¡En español, por favor!

I’m at the point of my career that every day is Professional Development. I spend two days a week at a high school, observing, teaching, and getting plenty of feedback and advice. I spend three days and an evening at my university, taking classes specifically designed for pre-service teachers, and observing how my professors teach us. I spend one morning a week helping out at a Saturday school. I chat with my mom, a retired ESL teacher, and her friends from the profession. I never go a day without getting some sort of input that helps me develop as a teacher. But what about the next 40 years? How do I continue to grow as a teacher over the course of my career? I plan to constantly question my own practice and to continue speaking with fellow teachers. In addition, I’d like to learn from other teachers from different districts at conferences, such as my state’s World Language Association’s conference, which I just attended this week.

As my mentor teacher pointed out to me, attending this conference is invaluable not only because I get to see how other teachers teach languages, but because I would be seeing the very latest in world language teaching. And the theme of the conference indeed seemed to be innovation. In general, when one thinks about “innovation,” the first thing to come to mind is often “technology.” And technology was certainly a theme in every presentation I attended. However, it wasn’t the only innovation discussed.

One of the big innovations discussed at the conference was the 90% rule. For those of you who aren’t language teachers, the 90% rule is the idea that language teachers should be talking in the target language for at least 90% of class time, no matter what level the class is. This contrasts greatly with my own experience as a K12 language learner. Both my elementary school and my high school taught world languages in English, and as a result, my exposure to the target languages was quite limited. With the 90% rule, students are exposed to the target language for roughly 5 hours a week – which isn’t much, but it’s a lot better than nothing.

There seems to be a lot of pushback to the 90% rule. In conversation with other teachers attending the conference, I often heard the opinion that there was no point to teaching in the target language because the students wouldn’t understand. In one presentation I attended, “El 90%: Métodos y Actividades,” the presenters began with a straw poll of whether we thought that it was possible to teach 1st and 2nd year classes while speaking Spanish 90% of the time. The answer was a resounding “Impossible!” Keep in mind that this was not a straw poll of a general population of language teachers – this was an audience specifically composed of language teachers who had taken the time to come to this conference, to stay until the very end, and to attend a presentation specifically addressing not whether but how to teach mostly in the target language.

I was surprised by all of the pushback. In my school, we teach in the target language. In the school I worked at in Spain, we taught English in English. And of course, no ESL teacher is expected to speak the native language of all of her or his students, who may come from many different countries, and therefore the ESL teacher has no choice but to teach in English. Why so much disbelief about something that language teachers everywhere already do?

There seemed to be two main reasons for the pushback. The first was a lack of comfortableness with the target language on the part of the teacher. This wasn’t specifically addressed in any of the presentations I attended, but I suppose that the only way to fix that is to practice speaking the language until they’re comfortable with it. After all, you can’t expect your students to do something that you’re not doing.

The second reason for pushback was the belief that students won’t understand them if they speak the target language. I say “belief” because it is a belief, and not a given fact. There are many ways teachers make ourselves easier to understand. We speak slowly. We simplify our sentences. We use cognates whenever possible. We repeat. We gesticulate. We model. We draw on the board. We activate background knowledge. We stick with words our students are familiar with, and introduce new words or forms slowly. At the conference, I learned other methods, such as making powerpoints with pictures of the teacher doing an activity and a sentence describing it, or using realia found online and having a structured conversation around it. The list goes on. In fact, you’re probably already bored by the length of this paragraph.

It’s my belief that a teacher can make herself understandable to any student, even an absolute beginner. If a teacher can’t make herself understandable to their students while speaking the target language, in many cases either the teacher or the student hasn’t tried hard enough. And if it’s the latter, it’s the teacher’s job to engage the student until she or he starts trying harder.

I’m not trying to say that it’s easy to teach a class in the target language. There is a steep learning curve to learning in the target language, and teachers must be careful that their students don’t despair when they don’t understand something repeated for the third time. Sometimes minutes are wasted trying to explain something that’s not all that important for the students to know how to say in the target language. There are days when a student just can’t focus on understanding speech in the target language. However, I think both the teachers and the students will find that the pay-off is worth the extra effort.

