Author: senoracmt

Interpersonal Communication… The Silent Period… Presentational Mode… Affective Filter… How do we know what is right for our students? Honestly, I love reading the research but the truth is that we know what is right for OUR students by looking at OUR students.

Skits: For me, they didn’t work. I paired students up, they spoke English while they planned. They looked up a bunch of words in the dictionary. They either read in a monotone or presented with great enthusiasm… but no one understood them because they weren’t using the vocabulary we’d studied in class. So I nixed them.

Oral Presentations: For me, they didn’t work when it was one student in front of the class. It took a whole day in one section of Spanish 2 and 1.25 days in the other. It left everyone else with nothing to do while the presenter was speaking so I had to hush them all of the time. It was often like the skit in that students were presenting on a topic and had looked up words that the class did not know. So I nixed them too.

Then came the good ole’ speaking test. I gave a list of questions they might be asked and they planned how they would answer and responded to a set number of questions. Again, it took up a lot of class time leaving all but one student with nothing to do at any given time… It didn’t really show their ability because they had planned and memorized answers. It was boring. So I nixed that… Wow. I did a lot of nixing.

So what do I do then?

Gallery Style: If they are presenting a product, I have half of the class stand to present and the other half listen as “gallery patrons”. They listen to the presentation, follow up with 2 good questions and the presenter has to come up with 2 good answers on the spot. I wander around the room the whole time listening to the different presentations. In a class of 24-30 I have 12-15 rotations to be able to hear every student speak before I MUST ask them to switch places. I never need that many rotations (and if I ever felt like I didn’t hear someones presentation well, I would have everyone grab their product and record a FlipGrid presenting the work to me… then I’m able to get back to those I was not sure of).

Simple FlipGrid or LMS video: If I just want them to answer a specific question or tell what they know about a specific topic, I have them record their response on FlipGrid or through our Learning Management- EBackpack. I can then listen whenever I am ready! Whole class speaking assessed in 5-10 minutes! (Well… not graded but finished!)

Centers: If I want to have 1 on 1 time with them, I do a round of centers. While students do interpretive listening, presentational writing, and interpretive reading at the other centers, groups of 3-4 come to me and I can have a true interpersonal discussion with them about the topic. I love this best!

Story Retells: A great way to get them speaking is a 3 way story retell! I have mine start by telling the story to something with a face because we all need our warm up to be someone who isn’t judgey!

In round 2, they retell to someone sitting near them, and in round 3, when they’ve practiced and feel good about the story, they retell to me via FlipGrid! Each is on a 6 minute timer so even with the transition time, they are done in about 20-25 minutes!

Discussion Thursday: I use Discussion Thursday a LOT (and sometimes on Monday or Friday…) to get students having an interpersonal conversation about something we are reading or studying in class. By asking THEM to come up with the questions, to reply to each other, to agree and disagree, and to know when it is time to move on to the next question, I put the burden of leading the discussion on them. I am free to sit back and enjoy. I LOVE hearing them speak.

Comprehensible Input has a purpose. Of course we want to use the Target Language in class as much as we possibly can but why? So that our students become comfortable and confident using the language themselves! Plan for them to speak as a way to show off how much they’ve acquired in the class rather than as a practice to get better at something they don’t know yet! Fill them up with input and you’ll be amazed by what comes out!

This is a great question! And it is one that many people disagree over! Let’s look at some things we know from the research of Krashen and many others.

1. Poor readers have the smallest vocabularies. Giving extensive lists just puts these struggling students at a greater disadvantage.
2. Exposure to oral language promotes growth of vocabulary.
3. Repetition improves acquisition of vocabulary.

What I know from my personal experience:

1. As a student, I was given massive lists of vocabulary in both Spanish and English classes, out of context. I did well on the tests because I am a great memorizer. My friends didn’t all do well on the tests and had negative feelings about their own ability.
2. As a reader in Spanish and English, my vocabulary gets bigger and bigger all the time! My students are only 14-18, I have to be realistic even about what is a cognate for them. It took me a long time to develop the vocabulary I have.
3. I learn vocabulary I am interested in at a much higher rate than that which I am not… ex: Jim, my husband, tries telling me a computer thing and I get anxious because I don’t understand what he is saying. I respond by speaking Spanish to him so he can see how ridiculous this conversation is.  ex: I tell Jim about my nerdy science readings online and he says “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

What I see in my classroom:

1. I give a few words that everyone needs to know and then allow lots of room to add self selected vocabulary. The words they choose for themselves are the ones they use most often in conversation.
2. Even though I don’t give all the clothing (numbers, rooms of the house, etc) at one time, they acquire them all slowly through the year!
3. They acquire a TON of words through reading!
4. They actually acquire the vocabulary we use in the classroom! Those old lists I gave were deceptive. It made me FEEL like they were learning a lot more vocabulary than they were… but it was one of those cram and forget type of things for most of the kids.

Vocabulary is important! (If we don’t have words, we can never communicate.) That said, vocabulary has to be sheltered. If we throw too much out, we risk losing enrollment and feeding the mindset of  ‘I can’t learn a second language.’

Try the chuck-it bucket as a way to pare down to the basics and then add a few enrichment structures for the real superstars! If you can present small chunks of vocabulary as the “required structures” for each unit, then the pressure is off for your slower processors to acquire more than they can and the spotlight can shine on your faster processors as they pick up the extra little things you share in readings, in class discussions, and in stories/movie talks.

Have a great year sharing your passion with your students and be patient with them and with yourself. We are never going to be perfect! As a matter of fact, just today I read in Daniel Pink’s book Drive that mastery of anything is like an asymptote (google that one if you don’t remember from math class).  You get close but you never quite get there! In the end of it all, your students will really blow you away with the language they can produce after a year… and even more so the more years they come back!!