Objective: To give teachers the resources and the confidence to expose their students to grammar, vocabulary, and culture through the use of authentic resources and fluency-based teaching, learning, and assessment.
Visit this URL to access my presentation: tinyurl.com/noscantrons
French Prince: Google Translated
I. Introduction [5 minutes]
II. What is fluency-based teaching, learning, and assessment? [5 minutes]
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So I have had the privilege to attend the NC GAFE conference this week to learn about all of the amazing things Google Apps for Education has for us to use in our classrooms. The keynote speaker, Kevin Brookhouser, talked about a really innovative project he does with his classes each year called the 20 Time Project. It's really innovative and really excited, I'm so jazzed to try it in my classroom!
Essentially, the idea was based off of the 20% time policies at Google and 3M in which employees of the two companies can propose to explore a question or interest and receive funding; they are able to explore this interest for 20% of their time at work. At 3M one such project, a failed project intended to create a super-adhesive, resulted in the glorious Post-It note and at Google Gmail was developed! It sounds like this could be a really exciting opportunity! In his classroom, Brookhouser gave the students free-reign and allowed them to pick a project based on any subject, whatever they wanted. At first, his students felt restricted by the traditional "educational contract" between student and teacher wherein the teacher tells the student what to do and he/she does it, which was obviously violated when Brookhouser refused to tell them what to do. After a failed brainstorming session, Brookhouser decided to do a Bad Idea Factory, essentially an anti-idea brainstorming session. Surprisingly, from that Bad Idea Factory, students ended up coming up with great ideas that led to fantastic 20 Time projects, like one student who said it would be a bad idea to pretend to be in a wheelchair for a month. After his peers said that it was actually a good idea, the student wheeled around for a full month and realized that his campus was not wheelchair-friendly, so for his 20 Time project he built a sidewalk that connected two buildings that were previously connected by a precarious dirt path. It all sounds like an opportunity for chaos and wasted time in the classroom, but in order to keep students accountable, Brookhouser decided to have students write up a formal proposal, create an elevator speech (30 second explanation of their project), and do a weekly blog post about their progress. It seems like there would be a lot of front-loading and extreme planning, but it really sounds like a great opportunity for students to explore and problem-solve in a way they just can't do in a traditional classroom experience. There were SO MANY amazing projects that came out of this idea that I have decided to do this in my classroom. I'm struggling a little with trying to figure out how to tie it to my content area, but for now I think I will use this with my Level 3 students and have them write their weekly blog posts in French. We shall see! I don't know about you, but for me going to a Professional Development conference (an effective one, mind you) in the middle of a crazy semester is like being thrown a life preserver when you are treading water and barely keeping afloat; it gives me an opportunity to stop, breathe, and evaluate what I am doing.
This year at the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC) Fall Conference, I was given two amazing opportunities: 1) to go for free thanks to a generous scholarship from FLANC, and 2) to present on a topic that I am extremely passionate about: proficiency-based, technology-driven teaching and learning. I went into FLANC a little nervous because, while I had presented at a conference before, this was my first conference in which I was actually presenting to peers of my same content area. It's nerve-wracking to get up in front of 20 other amazing educators who are taking time out of their busy schedules to better themselves and are hoping that my presentation will help achieve that goal. While my presentation left much to be desired (hey, it was my first real presentation), it felt wonderful to share this passion of mine with fellow World Language educators. As a participant, I attended many wonderful presentations that made me really think about how I can be a better French teacher and really teach my kids how to speak French, not just how to memorize pointless grammar. In one of the sessions my idea of interpersonal speaking activities was challenged and turned on its head; I ended up coming straight back to my classroom and tweaking activities that I thought were amazing and making them truly phenomenal. I was even given the opportunity to talk ASW with some veterans of the process, so I feel much more prepared for my own ASW this year. Each session I attended gave me new and innovative ideas, but my big take-away from the conference was Interactive Notebooks. I have heard of a lot of people using INs, but I have resisted because I thought my way was better until I heard from Carrie Hinson, a first-year teacher who has used INs to make her kids experience the language/grammar in a way that I had not considered possible on paper. Through hands-on activities, foldables, and songs, Carrie has made her middle school Spanish class an inviting, innovative space where real learning occurs. You can email Carrie for her presentation, it's worth it to see how passionate her kids are about learning Spanish because of a few small things that their teacher does to make it interesting; she even has a Pinterest page. I plan to implement Interactive Notebooks in my class next semester, which I think will help to invigorate my teaching and give my students a much more hands-on learning experience. I'm really excited about it, so stay tuned! So, even though I am in the midst of a coo-coo-cocoa puffs kind of semester, after attending FLANC I feel refreshed and ready to conquer my classroom with some new, innovative teaching and learning. How to create an effective curriculum
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Objective: To give all in attendance the basic materials, resources, information and confidence needed to go beyond the textbook and develop an task-driven, proficiency-based curriculum for their own classrooms.
