Monday, August 31, 2015

NO DOUBT! WE CAN DO THIS!

Tomorrow we begin the school year, and I am extremely nervous as usual around this time.  A week or two before the start of a school year I begin having bad dreams of students misbehaving, or of me being unprepared, or not getting the control needed for a successful class.  Also during this time it is when I doubt everything I do, and the ability that I have to deliver and get results... but today, I had a call from the mom of one of the 8th grade students that I had last year.  She wanted to meet me for lunch, and we did.  She told me how impressed she was with the ability and enthusiasm that her son was still showing for the class, and how he continuously looked for opportunities to keep learning and applying his Spanish out of the classroom.  He had asked me to lend him a reader for the summer, and I did give him two.  She was very impressed that he actually read both!  And every time they went some place during summer break he found signs in Spanish, which he would translate for her.  She got a present for his birthday, and the box read "es peligroso usar esta caja como juguete"... and he translated for her.  She told me amazed: "how is it that he knows all of these words?? When I studied languages in school all we did in first level was learning alphabet, colors, numbers, some greetings and random vocabulary!"  But what totally made my day was when she said that he, during Freshman orientation, pointed at the Spanish AP teacher and said "that is the lady who will be my AP teacher"... and later, he added that he was going to minor/major in Spanish in college because "that will give me a very strong advantage..."  WOW! Then I felt that everything clicked in place.  I am doing things right! If I get to influence the mind of an 8th grader (now Freshman) to the point of making him realize how powerful being bilingual is, and that he actually CAN DO IT this early in his life, is priceless to me.  This is the taste of success, in my humble opinion.  This is what is all about! And as I continue to scramble to find my comfort zone into the CI world, with all of its ups and downs, learning and unlearning as a teacher, I realize that as long as I continue to see the light that this particular case has shown me, I will not yield... I am not going back.  These students deserve the best teacher that they can have, and I will fight every day to deliver.  I strongly encourage you to see the four short videos I'm sharing here.  Each of them are about 2 minutes long, and you will see the kid I am talking about, as he was telling me (without previous notice from me) the story of Piratas. It was supposed to be 2-3 minutes per student, but he just insisted to continue! I did jump in to develop some conversation with him, so it proves that he was not just "parroting" the plot. I'M READY FOR A NEW YEAR! Have a GREAT ONE YOURSELF!!CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEOS

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Student Output Without Stress!

Last week I introduced clothing items and "she puts/put on..." using the commercial Vaseline Spray and Go.  I described what the girl in the commercial was doing, Movie Talk style.  I went back and forth using both tenses, and doing a lot of comprehension checks.  I did first the one about the dress, contrasting "she puts on her dress" (se pone el vestido) and "pone las manos en el piso", "pone la crema en el piso", to contrast the reflexive and present indicative form. The second commercial that I showed was the one with the skirt, sweater and shoes.  I tried to incorporate personalized questions and answers (PQA) as much as possible, to compare and contrast what students and the girl in the commercial were wearing. I emphasized the way she puts her shoes on, (with one jump). I challenged students to try and put their shoes on that same way, and I tired to do it myself as they were narrating... that was fun!
I continued to compare the SE PONE against PONE, with lots of comprehension checks.  The last commercial that I showed was the one that included more clothing items: jeans, sweater, blouse, shoes.  I narrated it again, pausing and trying to develop conversation with my students.  We gave the girl a name, and also went on describing the room, and bathroom.
Finally, I played it again without pausing as I narrated it once more.  Then, I instructed students to work with a partner and take turns to narrate the commercial twice.  After they practiced, I took volunteers to give it a shot in front of the class. I was THRILLED to see the reaction!  They had so much fun practicing first, and the amount of volunteers to try in front of everybody was much higher than I thought!  Almost every student wanted to try!  I wasn't expecting this to be a home-run, since output is usually something that intimidates most students. The challenge was high, because this girl puts on jeans, sweater, hat, shoes and leaves so quickly that it is almost impossible to narrate every single detail.  However, many students could do it all, and what I found fascinating was to observe that they were so focused on the message, that they were not paying attention to the language itself... I don't know if I am expressing this clearly, but after hearing that phrase in many workshops I finally understood what it means... The whole group was engaged and so focused on the many MANY repetitions that we got, that even the giggling of the "se puso" went away much faster than I had observed in previous years with other groups...  Tomorrow I will continue "milking" this commercial using the activity I created in a Power Point: