We love our teachers! They are models of resilience, service, expertise, and compassion. Over the past couple of weeks, teachers in Lexington One nominated and recognized their peers as exceptional educators through the Teacher of the Year Award. Today we celebrate the World Language and Immersion teachers who have been honored at their schools. Congratulations! We are so proud of you!
0 Comments
Let me tell you all the story of how I learned the word for "bee" in French. One beautiful spring day, while I was studying abroad in La Rochelle, France, I was sitting in my room of my host family's house enjoying the weather. All of a sudden, a bee flew into my room, landed on my lamp and.... CAUGHT FIRE! In a panic, I rushed down the stairs to tell my host parents in French, "there is a bee on fire in my room". In that moment, I realized that I did not know the word for "bee". So I just started shouting "FIRE" in French. My family rushed up to the room and we threw the lamp out onto the balcony and the day was saved. What lessons did I learn from this? 1. The power of circumlocution. You may not know ALL the words, but you CAN communicate. 2. Because I had noticed what I didn't know in French, I immediately went to learn the word for "bee" and never forgot it. In research, we recognize this phenomenon through the following theories: Output Hypothesis and Noticing Hypothesis. These theories state that individuals must produce language and through production of the language, they will notice gaps (or missing information) in their language abilities. By noticing our language gaps, we are able to improve our proficiency. What does this mean for the classroom? Students must be challenged to use the language in meaningful contexts and be given opportunities to notice gaps in their language. Therefore, teacher feedback should not simply require the students to restate the correct language upon making a mistake, but rather feedback should challenge students to really look at the language they have produced and work through how to improve their performance. Want to give students such feedback? Try not to correct student mistakes for students, but rather highlight and bring attention to those mistakes so that students can come up with the correct structures and forms. Below, Ms. Esmith Centeno of Centerville Elementary School and Mrs. Anne-Marie Cormier-Bausch of Lexington High School share a few ideas on how to get students to think through their performance through meaningful feedback. Check it out!
Welcome to the next episode of our video series on theory and practice. Today I will talk to you about what is known as the "Affective Filter" in language learning and how we can help students to lower it through SEL practices in the World Language classroom. Today's post is brought to you by Myriam Grandjean, German teacher at Pleasant Hill Middle School, and the current SCFLTA Teacher of the Year. Myriam is sharing an online learning tool with you and we will follow up soon with part 2 of her video. Enjoy, and feel free to reach out to Myriam with any questions you might have [email protected]. Today we are kicking off a video series meant to help us get back to the basics of what second language acquisition actually is, and also to showcase teachers in the district as a learning tool for all of us. In the first video, Amanda and I talk about what we believe about second language acquisition in Lexington One. Essentially, these are our guiding principles. In the following videos we'll talk a little bit about theory and research, then we'll also share teacher created videos of implementation in the classroom. We hope you enjoy this series and will consider what you might like to share with the team as well. "Gratitude is like a flashlight. It lights up what is already there. You don't necessarily have anything more or different, but suddenly you can actually see what it is. And because you can see, you no longer take it for granted." M.J. Ryan As we think about the upcoming holiday, and consider the work we've chosen in education, it seems only fitting to talk about gratitude today. I've been learning about resilience over the past few difficult years, as I'm sure you all have too, and a big part of being a resilient educator is practicing gratitude. If you haven't yet read Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators by Elena Aguilar, I want to share a snippet of the book with you now. Aguilar talks about a variety of ways to practice gratitude, but what stood out to me is the idea of self-appreciation. She talks about how Teacher Appreciation week could often be a let down for her because while she appreciated the notes and the luncheons, they did not seem to match the amount of energy and dedication she put into her teaching. She states, "The only person who knows how much you put into your teaching is you. Self-appreciation may not sound as if it would be as rewarding as external appreciation, but you'd be surprised by its benefits."
Then she goes on to give some examples of how you can appreciate yourself: 1) At the end of each day or week, select three things that went well and describe your role in making that happen. 2) Set an alarm: For a few times each day set an alarm and when it goes off, take a moment to appreciate yourself for whatever you're doing right then. 3) Write a letter of appreciation: Take a few minutes each week to write yourself a note outlining something you've done well. I can tell you all day how thankful I am for you, and I really am, but sometimes I imagine that feels hollow because I don't truly know the ins and outs of your days and how much time you spend at home and on the weekends thinking about work, planning for lessons, worrying about students, etc. In the same way that you are the expert in the classroom, you are also the expert on yourself. So please take a moment today and for the rest of this year to thank yourself for your own hard work and dedication. You deserve it! Jannice Torres, at CSMS recently celebrated the day of the dead with her students in full costume!
