here's a quick shout-out to my professor... thanks for having us do all that work! Those skills are definitely paying off in the real world, as I'm sure you knew it would :)


To bring you up to speed on our process of redesign, we started by learning all about the art of communicative language and speaking in the target language. Helena gave us multiple mini lessons in German (which none of us speak) to put us back in the shoes of a novice language learner with a teacher that speaks 90% or more of class time in the target language. To get a better idea about what we learned and discussed, click on this link. 


During our meetings this year, our goal is to move the entire Spanish 1 curriculum into grades K-5. Obviously, grammar cannot be the focus here because much of the grammar is not developmentally appropriate. So essentially, we are focusing on the topics of vocabulary and transferring those into new thematic units. We are also teaching different phrases of grammar that connect to the thematic units so that the students will learn to speak in different ways. By doing this, we aren't explicitly teaching the grammar behind why they speak a certain way, but the students still get the practice of speaking in full sentences. We started by creating thematic webs (about 4 for each grade) and then developed "I can..." statements as the detailed objectives of what we want our students to be able to do by the end of the unit. The step on which we are currently is going back and matching the thematic webs to the "I can" statements. This process is taking a long time as we improve each thematic unit. We've added more units so that we now have about six different, 6-week units per grade. We've spent most of our time so far on grades K-3 which is slightly frustrating because we cannot seem to progress to any upper grades! However, it is impossible to plan for the higher grades when you have not yet planned the younger grades. And actually, our thematic units for the primary grades are looking really awesome. We're meeting again in March, so I'll give an update then as to how far we've come.


I'm sad that I'm only at this school one year (remember, maternity leave = long term sub) because I would love to teach all of these units. I am very proud of all of the work we have done so far.  I am really enjoying redesigning curriculum and it's even made me think about getting my masters in curriculum instruction. However, I think my heart is still set on bilingual education (that's a whole other post).

Nurse?

I have become very good friends with the nurse at my school, which I highly advise to anyone fortunate enough to have a nurse on your staff. This has been especially useful since I have gotten sick once a month (excluding December) since I started my new job at the elementary school. I guess that's what happens when I'm around 300 kids every day and take the train twice a day. The latest bug I've caught? Laryngitis. It's the perfect virus for a teacher, right? Wrong! Not being able to speak pretty much renders me useless in front of my classes. Luckily enough there was a substitute teacher who could cover my afternoon classes so I could take the rest of today to rest and not talk. It was such a dilemma to leave school though. I didn't want to leave but also knew that I would not be the best teacher I could be for the students. Tomorrow, I have a curriculum meeting all day so I should be able to save my voice and get back to teaching on Thursday. Just in time for the first meeting of lunch club! As of now, it's back to resting, drinking hot tea with honey, and eating lots of Vitamin C for me.

Mmm... paella

I had my first taste of paella on my honeymoon in Malaga, Spain. While I am not a fan of seafood, my husband LOVES it. And, since I love him, I'll allow him to get seafood every now and then. (Aren't I nice?) He ordered paella marisco (seafood paella) and with my first bite of the paella rice, I feel in love! Then I found out that there are different types of paella that have more than just seafood. Actually, the traditional version of paella has rabbit, chicken, and (land) snails. If you want to learn more about paella, check out this website. Basically, it is a traditional Spanish dish that has its roots in Valencia. Most of the ingredients in paella are pretty basic (chicken, shrimp, rice, veggies, etc...) but one thing that makes this dish so special is one of the spices... saffron. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world but really elevates whatever dish in which it is used. I've had paella once since I've been back in the US, but it didn't measure up to what I had in Spain. So, I thought I'd try to make it myself! My husband and I love experimenting with new recipes and are pretty decent cooks. I don't think I'd call us chefs yet, but we're working our way up there.


We started by purchasing this paella pan from Williams and Sonoma. I could spend all day in that store but we had to get back to start cooking! It is important to use a paella pan, or at least a wide, shallow skillet to allow the rice to spread thinly.


Our next step was to find a recipe. After much research on foodnetwork.com, we finally decided to modify Tyler Florence's recipe a little bit.

We started by seasoning the chicken because that needed to marinade for about an hour.

Then we chopped all the veggies (onion, garlic, red and green bell pepper).

Next, it was time to start cooking! First, saute the chorizo and sear the chicken, skin-side down in the paella pan. Set them on a cutting board once they're cooked because you won't need them again until later.

In the same pan, make a sofrito by sauteing the onion, garlic, and peppers. Then, add tomatoes and cook a little longer.

Fold in the rice and stir-fry it until the rice is a little toasted. Then, add chicken stock and stir every now and then so the rice absorbs the liquid evenly. 

Next, tuck the meat into the rice. Don't stir anymore because you want the rice to form a toasty bottom! (Add the shrimp after about 10 minutes, because it doesn't take as long to cook.) - although be careful not to burn the bottom. I struggle with this part. When the rice looks fluffy and moist, turn the heat up for 40 seconds until you can smell a nice brown bottom.  Finally, garnish with peas, lemon wedges, and parsley and enjoy! Yum! It was delicious and turned out to be a huge success. My brother, husband, and I all certainly enjoyed it!

