Category Archives: Core Practices for World Language

More Core Practice Number Six

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Core practice number six is provide appropriate feedback in speech and writing on various learning tasks.  The ACTFL Core Practices webinar with Dr. Eileen Glisan focuses on providing corrective feedback in oral interactions.  Corrective feedback, or reponses to student utterances containing an error, is a tool to scaffold learning for students. What types of feedback do you use?

There are six types of corrective feedback discussed in the webinar.

  1. Explicit correction is where you simply provide the correct answer. You should say…
  2. Recasting is where you repeat the learner’s output minus the error.
  3. Clarification requests are where you indicate to the learner that there is a problem with the language output. The answer was not understood at all. Pardon me, huh?
  4.  Metalinguistic feedback involves explicitly stating that there is a mistake in the output and asking the student to find and correct the mistake.  For example, it’s an English cognate, or you need to use the past tense.
  5. Elicitation is where after hearing the learner’s output, you repeat the sentence, pausing at the place where a mistake was made, giving the learner an opportunity to correct his or her own mistake by concentrating only on that word, or grammatical construction.
  6. Repetition is where you repeat exactly what the learner has uttered, signaling the error with your voice, giving the learner a chance to focus on that particular part of the utterance and fix it.

According to the ACTFL webinar on Core Practices most teachers use recast for corrective feedback, however it is the least effective for uptake by students.  The webinar states that elicitation, or repeating the utterance up until the error and then pausing for the student to self correct, is the most effective.

The implications from a study by Shrum and Glisan in 2016 are the type, quantity, and frequency of corrective feedback depends on the objectives, the proficiency level, anxiety issues, and personal characteristics of the learner.  Shrum and Glisan state that students benefit most when the feedback they receive focuses on comprehensibility of the message not just on accuracy of form.

Teachers report using the recast method of providing corrective feedback about 55% of the time.  Do learners recognize the error when the teacher uses recast? When my youngest son was about four, I told him to clean his room.  He told me “I doded it already.”  I said you did it already? and he replied “yes, I doded it already.”  So, once more I said “you did it already?”  At this point he got frustrated and said “I already tolded you, I doded it already!”  Current update, he is now 24 years old and no longer says I doded it already but he still doesn’t clean his room.

I put in this graphic to illustrate my story and then thought you could have kids list all the things they see in this picture and then compare their list with a partner.  Or you could play Veo,Veo.  Have a student secretly pick an item in the picture and have the other students start guessing, by asking questions to be the first to find out what the item is.  They become the next leader.  Students could practice providing corrective feedback to each other while they compare their room to this one.

Ideally we are not the only ones providing corrective feedback. The goal is for  learners to be resources for one another. I encourage students to help their counterparts in interpersonal activities.  If they ask a question and their partner doesn’t respond they can give an example answer and ask the question again.  Another strategy is to provide a few possible answers to your partner.  If we model feedback cues and methods of clarifying meaning for the students, they will use them as they engage in pair or group work and be able to help their fellow learners, thus increasing the role of students in their own language learning.

 

More Core Practice Number Five

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Core Practice #5: Design and carry out interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks using authentic cultural texts of various kinds with appropriate scaffolding and follow-up tasks that promote interpretation.

Interpretive communication is receptive communication where clarification of meaning is not possible.  The creator of the communication is absent.  It is reading, listening, and viewing.  It includes literal and inferential comprehension.  Inferencing is a thinking process that involves reasoning beyond the text using generalization, synthethis, and/or explanation.  Readers interact with text and their background knowledge.  Ask questions like what do you think will happen next?  What kind of person do you think character X is?

Why authentic texts?  Authentic texts present real language.  They integrate authentic culture.  Authentic texts stimulate interest in language learning.  I agree with Dr. Eileen Glisan in the ACTFL Core Practices webinar, that students are motivated to interpret texts their counterparts are reading, viewing, or listening to in the target culture.  Interpretive tasks should be motivated by a reason to use the language in the real world.  Provide students with a scenario.  For example, you are vacationing with your family in Paris.  What is the best way to go sight seeing?  Search the internet for transportation options and decide how you will get around Paris and what landmarks you will see.  Use information from the text to respond.

