So much to do... so little time...

As I have posted about before, I am currently doing a mini TPRS unit with my fifth grade classes. The creating of the stories went really, really well and I was pleased with the end results. As a follow up, I wanted the kids to draw pictures about the story that their class created to make sure they understood what it was about, translate a new (but similar) story with a friend, and then read some of the stories that other classes created. I had hoped this would take just over a week... about one activity per lesson. However, I quickly realized that my goals were too ambitious with the time constraints of my class and so I eliminated the last step. However, it has taken 2 weeks (6 classes.... about 3 hours of Spanish time) and I still have students that aren't quite finished. I don't know if I made the story too difficult to translate (although my higher-level students finished it quickly--probably means I need to differentiate more) or if I let them spend too much time drawing their pictures when that was supposed to be something quick, or if the interference of never-ending assemblies at my school have messed too much with my schedule and I didn't have my classes as long as I thought. I believe it is probably a combination of all 3 factors, and more that I cannot think of. I do not differentiate nearly as much as I should for my classes and that showed with this activity. However, there are some things that I cannot control so I need to be flexible. All this comes with experience and I am definitely on a learning curve right now. On a positive note, I was able to change and adapt my lesson plans based on the circumstances, which is step one to developing an appropriate curriculum. I am learning every day what it takes to be a great teacher and this learning process will never stop. Even though I do get frustrated sometimes, I am very happy to be where I am and doing what I'm doing. I am learning on the job every single day and I like to think that I am improving every single day as well. We all have good days and bad days, good lessons and lessons that need improvement but so far, I've had many more good days and good lessons than not, so this year is going pretty well. 

The monster eats everything!

This post isn't about anything that I recently taught. In fact, this post is about a lesson I taught way back in October... around Halloween. But really, it's about a technology tool that I used in that lesson. My third graders learned all about monsters and their facial features during the month of October. For the final project, they had to create their own monster, write descriptive sentences about their monster, and present it to the class. All the final products when into a class book which I bound and put in our classroom library. The students LOVE seeing their work in book form and LOVE to read books by other classes. Facial features were a brand new topic to my third graders. They had already had words for eyes and nose, but didn't know how to say eyebrows, teeth, etc. I wanted a fun way to introduce these new vocabulary words without just using flashcards. One thing that I learned both from my professor and Helena Curtain is that stories with lots of pictures are a great way to introduce to new vocabulary and engage your class. I couldn't find a story that taught exactly what I wanted my kids to learn, so I wrote my own! Instead of doing a simple word document or power point to create my pages, I decided to create a prezi. (I'll provide the link to see my prezi at the end after explaining what prezi is all about.)


Prezis ("The Zooming Presentation[s]") are basically the new form of powerpoint. They allow you to zoom in and out, view at different angles, and just make power points that much more fun. My mother (who used to be a middle school science teacher and is now principal of that school - Go Mom!) taught me this tool and I have used it for so many slideshows, presentations, and my own stories since then. Prezi is great because it allows you to make the presentation so much more fun and engaging than just a regular powerpoint. It is also super simple to use. There are lots of tutorials on the website that teach you all sorts of cool tricks to make your presentation even cooler. The best part? It's free! Now, you can choose to pay for an option that allows you to do more (Check out the different options here) but I have found the free version to be exactly what I need. I guess the next option up is also free for students and teachers, but I haven't explored that yet. If someone does, please let me know what you think!


Since I teach elementary school, I, as the teacher, am typically the only one creating presentations. However, this would be a great tool for students to use as they get older. Like I've said, it's just like power point... only way cooler. There are some high school teachers in my district who use it with their students, and from what I've heard, the students are more animated about creating slideshows using prezi than just power point. 


Finally... as promised... my prezi about monsters! Enjoy!

Ropa Vieja: old clothes or a tasty dish?

