"Conversation Interro" : On Opportunities for Learners to Think Critically and Collaboratively at the Start of an Assessment

This past Monday, I opened Matt Miller's (@jmattmiller and @DitchThatTxtbk on X/Twitter) email newsletter to which I'm subscribed, and quickly skimmed the content, like I always do upon initial glance. I tend to see inspirational ideas I want to revisit at a later time, but sometimes I'm so intrigued that I fully read the section of interest on the spot. This was the case on Monday.

The title of the share in question was "Quick Teaching Strategy: Test Talks." Wow! It spoke to me so much so that I read about it on Monday, and tried it out in my class on Tuesday. A quick read with a no-prep idea --- seemingly perfect! Lucky for me, it was indeed an idea that I found practical and potentially beneficial to my learners. Before I briefly explain what the strategy involves, let me thank Matt Miller for sharing this gem that he discovered while reading his feed on Twitter/X. The idea comes from Mathematics instructor, Howie Hua (@howie_hua on X/Twitter.) Many thanks to Howie Hua for sharing his learner-centered testing strategy!

The Original Strategy From a Mathematics Instructor

To engage in a "Test Talk," learners clear their desks, as they normally would do when it is time to begin an assessment. For five minutes, students have the opportunity to skim and scan the test, and then discuss how they plan to tackle the problems. They are only permitted to discuss the test --- no writing is to occur. According to my understanding, this strategy may reduce testing anxiety that learners may feel, especially just before and at the start of an assessment. Additionally, for students who are used to working with classmates, it can serve as another opportunity to collaborate and/or think critically with others.

How It Looked in a High School French Classroom Last Week

Tuesday of this week, my French 3 learners (1 Honors and 2 CP ) were taking a quiz on the imperfect and preterite tenses in French. Both of those past tenses require three steps to successfully write them. For the quiz, I did the "Test Talk" with a modification. I crafted several sentences that were almost identical to the quiz, and then projected them on the smart board. They had 5 or so minutes to discuss the steps they would need to take to successfully write their answers. At the end of the allotted time, I distributed the quizzes, and they worked independently. 

Post "Test Talk" Observations

During the "Test Talk" learners who chose to think critically with their peers were fully engaged. Those who chose not to talk to others were looking at the sentences, and thinking about conjugation steps independently. In the honors course, the anxiety levels I observed before I introduced "Test Talk" were noticeably less visible as they began putting pencil to paper. In the college preparatory classes, there are what seems to be a larger number of learners who struggle with or just do not enjoy interpersonal communication, at least as compared to the students I worked with pre-pandemic. Consequently, I didn't see as much of a change in confidence levels when we started the quiz. There was a positive change, but it wasn't to the degree it was in the honors course. 

The Survey Says....

While observing everyone take their quiz that day, I stood at my bistro table to observe and watch for any learners with questions, like I always do during assessments, and opened up a Google Form template, and wrote two questions on the experience so as to solicit feedback from the groups. They took the survey on Wednesday (the next day.) Some students were absent and some did not respond. I have about 50 French learners this semester. Below are the results of the survey.

Question 1: 

 

Question 2:

Next Steps 

On Thursday (two days after the quiz,) I projected the data on the smart board. As you can see in the results above, this was appreciated by the majority of students. We agreed that we would use this strategy for future assessments. (By the way, back in the fall, I read something on the topic of surveys and how we use (or do not use) the information we receive from our learners. The greatest takeaway was that we have a better chance of building trust and getting buy-in if we share and discuss the results of the surveys we conduct.)

Our next opportunity for "Test Talk," or (insert French accent) "Conversation Interro" will be in a couple of weeks when the fairy tale unit Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) will take place. Learners will be able to spend 5 minutes discussing the writing prompt before we begin. 

Again, I would like to thank Howie Hua for sharing this student-centered idea with the world and Matt Miller for writing about it in his informative newsletter. Merci mille fois! 

Relationships: World Language Advocacy in Education

Bonjour! Hello!

After spending a few months settling in to my new school, I'm happy to sit down and write a quick post. As of last week, I stepped down as a moderator of the weekly Twitter #langchat, so I'm hoping that I'll use the extra time to blog more regularly while exploring new possibilities in world language teaching and learning. Please feel free to contact me if you have a mini or long-term project in mind. If you like to think outside of the box and have an idea that's just been taking up space in your head, let's chat!

So, the inspiration for this post came to me yesterday while in attendance at the annual fall workshop for members (and possible recruits) of the South Carolina chapter of the American Association of French Teachers. We were a small group, sadly, but we had rich discussions, mostly in the target language, before heading to the local French restaurant for some crêpes and/or croissants.  The workshop was geared more towards university French, but there were elementary, middle, high, and university educators all in attendance -- Bravo!