I. How it all began [5 minutes]
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In Summer 2013, we decided to revise our curriculum to make it more task-based and driven by authentic resources.
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We met for three weeks, during which we came up with our curriculum. The entire curriculum is the same for French and Spanish with minor differences where necessary.
- We decided on five to six themes that were focused onthe AP themes so students would be exposed to the vocabulary and topics from the beginning.
- We used Lee County's modified UbD framework to plan out each unit.
- For each theme/unit, we came up with one to two final performance tasks that the students would complete at the end of each unit.
- We then broke the tasks into smaller skills and laid out the daily plans to teach those skills.
- We developed the vocabulary lists (which we post on Quizlet) by evaluating the vocabulary necessary for each performance task as well as looking at the theme-based vocabulary covered in a few of the textbooks we had encountered.
Spanish Vocabulary Quizlet
French Vocabulary Quizlet: Lee, Wake - We eliminated tests and decided to give quick, formative grammar/vocabulary quizzes frequently and use the final performance task as the measurement of mastery at the end of each unit.
- Most of the performance tasks require students to use multiple modes of language, such as writing and speaking, listening and speaking, or reading and writing.
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We met for three weeks, during which we came up with our curriculum. The entire curriculum is the same for French and Spanish with minor differences where necessary.
- You need a strong departmental bond and be willing to collaborate and delegate.
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You must understand the limitations of your technology
- Do your students all have computers?
- Are you able to project the activities?
- Work together through Google Drive and put EVERYTHING in the folders so that everyone can see, copy, and edit.
I absolutely love doing Socratic Seminars in my class because they allow the students to express their opinions in a safe environment and they open up a lot of good, whole-class discussion; but, in my experience, Socratic Seminars are great for those who enjoy talking and oftentimes it ends up that about seven of my 30 students dominate the conversation and we never really get anywhere. That was, until today.
Today in class I ran a hybrid inner/outer-circle/online Socratic Seminar using TodaysMeet and it completely changed the dynamic of the seminar. Here is the link to the blog post that I gave my students to explain how the process would go, but let me break it down for you because it was just way too amazing not to share.
Disclaimer: This activity does require each student to have access to the internet via a mobile device, tablet, laptop, or computer.
Today in class I ran a hybrid inner/outer-circle/online Socratic Seminar using TodaysMeet and it completely changed the dynamic of the seminar. Here is the link to the blog post that I gave my students to explain how the process would go, but let me break it down for you because it was just way too amazing not to share.
Disclaimer: This activity does require each student to have access to the internet via a mobile device, tablet, laptop, or computer.
Pre-work
For the first two weeks of school we have been talking about cultural tolerance by exploring our views of learning other languages and studying the differences in greetings in various Francophone countries.
Learning Other Languages Philosophical Chairs
Greetings in Francophone Countries Jigsaw
In each of these activities I stressed the importance of not judging other cultures' practices as weird, but instead looking at them as simply different from our own and acknowledging that they were unique and just as legitimate as our own.
Learning Other Languages Philosophical Chairs
Greetings in Francophone Countries Jigsaw
In each of these activities I stressed the importance of not judging other cultures' practices as weird, but instead looking at them as simply different from our own and acknowledging that they were unique and just as legitimate as our own.
Setting up the Seminar
I cannot describe how amazing it is to be starting the year at a brand-new school. The excitement is palpable! It is amazing what a difference environment and culture can make on a person's perspective. I am surrounded by excited, energized, and innovative teachers and I am filled with a new optimism!
Seeing these changes in myself and my colleagues has reminded me how important it is to be positive. Working in a state that does not value education as much as it should can get extremely discouraging, and that can so easily leak into the classroom and suck the life out of my lessons. Sometimes I hear myself wondering why I do this, and I have to take a step back and change my perspective. Teaching is an amazing profession and we may not be respected as much as we shoulde, but we cannot let others' negativity stop us from being the amazing educators we are supposed to be!