For my birthday last week, my husband took me to a delicious Cuban restaurant, Havana Grill. He knows how much I love my Latin food and this was a very nice, and very tasty, treat. There were so many delicious options that it was difficult to choose exactly which ones would be our dinner. However I decided on "Havana Roasted Pulled Pork" (Slow roasted pork, served with jalapeno mashed potatoes and roasted cream corn) and my husband chose "Ropa Vieja." He had a delectable dish of "choice flank steak simmered in a garlic, tomato, and bell pepper sauce until tender, served with white rice, black beans, & sweet plantains."

Ropa vieja... yum!

This dish is primarily Caribbean. I was telling my Honduran friend about this dish and he stared at me with a curious look on his face. He is a native speaker of Spanish while I learned my skills through my high school class. Knowing this, he asked me if I knew what "ropa vieja" meant. I laughed because I realized why he was looking at me so funny. In Spanish, "ropa vieja" literally means "old clothes." I explained to him that my husband did not eat a plate of old clothes and that it is in fact the real name of a delicious Cuban dish. He laughed too. I have heard a number of reasons as to why this dish is named the way it is. Wikipedia says "a man [was on his way] home for dinner. Being very poor, the man could not buy them enough food when they came. To remedy his situation, he went to his closet, gathered some old clothes (ropa vieja) and imbued them with his love. When he cooked the clothes, his love for his family turned them into a wonderful beef stew." Some food experts say that it is because the shredded beef resembles old rags. I prefer the first story but to each his own.

Go straight, turn left, turn left, STOP!

I am the type of teacher who loves to plan unit by unit, attempt to do the whole backwards design thing, and always have lessons planned out at least a week in advance. This has worked out pretty well for me so far this year but this week I could just not figure out what I wanted to do with my 4th graders. We're just finishing up a unit called "Around Town" and their final product was to create a drawing and describe it, talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. To take this unit one step further, the curriculum introduces the idea of giving directions to get around town and uses the buildings where the jobs work. I just could not figure out how I wanted to teach the directions in a way that was fun and engaging. I succumbed to google searches to see if any other elementary teacher had posted lesson ideas for this topic but was out of luck. One morning this week when I was in a panic about not knowing what to teach in 3 hours, an idea sprung to my head.... an obstacle course! This is by no means an original idea... it's actually something I did when I was a Resident Adviser at the University of Michigan. There, it was a trust activity as one person told their blindfolded partner how to safely make it through an obstacle course. I figured, why not do this and give directions in Spanish? So, I borrowed domes from the gym teachers, set up 3 courses out in the halls, and drew up little "cheat" sheets for the students to look at in case they forgot their right from their left. 

 The materials: cut-up towels for blindfolds, domes, black masking tape on the floor, and the "cheat" sheet.

 The course in the hall. Students started at one black line and had to make it to the other without touching a dome.

Me trying to be artistic with my camera :) I thought it looked cool, especially with the reflection on the floor. 

Once the students arrived in class, I broke them up into groups of 2. Then we went out to the hall. One partner received a blindfold and the other received a cheat sheet. I decided to do 3 obstacle courses so that more groups could go at once. One group started on each course, and when they were halfway through, another group started. Once the groups finished, they switched roles and started over. The students were so excited about this activity and were speaking so much Spanish! For coming up with this activity right before class, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :) Don't get me wrong, planning ahead is ALWAYS the better way to go. However, sometimes our best ideas spring to mind when we are under pressure. :) 

Where did they go?

This week was the second meeting of my lunch club group from the multiage classes. Since the students don't have school today (there is a tri-district meeting for all the teachers), I held both 4th and 5th grade lunch clubs yesterday. My 5th grade multiage was the smallest group to begin with, and dos people did not show up so we had a group of six girls. However, I love this group of six and we just laugh the whole time. They speak in Spanglish and are constantly trying out  new sentences. I love watching these girls explore the language and it is so much fun to eat lunch with them. They were sad when lunch was over and we actually ran over by a few minutes. By the time we got cleaned up and I got down to the lunch room to pick up the 4th graders, most had already settled in and were content to stay where they were. A lot of the 4th graders choose to eat in their home classrooms though, so the one boy who was ready for lunch club and I swung by the other classrooms upstairs. However when I announced lunch club in those rooms, these 4th graders had also already settled into their spots and weren't too content on leaving. So I sent the boy back down to the lunch room to eat with his friends. I am hoping the reason that lunch club wasn't as popular yesterday is because I was late in picking them up. They all seemed to be really enjoying themselves during the first meeting and I hope to get that excitement back in 2 weeks. We'll see! At least the 5th graders still had a blast :)