 

Commercials from the target culture are authentic resources and a great way to practice inferencing and predicting.  I saw this in a workshop with Donna Tatum-Johns this summer in Denver at iFLT and loved it!

Do you think that Emma likes her husband’s reminders to use the iPad?  What makes you think that?  Here is a Movie Talk script and cultural comparison activity to go with this commercial in French, Spanish, and English.  The only word in this commercial is “Emma” so it can be used with any language.  Stop the video along the way and point out the wife’s facial expressions and have students make inferences about how she is feeling.  Have them support their answers with evidence from the video.  Use props and speech/thought bubbles and have students act out the commercial.

Have the students watch the commercial again and notice the things they are doing and the things in the background.  What do you notice that is similar to our culture.  Do you notice any differences from our culture?

A few last tips.  Let students collaborate to interpret a text or video.  At the novice level some collaborating will be in English and sometimes comprehension questions can be in English.  Teach students to activate their background knowledge, skim the text for the main idea, and then re-read and scan the text for important details.  Edit the task not the text for novices.

Here is a link to a former post on Core practice Number Five and some reading activities and resources.  There are inferencing resources like task cards and graphic organizers at Teacherspayteachers in French and Spanish for additional practice.

More Core Practice Number Four

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Core Practice #4: Teach Grammar As Concept and Within Meaningful Use in Context

Teachers should focus on the form after meaning of the form has been established in interesting and compelling contexts such as stories, legends, and authentic resources.  This is followed by explicit focus on grammar that is relevant, using the PACE model, according to the Core Practices Webinar by Dr. Eileen Glisan.

Why stories?  Here are some reasons provided in the ACTFL webinar to use stories.  Stories have a compelling theme, they have characters with personality.  They have a plot with actions and events, a problem to be resolved, and a resolution to the problem.  Stories have a schema that children already understand, in other words a beginnning, a middle, and an end.  Stories allow learners to make sense of life’s experiences.  Stories trigger emotions which are powerful in facilitating memory and learning.  Stories naturally create a context, meaning, relevance, and empathy.  They facilitate understanding, retention, and recall.  They include various text types such as conversations and expository texts.

I like to use stories with high frequency vocabulary and the super seven verbs with my novices.  Check out a former blog post on storytelling my way and some sample units on Teacherspayteachers.com in French and Spanish.

More and more I use the PACE procedure to teach grammar in context. The PACE Model is a dialogic story based approach to addressing grammar. Diologic means interactive inquiry between and among the students and the teacher.

 

Presentation– The teacher presents the story orally in an interactive fashion with gestures and visual support, students are involved in retelling parts of the story or signaling.

Attention– Focus the learner’s attention on some aspect of the story.  The teacher highlights a form for students to notice.  Look at the forms and write down three similarities you see, what are three actions in the past, can you find them and act them out?

Co-construct- The teacher and learners engage in dialogic analysis of the grammar point.  The teacher uses assisting questions to help students discover patterns.

Extend-Learners use the new grammatical concept in creative and interesting ways to make meaning.

Here is a free presentation based on the fable The Cigale (cricket, grasshopper, whatever!) and The Ant that I use to demonstrate the Pace Model with examples in French and Spanish.

We can work together to curate and share authentic stories in many languages that would be engaging for learners.  How do you teach grammar in context?  Add your comments here and please follow, tweet, and share my blog.

More Core Practice Number Three

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Design lessons and tasks that have functional goals and objectives, to include specifying clearly the language and activities needed to support and meet the communication objective.

Use the three steps of backward design.

1.  Identify desired results.  What do you want students to be able to do?

2.  Determine acceptable evidence.  How will students be assessed as to how well they have meet the objective?

3.  Plan learning experiences.  What specific activities will students do to achieve the objective?

 

Here is a sample of backwards planning of a Carnaval Unit from the ACTFL Core Practices Webinar presented by Dr. Eileen Glisan.

Step #1  What are students going to be able to do?
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More Core Practice Number Two

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Core Practice #2: Design and Carry Out Interpersonal Communication Tasks for Pair, Small Groups, and Whole-Class Instruction

Interpersonal communication is two way communication negotiated between two or more people.  It takes place face to face or over the phone.  It also occurs in writing through notes, e-mail, and social media.  It is spontaneous, not scripted or memorized.