What was fantastic about our time together was the fact that we chatted about advocacy and, specifically, the need for better relationships between high school and college/university faculty. While our language teaching and learning methods don't always compliment each other, we were all on the same page regarding our desire to build and sustain world language programs in all of our schools. Of course, there are many examples of strong relationships between secondary and post-secondary institutions, but this is not the case in many areas of the U.S. and perhaps elsewhere in the world, and it's easy to know this fact if you talk to a few language professors.

What can we do right now to better advocate for world language programs of study? I argued that all of the efforts to tell folks about conferences, resources on social media, and any other opportunities do not always make a difference. The desire to make change MUST come from within, and this is applicable in so many situations, including educator professional learning. A driving force for change in one's personal or professional life can most certainly come from interactions with others. The bottom line: relationships matter. 

While we sometimes have community or school events to enjoy together, there is not always a strong relationship between professors and, specifically, high school educators. We're all busy, but it would be great if we could reach out to one another and propose a coffee meetup to discuss what we could do to not only entice high schoolers to study a language beyond the required number of years, but also to encourage them to continue their language study in college.  Email is great, but it doesn't have the same power as a one-on-one conversation in a nice coffee shop atmosphere. 

It is not forgotten that not all educators live near a college or university, so this can be a real challenge for face-to-face communication, but a coffee meetup via a videoconferencing tool could be the solution. What a great opportunity to find out how both (world language) departments could better establish partnerships for the benefit of the learners -- who are the reason for what we do -- as well as our programs that we work so hard to grow.

Here are some ideas for an initial meetup:

-Find out what types of college majors are offered that include a language component. Let's face it, only a small percentage of people are going to study literature or linguistics after high school. We need to get the information out that there are lots of pathways one could take if s/he enjoys languages. (One might think this info is widely shared already, but it just doesn't seem to be the norm.)          

-Find out if a university professor or adjunct faculty member could visit the local high school to share ways that a students could incorporate a world language in to his or her program of study. (I learned that there are more and more programs that are now offering degrees that include a world language (e.g. political science and French or dental hygiene and French. Who knew?? )) At any rate, we ALL need to know what kind of choices young people have these days. It's 2015. The world is changing, and language programs have to change, too.  

-Get a conversation going about what we actually offer in our classrooms. If we don't REALLY know what's happening at the high school or university, how can we help each other prepare our learners to choose a pathway that includes world languages? Conversations need to happen. And it wouldn't hurt to have those chats over coffee or tea in a nice ambiance. 

-Find out what opportunities are actually in place for study abroad. There has been talk of summer programs for language learners that would help lower the cost that goes along with a semester or junior year abroad. Do our learners know about these options? 

-As for elementary and middle or middle and high, world language educators also need to have a coffee meetup to discuss (and take action) to strengthen enrollment. 

This can all seem overwhelming, especially since our time is stretched thin, but the message I gleaned from our conversation yesterday was that we just need to get conversations started and take small steps to build partnerships. Our profession depends on it. I can say that my plate is super full at the moment due to the transition to a new school, but I am inspired to reach out to the language department at two nearby universities. As a matter of fact, if a university professor reached out to me and asked if I'd meet at the local coffee shop for a chat, I would be more than happy to take an hour out of my afternoon to do so. I'm hoping that the university professors I'll soon contact will feel the same way. (I'll update this post once I make some progress on that front.)

Are you inspired to reach out to one of your state's colleges or universities or to an elementary/middle school? Why or why not? Do you already have a solid partnership (beyond the once-a-year university language event for a certain number of upper level language learners) with a school in your area? If so, please share what you do in the comments.

Celebrating Learning : The Return to Campus & Community

Welcome back to school! Bonne rentrée !  If you haven't returned to school yet, I wish you a happy return to campus when you get there! In either scenario, I hope you will find some inspiration from this post.  Below are some thoughts I have on what we should include on the agenda during those first days with our learning community. Of course, the wonderful thing about life as an educator is that we can achieve these types of goals in numerous ways.

1. Determine what you want your learners to be able to do at the end of the course and create an opportunity to work towards that goal on Day One.

On the first day of school, my main objective is to engage my learners in a little bit of conversation in French since we speak the language 90% of the class period on most days. Even students who are brand new learners of French practiced greetings, small talk, and farewells first thing after the tardy bell rang. As a world language educator, I feel that the expectation regarding spoken language should be expressed through immediate use before we do anything else in the classroom. I want them to leave their French studies with a practical skill that can be transferred to real life.