Mmm... delicioso

I had my first week of lunch club with the traditional classes this week. About twice as many students showed up from traditional classes than the multiage classes. Almost every seat in my classroom was full and that doesn't even happen for some of the classes I actually teach! I was impressed and a little nervous but happy to see the club be so popular. I gave the students the options of either just sitting and chatting and trying it (it: referring to speaking Spanish) or coming up with different topics for each week to talk about. These groups chose to just sit and talk and see where that takes them. It's so funny how each lunch club is so different, yet the introduction of the idea was the same in every class. That just shows you how student personalities really do affect your plans for the day. 


There were a few students in this group that had signed up that made me slightly uneasy. They aren't the best kids in class; they tend to misbehave and not focus all the time and really only speak Spanish when pushed. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was those same kids who were trying the hardest to speak Spanish during lunch club. I think that giving them the freedom to talk about whatever they wanted in a relatively unstructured time/setting really allowed these kids to shine and see that Spanish really does actually interest them. It also made their class more fun as I taught their class right after lunch. They were so much more well-behaved and engaged in my class! 


One other fun thing about lunch club this week.... I don't see every student in the upper grades because some are pulled out for speech therapy or ELL help or other needs. One of the girls in particular is a native Spanish speaker and so I think she gets a lot of ELL help. After hearing about lunch club, she came up to me outside the cafeteria and asked it she could join! I was so excited because not only does it give me a chance to get to know a student that I don't teach, it allows her the chance to be proud of her native language. Sometimes native speakers are embarrassed by their first language because it's different than everyone else. Lunch club is really helping to show that speaking another language is cool and awesome and something of which to be proud. I am so happy with where it's going.

There is an elephant that is small, fat, purple, and blue...

TPRS with my fifth graders was fun this week. Due to assemblies and a few missed classes, we will be finishing up the cuentos next week but overall it was awesome. I am very happy with how the stories came to life! The students were very excited and had lots of good ideas. Here's the process I used in class. There are a few things I'd tweak and couple things that need improvement but overall this process worked out pretty well.


First, I told the students that we were going to be creating a cuento fantástico. Since cuento is a new word, I told them what it meant in English right away. (It means story for all you non-Spanish speakers.) Then, I introduced 3 new vocabulary terms. Now, these vocabulary terms are not what we are currently studying in class but are necessary words in order to create a story. These words are va a ... (he/she goes to ...), le da... (he or she gives ... to him/her), and dice (he/she says). I put the words up on the board with the English right next to it. After pairing each phrase with a gesture, I had the students translate what the words meant. (side note: Sometimes I like the immediate translation from Spanish to English because then you know for sure if the students are understanding or not, but that also takes away from teaching students how to think in Spanish. I flip flop back and forth from what I think is most beneficial so for now, it depends on the activity but I provide both methods at some point in my class. Most often, I choose to provide picture translations so the students can see the picture and interpret the meaning from there. However, pictures aren't always as clear as I want them to be so that can sometimes be more confusing. It all depends.) Getting back to TPRS... after practicing saying the phrases with the gestures, I said the phrases and the students just did the gestures. We practiced groups of 3 phrases in a row (for example, dice dice le da or le da va a dice) with open eyes so students could still see the board. Then they closed their eyes and had to do the gestures without any hints and just from memory. Everyone did really well! This was all I did to practice the vocabulary. My cooperating teacher from last year would have a bit more practice before eyes closed. He split the class into to groups (boys/girls) and would have one group perform while the other group watched. Then they switched so the other group could perform. After all that, they did the gestures with eyes closed. Since I don't have as much time with my elementary students, I decided to take away that step.