To Rubric or Not To Rubric, That is the Question

This past Thursday, David Theune came to my Teaching With Technology class to talk about student motivation for excellent work. In particular, he spoke about the rubric model and the audience model. Theoretically, rubrics offer students some sort of scaffolding for excellent work, but Theune argued that this is often not the case in real life. He argued that rubrics were often harmful because students at different points of mastery would look at the rubric and think one of two things: This is impossible, where do I even begin? or This is easy, I can crank it out in an hour. In either situation, the student doesn’t put in a lot of effort, and as a result, doesn’t not learn a great deal. Additionally, he argued that rubrics encouraged convergent thinking – everyone gets the same rubric, so everyone churns out the same essay.

Theune argued that we should stop thinking about rubrics and start thinking about audience. He argued that people do better work when they know that someone (other than the teacher, who, let’s face it, basically isn’t a real person) will see it. Theune mentioned different audiences students might have, such as parents, peers in a different district, younger students in the same district, and the world at large, and he discussed the benefits of each audience. For example, in inviting parents into the classroom, we would strengthen family-school connections. In having our students present to younger students, we would give them the opportunity to teach, which both helps them learn their material and gives them the chance to feel like rock stars. My particular subject matter lends itself more to some audiences than others. Many of my students will have parents who don’t speak any Spanish, and who would be less likely to attend a performance in my class than an English-language class. However, a pen-pal or skype-pal with a native Spanish speaker could really motivate my students to improve their speaking and/or writing skills. After all, nothing pushes you to get better at communication than having something to say and someone to say it to.

I agree with Theune that students are unlikely to turn in shoddy or perfunctory work if they know that someone who matters to them will see it. This takes care of the I can crank it out in an hour students. However, it doesn’t address the students who thing This is impossible, where do I even begin? Students are unlikely to turn in shoddy work, yes, but a perfectionist or a student who feels lost may simply turn nothing in at all. For evidence, see this very blog, which I have posted nothing on all summer and all of September. For many students, taking away the rubric and giving them an audience may be the equivalent of throwing them into the deep end and then posting the results on youtube. They might be so terrified of being laughed at by their pen-pal that they don’t write to them at all.

Another issue raised in class was the viability of inviting parents into the classroom during the workday to watch their kids perform poetry or read essays. Many parents work one or more jobs and would be unable to attend anything during the day. This could make students whose parents couldn’t come feel less motivated than their peers whose parents could make it to the performance. A possible solution to this problem could be to videotape the event and make it available to all of the parents, either online (those without home computers could watch it at a library) or on dvd’s. Another solution could be to alternate, and have one workday event each semester and one after-school or weekend event each semester, to give more parents a fighting chance of attending something.

I would make a special effort to try to get parents who speak Spanish into the classroom. Particularly in the upper-level Spanish courses, I would invite Spanish speaking parents to talk about a subject of their choice, which would not only strengthen family-school connections, but would also give my students a chance to get authentic Spanish input and to learn about an interesting topic to boot. Parent presentations in Spanish would potentially touch on 4 of the 5 C’s of language teaching: Communication (listening comprehension and question asking in the target language), Connections with other disciplines (using the target language to talk about the topic of the parent’s choice), and Communities (using the target language in the community, and not just for schoolwork), as well as potentially Culture, depending on whether the parent chooses to speak about a cultural topic.

In the end, I think Theune had some great ideas, but I don’t think that one has to see rubrics and audiences as either/or. Many students could be helped by rubrics, which serve as scaffolding for students who don’t know where to begin, while their audience would push most students to perform beyond a perfunctory checking off of each requirement. And yet, I wonder what to do for the student who is afraid to perform. Any suggestions?

La vuelta de la profe profi

It feels strange to write in this blog, over a year after my last post. And what a year it has been. I've written various drafts for this vuelta-de-la-profe-profi post, but in the end, none of them satisfied me, in part, I suppose, because my old audience won't read it and I don't yet know how to write for my new audience. Pues, nada. Adelante.

Schooooooool's out! for! summer!