2. Celebrate learning in an intentional way.

The day before students came through the threshold of my classroom, I got out three boxes of cake mix (I bought them on sale along with the icing!) and made two 13x9 and two 8x8 cakes in disposable foil pans. Then, I topped them with cream cheese icing and used a red one to write "Welcome Back!" in French. I hadn't baked box cakes since I was either a teenager or undergrad!  Anyhow, cursive writing came in handy when writing on the cake -- just a practical tip that I learned the hard way.

After we spoke to each other in French in groups for a while, it was time to celebrate the happy reunion (or first meeting) as well as the learning opportunities that we are going to have over the course of the year. At my school, we are free to incorporate food into our classroom experience as much as we like, and let me tell you how fortunate I feel because I know that there are hoops to go through or no-eating-allowed policies at many schools. If you can't, or don't want to, celebrate learning with cakes or other goodies, find another way to recognize the importance of what you will be doing together over the course of the semester or year.

3. Build community from the start through team-building tasks. 

This year, my dear friend, MaryAnn (@maryannsw,) advised me on maker faire ideas for my classroom.  In her role as a district technology learning specialist here in our city, she put together a maker faire for educator participants during one of their professional learning days. (Here's her blog post on it: http://lifeisamakerfaire.com/2014/08/18/mini-maker-faire-road-trip/ ) I loved what I saw and thought that I should call her up and see what she would suggest.  Side note: It is a good idea to seek inspiration from colleagues and friends who aren't members of your own department, and vise versa. We can learn so much from our friends in other disciplines! Thank you, MaryAnn!

It must be noted that this was not conducted in the target language on the second day of school, but I felt that it was a worthy team-building task that could not be done with deeper understanding if attempted entirely in French. Our national association recommends 90% target language on a daily basis with the other 10% being reserved for tasks that cannot be completed in the language. We certainly could have tried to do it in French in the upper-level classes, but it would have been more about language barriers than the real objective.

Back to the task at hand! MaryAnn suggested that my French learners build a Solo cup tower in small groups. I loved this idea because it's quick and I had a feeling that this would appeal to teenage groups. For the most part, I do not bring competitions (or games) to the classroom because it promotes behaviors that I like to leave out of the equation, but I thought it would be okay to have a little friendly competition in this case. In fact, I told each class that there would be a prize for the highest tower and that the winners could decide what they would do with the prize. I poured enough Jolly Ranchers for an entire class into a sandwich bag so that each student could have one if the winning team shared. Luckily, each group of champions gave candy to all of their peers. I mean, I would've forced them to do so if they hadn't. Hehe.

To get started, I projected brief directions on the Smart Board:
    TASK:
       1. Get in groups of 2 or 3.
       2. Build a tower with as many cups as you can. You have 100 of them.
       3. You have 5 minutes!
       4. The highest tower wins! A prize will be awarded.
       5. Keep your structure standing until a photo is taken at the end of the competition.

After the timer went off, I quickly went around the room to take a photo of each tower. Sometimes, students took photos of themselves standing by their work. Then, I asked them to stack their cups and place them in the jumbo zip-lock bags I gave them. Next, they had to talk about the following questions in their groups and record their answers, using markers and poster paper. When they finished, I taped their work on the white board so that we could see their responses for discussion.

Post Maker Task Questions:

1.  Were you risk takers? Or did you play it safe? Why?
2.  How did your communication with other group members help you build the tower? If it fell, why?
3.  What could you have done differently?

The overall discussion in each class was enlightening to some and interesting to all. If ALL teenage learners are listening and/or contributing to a discussion on the importance of collaboration, risk-taking, creativity, learning from failure, and the need to stand out among our peers, I call that a win-win!

Here's the highest tower of all of them throughout the day! I teach 9th through 12th grade students, and this was done by young ladies in the 9th grade. Impressive!

What do you do to both celebrate learning and build community during the first days of school?

Stop, Collaborate, Create, & Listen! Or How to Bring Creativity to the Classroom With Stop-Motion Animation Videos

Hello!

If you're a nineties music lover, you might have understood the reference to Vanilla Ice's super hit, Ice Ice Baby, in this post's title. I'm not sure why that song came to mind, but it speaks to me as I think about the project my learners completed last week. By the way, if you aren't familiar with this song, you can listen to it here.