Finally it was time for the story. Yay! Since this was the first time with my students, we talked in English a little first about what is important in a story... a problem, a setting, and a character. After discussing (briefly) these story elements, it was time to create the character in Spanish. They could chose person or animal, what type of animal, the name, adjectives to describe it, any colors, etc... That is how one class came up with Hay un elefante. El elefante es pequeño, gordo, morado, y azul. (There is an elephant. The elephant is small, fat, purple, and blue.) Since we're currently studying tener expressions, the elephant's problem was that he was scared since he was so small. So he decided to eat a lot of food in order to get bigger and be less scared. 


One huge part of TPRS is circling the vocabulary with lots of questions. It takes a very long time to build this skill and practice only makes you better. However, taking a year off really lowers your skill level.... as it has done to mine. By the end of my student teaching, I could circle the vocabulary quickly, with lots of variety, and make sure all of my students could answer every question. I am still trying to get back into that mindset so my circling questions aren't as great right now. That only improves with time :) I'm already way better today than I was at the beginning of the week.


After the story was finished the students then read (out loud and in Spanish!) their story that I had typed out and projected onto the board. Each student read one sentence (and did a fantastic job I might add!) then I handed out a paper with three boxes. Since each story is 3 paragraphs, students needed to draw one paragraph for each box on their paper. They really enjoyed this part. I'm looking forward to doing more stories with my students! I know I'll post again about TPRS soon, so keep your eye out if this topic interests you. If you're interested in reading one of my class's stories, It's below this post, entirely in Spanish, and in the words of my students.

Hay una persona. Es una chica. La chica se llama Selena Gomez. Es baja y bonita y gorda. Tiene mucha hambre.

Selena Gomez va al restaurante. El restaurante se llama Scooters. Justin Beiber trabaja en Scooters.  Justin Beiber es feo y gordo. Justin Beiber le da el plátano con chocolate. Selena Gomez dice <¡Qué asco!> y está enojada.

Selena Gomez va a un restaurante diferente. El restaurante se llama The Melting Pot y está en Lake Forest. Justin Timberlake y Maroon 5 trabajan en The Melting Pot. 6 personas trabajan en The Melting Pot. Justin Timberlake y Maroon 5 le dan el sándwich de helado chocolate. Selena Gomez dice <Mmm delicioso> y está feliz. Está feliz porque no tiene hambre. El fin.

Translator?

I was hired as a Spanish teacher to work with students in grades 3-5. Along with teaching comes a lot of other responsibilities such as lunch duty, curriculum redesign, communicate with coworkers, etc. I was not hired as a translator even though there are a number of Spanish-only speaking families in my district. The ELL teacher was hired to do that. This hasn't bothered me too much because honestly, speaking with native speakers really does make me nervous. I am very confident in my language skills and can get along with the best of them but I do not consider myself fluent. I have not immersed myself enough to confidently say that I am fluent. I do admit that I am a very advanced speaker. Even though most of my time is spent teaching basic level Spanish, I still converse with some of my co-workers in Spanish and have helped out potential adopters in their native language at the animal shelter where I volunteer. I do wish that I had more opportunities to use my Spanish on a broader basis and maintain (or improve) my speaking skills. Any ideas out there?