On Monday, I had my last session of Teaching With Technology until September. The activity from that day that stuck with me most wasn’t actually technology-based, which isn’t unusual for this class. (More on that later in this post.) Four of us volunteered without knowing what we were doing, and we were sat down at tables facing away from each other. At first, I thought we were going to do something competitive, but I was happy to find that, in fact, we were working as a single unit. I much prefer working as a group than working in competition – competitive games are zero-sum, and I hate the added dimension of the impossibility of everyone coming out happy - if you try your best, you please your teammates, but it means the other teams are more likely to have an unhappy outcome. Furthermore, it means keeping discoveries from people on the other team, which in turn complicates even sharing these discoveries with people on your team since you don't want the "others" to hear. When everyone works together, there's none of that inner-conflict, so it's all about problem-solving, curiosity, teamwork and fun.

Each table was given an envelope with puzzle pieces and we had to piece together the puzzle. The thing is that we each only had half the puzzle, so we had to figure out how to put it together, without seeing the pieces the other pair had. First, we figured out more or less what we had, and put together a decent chunk, and then we started talking with the other pair. I systematically went through the pieces, from bottom left to bottom right, then the next row up, etc, until we had accounted for every piece. It was a fun and satisfying game. But what's it got to do with technology?

One thing I love about this class is that we never start with technology and try to find a lesson to fit it. We start with problems and then we try to figure out how to solve them in our class discipline, and then we see where technology fits into the picture. I like this method a lot, because I'm starting to see how tech really does fit in to a lot of lessons in a logical and useful way. Now that I see how tech can expand my students' options, if it's used correctly, I have a much more positive attitude about it.

 It’s been a really great class, and I’ve learned a lot in this short time. I wouldn’t say that my technological skills have increased drastically, yet I’ve learned to use a number of new programs. To be honest, I don’t think I even used a shared GoogleDoc until starting this program (and I’m trying to accept that having shared spreadsheets means sometimes giving up the idea of alphabetization, since most people just add themselves to the bottom of the document. In case anyone reading this is wondering, I am the one who’s been putting everyone in alphabetical order when we make contact-sheets, dinner plans, etc.) I think the biggest thing for me was just becoming more familiar with different computer programs, and realizing that using new ones isn’t so daunting.

Edited August 6th: Apropos of using "new" programs – I've just made my first PowerPoint Presentation! I am inordinately proud - I think I am now officially as technologically advanced as the average Victorian... maybe even the average Edwardian! Anyhow, glad I got that milestone over with before starting to teach on my own.

EduBloggers! (Because two-word portmanteaus are for the weak.)

This weekend, I looked at a couple of edublogs for my Teaching With Technology class. I skimmed a few weeks of Langwitches, reading 4 or 5 posts in-depth, and read a few posts of Teachers At Risk. It's been really cool reading my colleagues' amazing blogs, seeing their different takes on the same or similar readings and classes that I've experienced. It's also nice to read the blog of someone who hasn't been following more or less the same path as me this last month and a half. I think I'll start reading these, and a few more edublogs, on a semi-regular basis.

One of the first things that struck me while reading Langwitches was the importance Tolisano gives to authorship. The latest entry (at the time I'm writing this) is about creative commons copyright. To those unfamiliar with CC, the idea is that anyone can use the images, text, etc that you post/publish/leave lying around your living room labeled as CC - as long as they credit you, and as long as they don't make any attempt to profit off of your work. It's beautiful and idealist, like CouchSurfing before they sold out (a rambling post for another day), a testiment that people are basically good and that the internet is a great way to foster communication and collaboration. Tolisano makes an all-too-common lament that people, for various reasons, subvert the purpose of CC, particularly with leaving off authorship. She lists a number of reasons people seem to do it, ranging from malicious intent* (claiming her work as their own) to simple ignorance**. I'm glad she addressed the fact that many people break copyright law online simply because they don't know any better. We have to remember that many users of the internet are children, or adults with limited technological literacy/experience. All the more reason to educate people about important internet norms.