 

When designing interpersonal activites for students there needs to be an information gap.  One person seeks information that another speaker has.  Students need to listen to one another to complete the task and they can not know ahead of time how the other students are going to answer.  They also need specific language and strategies to negotiate meaning.  Students should do something with the information they obtain.  For example they could use the information in a whole class discussion or presentational task like an advertisement or brochure.

 

One example could be students surveying their classmates for leisure time activities, using the information to report out most and least popular activities, in order to prepare to interview a native speaker about their favorite activities.

Create a list of helpful phrases in the target language you teach that would be appropriate for students at a particular level to use during their interpersonal activities.  Some possible examples are: wait a minute…by the way…let me think…excuse-me..  Post signs around room including: How do you say?  How do you write?  Change after they are acquired.

Create situation cards so students can practice spontaneous interpersonal communication.  Here is an example.  These situations are on separate cards or pieces of paper so that each student sees only his or her role.

 THE INVITATION BY PHONE: STUDENT A

You call a good friend  students and invite him/her to go out to do something with you (e.g., see a movie, have dinner, go to the gym, or something else). Make the call and make small talk first. Then make the invitation. You will have to figure out together the details (such as the day, time, where you meet, etc.). Ask questions so that you are clear on the plans. After you end the call, be prepared to tell your roommate what the plan is.

THE PHONE CALL: STUDENT B

You receive  a call from a good friend inviting you to do something. Answer the phone and listen carefully to what he or she says. You will need to ask questions to decide how to respond.  Also you will need to keep in mind what’s currently on your calendar as you discuss the invitation. After you end the call, be prepared to tell your roommate about it.

Follow up with information gained by telling your roommates about your plans so they will know where you are and when.

I have created some slides to practice spontaneous interpersonal communication in French and Spanish on the Teachers Pay Teachers website called  Timed- Think-Talk.

 

 

Here are some other Activities for interpersonal communication.

Assessing interpersonal communication with Talk Scores.  This is an uncomplicated way to assess students during interpersonal speaking activities.  Each letter of the word talk represents one performance objective to be observed during pair or small group tasks.  During the task the teacher should observe only one objective to observe.  The goal should be that after one or two weeks students have been observed on all four objectives which would be a round and a score can be recorded.

  1. Is the student talking in the target language?
  2. Is the student performing at acceptable level of accuracy?
  3. is the student on task and listening to partner?
  4. Is the student kind and cooperative?

For each objective score with either a plus, check , or minus.  A plus is 2 points, a check is 1 point, and a minus is 0 points.  After a round add up the points for the Talk score.  Here is an example of TALK SCORES.  Here is the record sheet I use. Talk Scores Record Sheet

Another great idea to practice intepersonal communication is Chat Stations.  Watch the video by Cult of Pedagogy.

More Core Practice Number One

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Core Practice #1: Use the Target Language as the Vehicle and Content of Instruction

Target language instruction should always occur in meaningful contexts.  For example: comparing and contrasting a cultural perspective after reading or hearing about a product, or discussing leisure time preferences to compare with target cultures, or making, accepting, and rejecting an invitation.Start the year with an explanation of why staying in the target language is so important and follow up with motivational talks throughout the year. Praise students when they make the effort.  Teach students about the proficiency levels and how to move up the proficiency scale as motivation to stay in the target language.    ACTFL_ What_s my Proficiency level _ final

There needs to be an absence of immediate translation to English.  Otherwise students just wait for the English.  Incentives like points, perks, privileges are helpful as well as consequences for speaking English.  Try a reward system in which students can earn points for maintaining the target language.  I use Free Seat Friday.  I strictly enforce my seating chart Monday through Thursday, but if we have a good week using the target language, they get to sit where they want on Fridays.  It always amazes me how much they love this litte reward that costs me nothing.  When your students speak to you or ask you something in English, give a quizzical look and say you don’t understand.

