My class is not an AP course, we offer dual enrollment with our local community college. Through this dual enrollment, my students DO earn college credit (8 semester hours) but I also want them to earn further credentials that will help them set goals for their own language proficiency beyond their time in my classroom.
One way to do that is to pursue our state’s Seal of Biliteracy. Every spring, we test our students and… it’s that time of year! In just about 4 weeks, we’ll begin our testing for the Seal of Biliteracy. If you’ve not heard me talk about our program, I’ve shared here in a YouTube video about our scores and what our proficiency goals are at SCHS.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Spanish 1-4 classes, our scope and sequences for all 4 levels can be found in this post.
We have taken the AAPPL exam every year since 2014 and, although I have had some complaints about inaccurate scoring in the past, it is an economical test that is easy to divide into sections and give during class time so I feel like it is hard to move away from it… that said, I am exploring some options for funding this year to possibly test more kids and if I do that, STAMP offers bulk discounts so I would likely switch over to their assessment!
As we get closer to the tests, we’re really working on polishing our verb endings in level 3 and 4. Remember, it’s all about subliminal grammar! CI teaching doesn’t mean that grammar is a bad word! It’s part of every day! It’s just not the meat and potatoes of every day! We work on noticing patterns but we do that after the language has already been acquired! So, for example, this week in level 3, we were looking at a particular text and it had “Do you recommend that I”… so I asked students “How do you say I recommend that you” and “How do you say we recommend that she”. The object pronouns are things we’ve learned as we’ve read stories, done movie talks, etc. but making recommendations is a new way we are putting them into practice so I just quickly asked them to notice the pattern! They didn’t need a lesson because they’ve internalized me/te/le/nos from gustar already! In Spanish 4 we were talking about what we would do and we just needed a quick reminder that the “ría” ending is all we need for the “would” form in Spanish. Noticing the patterns in what we read helps us acquire the structures for when we write and speak!
I’m also scrambling to try to work in some units that we would normally have studied, but that we are a little behind on post-pandemic! I KNOW they’ll need to be able to talk about their social media habits so I have to squeak that one in next week! 🙂 It will be very interesting to see if there is any pandemic effect on their scores or if what I see in the classroom bears out on their tests… I think that having this year of semi-normalcy has given them the opportunity to build skill. I think we’re going to see some pretty solid work come through!
If you are looking for a way to encourage students to become invested in language learning and in your program, I can not speak highly enough of micro-credentialing. If your state offers any kind of awards (IL offers both the State Commendation toward Biliteracy and the State Seal of Biliteracy) and the Global Seal of Biliteracy offers several different levels of award. They’re wonderful incentives to keep students moving along the path to proficiency (and those Global Seal medals look awesome with a graduation gown!).
Also, don’t forget that Somewhere to Share is doing a giveaway! We have some awesome sustainable prizes for teachers who share the ways they and their classes are living out the UNs Sustainable Development Goals! Just share your picture with us in our Facebook Group, in the Huellas Curriculum Collab, on Instagram, or on Twitter. Tag us in the picture for a chance to win!
Spring is almost here! We hope a giveaway will help sustain you until the warm weather arrives! Photos are due by February 28th!