Scrolling down to June 11th, you can see some e-books her kids made about animals. I clicked through (totally worth it - they're adorable!) and was struck by two things. 1) There was some misinformation in the book about sharks, so fact-checking wasn't as emphasized as it could have been (humans are NOT a major food source for sharks!) and 2) the e-books ended with a bibliography. Yes, the bibliographies had only one book each. But Tolisano is teaching the kids, early on, that it's important to cite your sources. This message cannot be given early or often enough!

Langwitches is filled with useful tutorials and flow-charts, including a poster about how to use e-mail for school, and how to use different tools. I think I'll find this website pretty useful for getting more familiar with common technology. I was pretty turned off by one post she had, though, about how technophobes need to "just get over it!" While you don't want teachers who don't know basics, like how to check email, telling those of us with lower technological literacy to "get over it" is not particularly encouraging. In fact, in makes me less likely to want to read her blog, and thus less likely to learn to use what she's berating me for not already knowing. Maybe she was just trying to blow off steam after a particularly frustrating exchange with another teacher. But blogs are editable, and she should have changed the title of that entry by now.

The other edublog I read was Teachers At Risk. I really liked the entry titled Nine Questions I Ask My Students on the First Day of School. She wrote it for her special ed math class, but it's easily adaptable to any subject matter, and seems like a great way to set a positive tone on the first day, while also getting a good idea of what areas/skills your students will be able to leverage well, and what will need more scaffolding***.

Does anyone else have an edublog they would recommend? Comments welcome!

* Kate Beaton's reaction to the Grumpy Cat people stealing one of her jokes to make a profit.

** FAQ for Hyperbole and a Half. Scroll down to see Brosh address reposting without crediting the author.

***Did I really just write scaffolding in my blog? Alternately, p<0.005.



EDIT: Thanks, Anne, for catching the spelling error! I had interpreted it as a sandwich of languages, instead of a magician of languages. That would have made it difficult for people to find the blog, in case of link-failure!

EverNote and Primary Pad

I'm usually a pretty reluctant adopter of technology, but I've surprised myself this week by starting to use two new programs since my last blog post. One of them, I learned about in the class where I presented about XMarks, and the other we used in class on Monday.

Over the weekend, I started using EverNote, and I'm pretty happy about it. I'm just using it for class notes and for a to-do list, but it's really helpful. My to-do list is in different colors depending on what class it's for, or if it's a non-school-related obligation. With everything in one place, it's much easier to see what I need to do, and it's satisfying to click those “done” boxes. I know I could just make something similar in word, but having this on EverNote makes it easier to find, and if I don't have my computer, I can reach it from online.

In terms of notes, I'm still on the fence. I really like having all my notes all together. It will make things especially easy for cross-referencing between readings and between class lectures. However, I don't like the outline form. I am used to using an outline form in Open Office that alternates numbers and letters. Using EverNote, all of the numbers and letters are just numbers, so it's not as easy to keep track of where you are when you're writing or reading notes.

Right now, I'm still taking my notes in OpenOffice and then copy-and-pasting them to EverNote. But if I ever edit the notes, it messes up the outline form. So it's a process.

The second thing I started using was Primary Pad. You use it to make a text document with other people, and everyone can work on it simultaneously. It was really cool to use it while working with two others on our lesson plan. The text of each person who edits the document is highlighted a different color, so you can keep track of what you've written, and what other people have written. I really liked working on it simultaneously, because we could be editing different paragraphs at the same time, and didn't have to wait for each other to get to the keyboard. It's also cool to use when we're not together. It's nice that we'll all have access to it, like a GoogleDoc, and that everyone's different colors will cue us in to what parts the others have edited since the last time we looked at the doc.

One problem I have with Primary Pad is that it requires the internet. I'm reluctant to use anything in my classroom that requires a connection. While I always have a back-up plan, especially when technology is involved in the activity, it's frustrating for students to have to change gears abruptly when they're really getting into something, and the internet connection suddenly fails. At least with EverNote, you can edit things without an internet connection, you just can't synch it, but with Primary Pad, you can't really do anything while the internet's down. Still, it could be used in the media center, where computers often have wired access to the web.

The moral of the story is that even I can start to use technology, and it may even make me more organized, which is something I sorely need. Does anyone have any advice on the whole outline-form in EverNote thing? Any other advice for using tech in general?

See you all in class!