Provide comprehensible input.  Here is a checklist to use in planning, Denoto’s comprehensible input tool, startalk-checklist-1

  1. Create Comprehensible Language- The teacher should paraphrase, slow the rate of speech, and define new words using examples instead of translation. (e.g. transportation – plane, cars, taxis, subway, train)
  2. Create Contexts for Comprehension- Use gestures, visuals, objects, drawings, photos, realia, artwork, menus, bus tickets, plastic food, clothing.  Make sure students know the topic and the objective of the lesson in advance.  Post the daily objectives and refer to them often during the lesson, and evaluate progress toward objective at the end of each class.
  3. Create Comprehensible interactions with students-Involve the students (e.g., signaling, responding, completing a sentence after meaning has been established, ask questions).

Plan lessons so as to eliminate idle time, which can lead students to chat in English.  Change seating often so students have a chance to pair up with different classmates. Use activities such as inside–outside circles that allow students to practice common expressions and structures in rapid sequence. This also gives the teacher a chance to listen for places where communication is breaking down.

Involve students in story telling with techniques like signaling where students hold up a picture, a phrase, make a noise, or do a gesture.  Have students complete the teacher’s sentences, and respond to questions.  Start with yes/no questions then move to either/or questions, multiple choice, and then the who, what, when, where, and how questions.

Provide phrases to help students negotiate meaning.  Can you say more?  I think you are saying…right?   So you meant…?  Post high-frequency phrases around the classroom so students can refer to them if they get stuck.

Teach circumlocution and play circumlocution games. Use common game formats like Catch Phrase, Taboo, $25,000 Pyramid, or Password. Or mix them all together like “30 segundos” from the Creative Language Classroom.

There are free “Taboo” games in French,  and Spanish on teacherspayteachers.com.  There are free lists of useful phrases for students in French and posters in Spanish and free examples in Spanish.  There is also an app called Head’s up from Ellen Degenerous in English and Spanish.

You can buy the game or make your own with headbands and index cards using words in the target language.

heads-upHere is a example of the game password with Jimmy Fallon.

 

There is a place to use L1. The first language is helpful when giving assessment directions, during the C or co-construct of the of Pace model, some interpretive tasks, or emergencies.  Check out my first post on core practice number one, using routines to stay in the target language. How do you encourage students to stay in the target language?

Fun with Functional Chunks!

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With over 30 years teaching middle school, it doesn’t take research to convince me that the average teenage brain can only focus intently for about 12 minutes. Building structured activities into lesson plans that provide opportunities for students to interact with each other and practice the target language is brain friendly instruction and good for everyone.  These structured activities give the teacher’s voice a rest while the students are practicing the target language, but more importantly it allows the teacher to walk around and provide some individualized feedback in a relaxed non threatening environment.  I am curating all of my favorite activities into a presentation called “Fun with Functional Chunks.”

Functional Chunks of Language are expressions, phrases or words that students learn as a chunk without necessarily understanding the grammatical structure.  However, they learn where and when to say them when communicating.  These functional chunks of language empower students to use the language early and often and help students and teachers stay in the target language.

I will be presenting a workshop on this topic called “Put the Fun in Functional Chunks” on March 18th at the WAFLT Spring Regional at Eastside Catholic School in Sammamish.  In this workshop common language chunks and language functions at various levels will be presented and discussed.  Engaging activities to practice interpretive and interpersonal communications skills with functional chunks of language will be presented and practiced by participants.  Let’s put the fun back in language functions.

Here are the top ten language functions, can we create relevant related tasks?

 

Here is an example of one of my structured activities.  I learned it as Pancho Carrancho, but in French we say Mon Frère Pierre.  For now, here is a list of structured activities I posted earlier. Strategies-for-Guiding-Interactions   The new and improved list will be coming out soon.

Please join us at the WAFLT Spring Regional: Saturday, March 18th at Eastside Catholic School in Sammamish, Washington. The price is $35 WAFLT members / $45 non-members.

Registration is now open:  http://tinyurl.com/gvnnpna  

Sessions will begin at 9am and run until 4pm, with lunch from 12-1 (included in registration fee). Pre-registration is accepted until Thursday, March 16, 2017. Pre-registration will guarantee that you will have lunch. Registration includes 6 free clock hours, lunch, and all conference materials. Please consider becoming a WAFLT member.  For more information go to the WAFLT website.

 

The Global Goals!

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I just discovered The Global Goals website and I am over the moon excited about the 17 goals and the authentic resources available in many languages.

gg

On the website you can click on any of these 17 goals and change the language in the right hand corner to access resources on the subject in the target language of your choice!