So, going into this new year at a new school I have decided to adopt a new positivity. I will not be negative when legislators repeatedly remind that I am expendable, I will not be negative when my students don't appreciate all that I do for them, and I will not allow the negativity of others to keep me from being the light in my classroom. Instead, I choose to be positive and remember that I have been tasked with the awesome responsibility of teaching the next generation.
Seeing these changes in myself and my colleagues has reminded me how important it is to be positive. Working in a state that does not value education as much as it should can get extremely discouraging, and that can so easily leak into the classroom and suck the life out of my lessons. Sometimes I hear myself wondering why I do this, and I have to take a step back and change my perspective. Teaching is an amazing profession and we may not be respected as much as we shoulde, but we cannot let others' negativity stop us from being the amazing educators we are supposed to be!
So, going into this new year at a new school I have decided to adopt a new positivity. I will not be negative when legislators repeatedly remind that I am expendable, I will not be negative when my students don't appreciate all that I do for them, and I will not allow the negativity of others to keep me from being the light in my classroom. Instead, I choose to be positive and remember that I have been tasked with the awesome responsibility of teaching the next generation.
When I was planning with my colleagues last summer we decided that we would do an Amazing Race competition for one of our level 3 and 4 units. We had all kinds of great ideas and we planned for hours to make what we thought was a great project, but when we put it into practice it was a major flop. I was ready to give up and throw in the towel second semester because I could not come up with a way to make the assignment interactive, engaging and easy to keep track of. One day my husband came to the rescue when he sent me a link to the blog Ditch That Textbook which is FULL of Google Apps for Education resources that can be used in a variety of ways, one of which is using Google Forms, Slides and Maps to create an interactive, self-run Amazing Race project. Hallelujah! You can see the post here, but this is what I ended up with.
Pre-Work for Students
I asked myself this same question when I started teaching at a rural, low-income school where the most up-to-date resources I had available to me were at least ten years my senior. I'm here to tell you that it's possible, but it can be tough. Here are a few tips I've learned along the way.
Tip 1: You don't have to pay for your resources
Let's face it, as teachers we do not make enough money to pay for our own resources, at least not in my state. Many of my colleagues will go and spend hundreds of dollars to buy pre-made courses that they end up modifying anyway.
If you're like me and you are simply not capable of buying your own resources, then don't! There are plenty of places where you can find free online resources to teach your students French. For example, you can visit my grammar pages which have exhaustive resources to teach and practice grammar topics at all levels. You can also find resources at sites like French Spanish Online, Frenglish News, Tex's French Grammar, Themes (done by the same school), French-Resources.org and the like.
I like to search through University sites, and I have actually found that sites specifically designed for students in Great Britain to study for the GCSE exams are extremely helpful! A lot of the grammar sites that I come across have sister listening sites or have links to activities. Make sure to bookmark EVERYTHING, because you never know when you could use it.
The bottom line is, the resources are out there, and somebody has probably already done the work for you. Check out my resources pages to find activities as well as more links to great sites that can help you out; some pages are currently under construction but are coming soon!
If you're like me and you are simply not capable of buying your own resources, then don't! There are plenty of places where you can find free online resources to teach your students French. For example, you can visit my grammar pages which have exhaustive resources to teach and practice grammar topics at all levels. You can also find resources at sites like French Spanish Online, Frenglish News, Tex's French Grammar, Themes (done by the same school), French-Resources.org and the like.
I like to search through University sites, and I have actually found that sites specifically designed for students in Great Britain to study for the GCSE exams are extremely helpful! A lot of the grammar sites that I come across have sister listening sites or have links to activities. Make sure to bookmark EVERYTHING, because you never know when you could use it.
The bottom line is, the resources are out there, and somebody has probably already done the work for you. Check out my resources pages to find activities as well as more links to great sites that can help you out; some pages are currently under construction but are coming soon!
Tip 2: Don't be afraid to make your own resources out of what you already have available to you
Bienvenue!
Welcome to my blog where I share tips that I have learned as a young teacher with little to no resources seeking to create a relevant, rigorous French curriculum.
Ressources
L'Écrivain
My name is Mme Probst and I am a French teacher who, after years of struggling to find resources without a text, decided to share my resources with the world so that other teachers didn't have to do the same.
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