While I don't think that I will ever make paella for my students, having the experience of actually making the paella myself will allow me to better explain just what exactly is this amazing dish. Culture is never touched on enough in classrooms (I am certainly guilty of skipping over it more than I should - I'm working on that, I promise!) but food is a great way to bring it back to the classroom. Reading stories, using play-dough to make it, drawing it... the possibilities are endless! My favorite food activity in a Spanish classroom when I was a student was to have a restaurant where students bring in Hispanic foods then pretend to be waiters and customers for a lesson. Lots of fun, lots of food, and best of all, lots of speaking Spanish!

El club del almuerzo

Next week, I am starting el club del almuerzo (a lunch club). I got the idea from the nandu listserv. (An email group all about world languages in the elementary/middle school grades. This listserv really is quite fantastic and I strongly encourage everyone to join, even if you're high school! It won't always apply to older grades, but still is very useful. Instructions for joining are here.) I’m going to announce the lunch club in class next week, and then one day a week I will dine with each grade; 3rd on Wednesdays, 4th on Thursdays, and 5th on Fridays. I want to give my students who are excelling more of a challenge. I definitely still struggle with differentiation inside the classroom (that's a whole other post) but I figure this is a way for me to work with the upper kids, since I feel they aren't as challenged during class. The goal of el club del almuerzo is to speak as much Spanish as possible during lunch. I’ve created placemats with key phrases that will help. Check out these snapshots.

A sample of a bunch of placemats.

 Useful question words. 

 Phrases/words for lunch.

 Some of the food (some they [should] already know but probably have forgotten).

 These last three pictures are of the back of the placemats. Just more useful phrases and conversation topics.

Some other ideas that people on nandu had were playing games in Spanish, listening to Spanish music, and every now and then, eating Hispanic foods. I’m very excited to try this, but also very nervous. I’m also going to have a reward system to encourage speaking in Spanish. Let's face it, I'm nervous that the kids are just going to speak English and not even try the new words. But, kids can do more than we give them credit for so hopefully they'll prove me wrong! Every now and then when I "catch" them speaking Spanish, I’ll give them a sticker that they can store on their placemat. After an undetermined amount of stickers, they’ll get a small prize like a Spanish book or pencil. Any thoughts/feedback/concerns on this idea would be greatly appreciated! I'll post next week and let you know how it goes!

New Year, New Plan

Welcome all! This is the first time I've ever written a blog, so please hang with me as I try to figure this whole thing out. I wanted to start this blog at the beginning of my first year of teaching, but I have no idea where the first four months went! I've gotten a little more settled into my classroom now and feel ready to tackle this challenge.


I think you should know a little bit about who I am so that you may better understand my future posts. I am a first year teacher at an elementary school. I teach Spanish, grades 3-5. I live in the city of Chicago, but don't work anywhere close to my apartment, so I take the Metra an hour each way, with walking on either side. I'm a newlywed, whose husband is also a teacher (high school - science) but this is his last year teaching since he's applying to med school. I can't begin to tell you how valuable he has been for my first year of teaching. I studied education at the University of Michigan, but my husband fell into the career path through Teach for America. He and I teach in two wildly different environments, different subjects, and have wildly different views on the profession of teaching. I see it as a lifelong journey for myself, while he sees it as a break after college as he applies to med schools. His experiences have definitely informed my teaching though, and I am grateful for all the tips and advice he gives me. Without his knowledge of what it feels like to struggle as a first year teacher, this year would be much, much harder for me. So although it's not the career path for him, I am grateful that teaching was a part of his life for a little bit. So is he and he's told me many times, "Never will I underestimate what it takes to be a teacher. Not that I ever thought it was easy, but anytime that you come home exhausted, with more work still to do, I will do everything possible to help you." Isn't he the best!? That's why I married him :)


Now for the juicy stuff... the reason I am starting this blog. After discovering that I am a World Language teacher, many people want to tell me about their language experience. I love to listen to these stories, although often times it breaks my heart. I hear stories about people sitting in class, listening to a teacher drone on and on about grammar. Or about the classes where all they did was to memorize vocabulary lists and do activities out of an outdated textbook. Sometimes, people were forced to translate Spanish to English, English to Spanish and this was all they did. Or my favorite... the audio-lingual method. Students listened to, and then memorized specific sets of dialogue. While they may have perfected this small part of language, this style of teaching leaves no room for improvisation. So when it comes time to speak to a native speaker, if that native speaker doesn't know the other part of the dialogue, the student will be forever lost in the conversation. There are many other ineffective ways of teaching a language. This is not to say of course, that these methods did not produce some learning of the language. However, this is not the most effective, or let's face it, fun, way to learn to speak another language. My experience has varied with my teachers. I've learned through a variety of the previously mentioned methods, but also with more interactive styles. For the most part, I had a very pleasant and worthwhile experience, which is why Spanish has stayed such a big part of my life. When I decided to become a world language teacher, I vowed to teach in a way that is as effective and engaging as possible, using some of how I was taught, combining that with how I was taught to teach, and all of the research I am currently doing to stay up-to-date on new methods. With all that in mind, this is why I started this blog. I want to document my research and findings, get feedback, and bounce ideas off my peers, all in hopes of becoming the best teacher I can possibly be. I want to show what it's like to be on the other side of the Spanish classroom.