The Global Goals

I was looking for reasons why all students could not attend school and was excited to discover these resources in French and Spanish and many other languages.12-Pourquoi-y-a-t-il-encore-tant-d’enfants-qui-ne-vont-pas-à-l’école and 12-Quality-Education-for-all_Español

education

Getting every child to school is one of the seventeen global goals. Having my students realize that not all students can go to school, and why, is my local goal. My students don’t realize that some kids have to stay home to help take care of siblings and collect water, others have to go to work to help support their family, some live too far from the nearest school, others can’t afford to pay for school fees or buy a uniform, and for others it is because of war.

malala-livres

I am going to use these with my novice level students so I created these presentations to build background knowledge and vocabulary.  ESCUELA for Spanish and L’école… for French.  There are resources from Donna Clementi and Laura Terrill on the ACTFL website for a unit on why can’t all children go to school.  Catherine Ousselin has curated lots of resources on her website on the obstacles some children face to go to school.

girls in school

 

More Games to Support Spontaneous Interpersonal Communication

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Apples to Apples is a great board game to get kids talking.  Students take turns as judge. The judge turns over a topic card and the other players select a card they think would best go with the topic, and place it face down, anonymously. The judge picks their favorite response. The player who submitted the chosen response scores a point and keeps the topic card.  There is a free editable version here in French and Spanish, and some pay options.  Teach students common game phrases like: Who’s turn is it?  It’s your turn, It’s my turn, Who’s next, Pick a card.manzanas

Guess who is another old favorite game appropriate for practicing interpersonal communication.  Players try to guess their opponent’s character by asking and answering questions. There are free versions at Teachers Pay Teachers in Spanish and French  You can make your own version.  Get different character sheets free, go to Google images and type in Guess Who. You could make your own with personalities from the target cultures. Here’s a blank form to get started, guesswhoblank.  Check out this free version using pumpkins.

adivina-quien-edicion-clasico-juego-mesa-original-hasbro-15425-mla20102516737_052014-f

guess-who

And then there is giant Guess Who….

 

 

 

 

 

guess-who-imagesI collect old board games at garage sales and thrift stores, or buy them on sale after Christmas, so I have several sets of Scrabble.  I keep them on hand for fast finishers, stations, or sub activities.  Students can practice the alphabet while placing tiles on the game board.  I let novices spell words in English as well as the target language for double point value.  They can use dictionaries to check for possible words or correct spelling.  I really like the giant floor scrabble idea and see a project in my future.  I saw this in a post by Karen Christiansen to French Teachers in the U.S. on Facebook.

 

floor-scrabble

 

 

Here are the 98 letters you need to make.

st_scrabble_tile_image

 

Make your own giant Jenga out of empty soda boxes.  Or make your own using this wooden toppling from Amazon.com.  Check out the ideas for assessing interpersonal speaking using Jenga or Uno by The Creative Language Classroom.

jenga-1

jenga

Watch Ellen play Giant Jenga and check out my Pinterest board for other giant game ideas like Memory, Concentration , or Zap.

 

 

Childhood Games, Celebrity Favorites, and Circumlocution!

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Common games we played as kids like Catch Phrase, Taboo, $25,000 Pyramid, or Password are popular again with celebrities and great for practicing circumlocution to stay in the target language. Mix them all together for your own variations like fishbowl or 30 segundos from the Creative Language Classroom.

taboo-1

There are free Taboo games in French, and Spanish on teacherspayteachers.com as well as lists of useful phrases in French and Spanish, and posters in Spanish.  There is also an app called Head’s up from Ellen Degeneres in English and Spanish.

You can also buy the game here or make your own with headbands and index cards with words in the target language.  I bought these and am using them to make sets in French and Spanish.

 

headbands

Here is a example of the game password with Jimmy Fallon.

I am going to play a variation of Password in teams so students can brainstorm the one word clues and take turns giving them to the team member who is trying to guess.  With novices, I am going to  start with the free Taboo cards above and let them use the words that are normally prohibited in the game Taboo as password clues to get the game going.

Another game for practicing circumlocution is Catch Phrase.  Here is another example of celebrities playing the game.

catch-phrase

Jump on the celebrity game craze and have fun while practicing circumlocution.