Here's what Jannice had to say about the day, "Last week we had the opportunity of celebrating Hispanic Heritage by reading, watching videos and talking about The Day of the Dead, a celebration that takes place each year in Mexico, Bolivia and some parts of the USA on November first and second.The Spanish practice during the celebration was adapted to the different levels I teach. Students of Level 2 wrote and read their opinions about the traditional celebration Day of the Dead and other related topics like Mexican food and the movie Coco. I enjoyed seeing how engaged they were. They were using the Spanish language to learn about the culture and to give their opinions, working in groups of four, in a shared document with questions. They loved and enjoyed the activity. The time was short, and by the end of the class they had three choices to do something relaxing: dance with Coco, sing with Karaoke, the song Recuerdame, or color and decorate a catrina. Most of them chose color and did a very good job." Here is a link to an interactive Day of the Dead activity for those of you who would like to celebrate next year. Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated each year from September 15th to October 15th. This year at RBHS, Spanish teachers created two different activities to get students involved in learning about Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced our society. Pictured above are students displaying posters based on a case study they did on Hispanic artists.
Another fun activity was "Locotubre" in which students create a bracket similar to fantasy football to vote for their favorite Spanish songs. Several other teachers, in the district have also celebrated with Locotubre. Click here for the complete song list and bracket design so you can join in the fun next year! Thanks RBHS teachers for making learning fun and relevant to your students! Guest Blogger: Viky Connelly, PHS Last week I brought in a virtual field trip for my students: the Wanderbus! It comes "flying" in over the skyline of Berlin. If you want to see what students saw, you can go to goethe.de/wanderbus and then click on the green button "GET ON THE BUS". The students loved the view of the city and how you can spin the bus around. We clicked on the entrance door, entered our code, and started exploring the different 'stations' (see pictures): Tourplan, Culture, Science, Politics & Events, Games, and a Guest Book - they were all engaging and fun! Each station has short and neat videos, articles, as well as quiz questions. If students answered the quiz question correctly, they earned a pretzel." The videos varied from German history, the Berlin Wall and the Reichstag, to German soccer and Wurst, separating trash (of course), science experiments, a "Gedanken-Experiment" which is a thought experiment, politics and many more. After an hour on the bus, we joined a live zoom meeting with a German/English speaking member of the Goethe Institute. It included a live Kahoot. Here is a quote from the email I received: In our Zoom Room we will have time to discuss your Wanderbus experience and we’ll also play a fun Wanderbus Kahoot! quiz. The schools participating in the Wanderbus Tour will be competing against each other in a nationwide Kahoot! challenge. Can your class make it on the leaderboard? As you all know, our district recently began the first cohort of the Lexington One Online Learning Academy, otherwise known as LOOLA. In response to the global pandemic, we created an online academy in which students can receive all of their studies virtually in grades K-12. We opened with about 7,500 students, many of whom are taking a World Language. In an effort to learn more about how this process is going for World Language teachers, I interviewed several LOOLA teachers. I asked what have been the benefits to students and what have been the challenges. Here's what they said.
Dana Robinson at WKHS said that it helps some students who like to be self-paced to be able to move through the modules at their own pace. Some kids also prefer being home, to avoid some of the social drama that happens at times in a face to face setting. Kids can also schedule one on one time with the teacher, and they are getting individualized attention. One of the challenges for Dana is that she misses the face-to-face interaction with students. Bonnie Tucker, also at WKHS said, "Benefits for students that I have seen through online teaching is that teachers are much more accessible for individual help sessions. Students have been scheduling Zoom help sessions with the teacher by booking appointments." She also added, "A challenge of moving to online teaching has been trying to give students as much 'live' interaction in the target language as possible. Finally, I spoke with Jessica Kelly at LHS and she said, "A benefit is that students can take more time on subjects they are struggling with and move faster if it is easy. The teacher is more available to meet for tutoring, and kids have more autonomy than usual." She also stated that a challenge is, "Missing the sense of community with students and students hearing a lot more language from each other and the teacher. It is more of a challenge to build relationships." While all of you have had to adapt your teaching for the hybrid model, we thought you would enjoy hearing from the all virtual World Language teachers about the benefits and challenges of online teaching. |
Archives
April 2022
Categories |