The first lines of Vanilla Ice's one-hit wonder remind me of the general routine steps that are taken to begin a new, collaborative task in the classroom. So, here we go:  Students have to stop for a minute and learn more about the task, collaborate with a classmate to design an agreed upon product, create with their chosen tools, and listen to each other and folks outside of their team as they work. (Let's see, how can we add 'Shave cool designs in your eyebrows for the ultimate Vanilla Ice look?'  OK, I think I'm getting carried away. Moving on.)

All of the talk that has been going on about bringing creativity back to schools and fostering a spirit of innovation has been of particular interest to me. This would not be the first time I've asked students to create, for sure, but I'm challenging myself to bring new life to the projects we do and allow for more hands-on creativity while actively using the target language. Therefore, I decided to introduce the stop-motion animation technique and learn alongside my students of the French language and cultures. 

As a world language educator, I must mention the fact that we have a special challenge when trying to engage our students in tasks that students in other content areas are more linguistically prepared to complete.  In fact, one of our most important responsibilities is to facilitate authentic experiences that push our students to higher levels of proficiency while preparing them for the realities of today's world. This is no small task, especially when working with novices who can only communicate at low levels. What does this all mean? World language educators, like me, can make room for creativity in the classroom, but it might just look a little different from what learners are doing in another classroom.

So, here's a breakdown of how this project unfolded in French class last week :

Project duration:
We spent three days on this project. Some students have to finish upon our return from Spring Break due to absent team members.

Reason for this project at this point in the year:
It was the week before spring break. Sophomores were out on college trip for much of the week, and the juniors left for Costa Rica that Friday. I did not want to start a new unit, but wanted to experiment with an opportunity for creative expression while using the target language.Students who were absent are not required to make up this project unless they want to do it.

Project Resources:
The directions were posted on slides and displayed on the SmartBoard. The document was also uploaded to DropBox. The work will be assessed with a modified presentational speaking rubric (original doc came from Toni Theisen and her district colleagues) -- one for novice high and one for intermediate low learners. (See below for the link to the downloadable documents.)

Outcomes:
-This task allowed students with various strengths to develop their team-building skills in small groups.
-Learners thought intentionally about ways to have a global impact through the small organization they envisioned.
-Groups worked together to write the commercial in French. They learned new vocabulary that was particular to their product.
-Along with the language component, students became creators. Although these organizations/commercials were imaginary, this type of task could inspire learners to take more risks and consider not only the needs of the local community, but that of villages in remote areas of the world.
-ALL students actively contributed to the project. In fact, learners in other classes expressed interest in doing a similar project in the near future. Yay!

Reflections:
-This task requires more than three 50-minute days. Students could have used some guided small group pronunciation practice.
-Spend time doing a demo on any new apps and basic stop-motion animation techniques before beginning the creation stage of the project.
-Stress that the background is important, therefore, desktops might not be very appealing.
-Stress that photos need to be taken in the Camera Roll rather than the stop-motion app for best results. (Can move to iMovie and add music, etc that way.)
-Include time for tool (re)exploration, even if students already have experience with the tool. We all (re)learned some iMovie editing tricks that we hadn't really needed or explored before that point.

Looking to the Future:
Since our young learners are not always thinking about what lies ahead, it's a good idea to remind them to think about how projects and other learning experiences in the classroom could add value to their resume. While circulating and helping each group, I explained that they could share this stop-motion design experience with college admissions reps or potential employers. There are always ways to make oneself stand out in a crowd! Of course, this tip to keep track of interesting classroom tasks doesn't have anything to do with their mission to become proficient speakers of French, but it does prepare them for the future. That's part of my job, too.

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Educator Materials for Download:
Click here for access to the directions, rubrics, and sample student products. Stay tuned for more videos later this week.

Further Discussion:
How might you use stop-motion animation in your classroom?
If you're a world language educator, how might you use this technique while making the target language an integral part of the task?

Please share your feedback and ideas in the comments.

Hope you enjoyed this post! At the very least, I hope you were inspired to listen to some nineties fun music. Vanilla Ice will rock the mic like a vandal!

Collaboration - AATF South Carolina Fall Workshop

Bonjour!

The first nine weeks of the academic year raced by while my poor blog suffered from a couple months of neglect.  Moving forward, I hope to do better by writing at least a little more often.  We shall see...

To get myself back on the blogging train, I decided to take this opportunity to share the link to the presentation I'll be giving tomorrow morning.
"Developing Collaborative Skills with Web 2.0 Tools in the World Language Classroom"
Fall Workshop 2012
South Carolina Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French
Columbia, SC

http://msfrenchteach.wikispaces.com/Presentations

Please feel free to leave me a comment about the presentation. Thanks!