Anyway, last week was parent-teacher conferences and the ELL teacher was running around translating but was double booked for one hour and couldn't make it to one conference. The social worker came and found me and I was more than happy to do the job. At the last minute, the ELL teacher showed up but then another conference had the potential need for a translator. Again, I happily went. I was actually disappointed to find out that the parent could speak pretty good English (don't get me wrong... I'm happy for him just disappointed to not use my skills) and I did not need to translate at all. I was excited (but also very nervous) to offer my skills that not many other people at my school possess! Needless to say, I moved on from the disappointment and focused on the teaching again. However, this afternoon my skills were needed and I was a huge help! A new student needs to register with my school but the whole process is very confusing and since the ELL teacher is only 50% and works mornings not afternoons, I got to help out. While some parts were very difficult for me to translate (for example... you need to have a notarized affidavit signed by the person with whom you are living and not paying rent to... I can barely understand this sentence in English, let alone translate it to Spanish!) overall I believe that I was very helpful. It made me feel really good to help out. I would like to find a way to incorporate more of this into my current, or future, jobs. Not only will it help me maintain my language level, but it will also allow me to help and communicate with others. And that is why I believe so strongly in language education. Our world is growing smaller and smaller but not everyone speaks the same language. Only by learning the language of our neighbors will we truly be able to create an inviting community. Even if you are only able to speak a few words of another language, it will make that person feel so much more comfortable. Besides, learning about new cultures comes hand in hand with learning new languages and it's so much fun to discover new facts about the world!

Storytelling

I had a different student teaching experience than most people for two reasons. First, I student taught not only Spanish, but also math (both at the secondary level). My minor is in mathematics and when searching last year, I always found that there were more math jobs available than Spanish jobs. However, teaching math allowed me to fully realize my passion for teaching Spanish. I discovered that while I enjoy doing math on my own and love the challenge of solving a difficult problem, I do not enjoy as much teaching other people how to find that joy in solving a difficult problem. My passion does not lie with mathematics... my true passion lies with the teaching of world languages and making the world smaller by helping people to communicate with each other.


The second reason my student teaching experience was different is because I did not teach the "traditional" method... i.e. out of a textbook. Instead, I learned how to teach using Blaine Ray's TPRS: Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling method. I love this method! I taught the first semester of Spanish 1 and was amazed by how much my students grew in such a small amount of time. By the end of the first week, the students had created a short story, retold the short story, and written a different short story entirely in Spanish! Now, by short story, I do mean SHORT story. It was a small paragraph with no more than a few sentences. However by the end of the semester, my students could easily write over 100 word stories in under 8 minutes. The first rule of TPRS according to my cooperating teacher is that normal is boring. So, my students could never create a story about a brown dog that is thirsty and searches for water. Instead, they came up with ideas to make stories more interesting (ie a short, fat, purple dog searches for chocolate milk); they added twists to the stories to have something unexpected occur (the dog drives a car in his desperate attempt to find said milk); and always, ALWAYS, something exploded at the end of the story (possibly the car... but luckily the dog was in the school getting his chocolate milk from a fifth grader so he was safe). That last bit was my cooperating teacher's touch to TPRS: teach the kids how to say something explodes and before you know it, at the end of every story their rival school gets blown up. That, I must say, was very entertaining to me.


Now, there are a few things that I dislike about TPRS (for example, the books that go along with the curriculum are repetitive with a plot that leaves much to be desired and the movies are very clearly independent films that were not very enjoyed by my high schoolers) but overall I think that it is a fantastic method of teaching. I've really missed it this year with teaching elementary students, so I am actually trying it out with my 5th graders this week! It's going to look very different though for a couple a reasons. My class time is bumped from 70 minutes/day to 27 minutes/3x a week. So last year while I was able to complete a whole cuento in one class from start to finish, I think it will take me a week with my schedule this year. I have been doing some research in a book I found called ¡Hola niños! by Carol Gaab. (Her blog is here.) This book is very comprehensive and specific and gives units, vocabulary, and actual day-to-day lesson plans easy enough for anyone to follow. In order to use these exact materials, I think it is necessary to start from the beginning so that the students have the same vocabulary as the curriculum and can follow the curriculum the way it is laid out. Since this is the first time my students have been taught using the TPRS method I am instead looking at her general lesson plans and adapting those activities to the vocabulary that I am currently teaching (tener expressions). However, her lesson plans are for 5 day weeks and I only have a 3 day week so I am adjusting the activities there as well. I'll write again at the end of the week and let you know how it went! If anyone has any tips or advice for using TPRS with a younger audience, please let me know!