These are my updated presentations from the conference:

No-Prep Grading & Assessment 2018
Questioning Is Core
Optimizing Your Classroom Setup For MGMT

Here are my own takeaways organized by presenter, whether a) directly used by them during the conference, or b) inspired by something similar they did that got me thinking and I’ve adapted:

Adriana Ramirez

• Verb Endings Chart Adriana points to verb endings in order to help make form-meaning connections to what learners are hearing. She has noticed an increase of accuracy in both comprehension and production of forms other than the most common present tense, and 3rd person. As an actor in her Fluency Fast class, I was able to respond easily with a complete thought (for the other learners to hear) by her pointing to the expected native-like ending, and it in no way felt forced. There was no correction, just assistance. I’m considering doing something like this since it might help reduce so much writing on the board considering how many inflected forms come up during any given Latin class!
• Picture Presentations & Picture Talk Combo In the second year, learners present a chosen picture of themselves to the class by just talking about it—no preparation. Adriana is there to provide support if needed, and then also engages the class with questions about it (i.e. Picture Talk). This builds community (and gets you a text if you then type it up!).
• Read & Discuss VideoTalk This is way easier than MovieTalk! Instead of narrating during a video clip on the spot, just choose a video, write a text/embedded readings, and read & discuss (perhaps the final embedded reading). After reading & discussing a sentence or section, play that part of the video. Pause, read & discuss, then repeat.

Jason Fritze

• “Withdraw the Love” For rule violations, or other MGMT issues that don’t need an explicit or strong response, just stop class, go blank, and wait. Give the love back when they’re ready, or after learners self-police each other (e.g. “dude, be quiet, look at Mr P!”).
• No-Prep MovieTalk Slides There are built-in slides during any video clip. Instead of preparing them ahead of time, just click a random place on the timeline, then narrate! Have learners call out a timestamp (e.g. one way to expose learners to numbers), or roll dice to make things novel.
• Safe Brain Break Output In order to avoid forced output with quick brain breaks during which learners say something, tell them “if you’re not ready, just listen to what others are saying.”
• Delayed Recast Jason once tracked his recasts, then asked learners how they felt about them. ALL of the learners hated it, and one reported knowing that her utterance had developmental forms/structures (i.e. formerly known as “errors”) the moment she said it, and “didn’t need to feel corrected.” As a result, Jason now engages a different learner with a PQA comparison, and does the recast on that new learner. That way, everyone receives the recast input, but not in any way that feels like a correction, especially because explicit correction doesn’t work!
• Sneaky Fishing Keep getting answers that won’t work well in a story? Have learners yell out their answers all at once, acknowledge a few you hear, but then point somewhere and just use your own, attributing it to one of the learner suggests. Smoke & mirrors.

Linda Li

• TPR Group Retells Have an entire TPR group (e.g. left side/right side) act out what a character does via gestures.
• Cadence Vary speech rate by asking rapid questions that are easily answerable, then pausing and pointing, going slow, and adding pauses between phrases.
• “Talk to the Hand” For a quick brain break, have learners say something to their own hand (instead of a partner) on a topic (i.e. “tell your hand as much as you know about Character X”).

Von Ray

• “I’d like to order a dramatization, but hold the Circling, please” Von doesn’t circle when he’s got actors dramatizing a story. He finds that it slows the pace down. Any circling (cued by when learners hesitate to respond) is done before actors dramatize the action(s).
• Actor Roles & Rules Have actors sit, or kneel until their part is needed.
• 4 Principles of Dramatizationmake a statement & have learners repeat with emotion
• • include dialogue between 2+ learners
  • have awareness to dramatize anything,
  • improvise (i.e. go with compelling diversions and anything the class reacts to)

Blaine Ray

• Triangling Using the you, s/he, and I conjugated forms exposes hesitancy from learner responses, showing how much longer to park and provide more exposure.
• Inside/Outside Box Train learners to think outside the box for faster, more engaging stories, but sometimes go back in the box and go with something expected “just to surprise them!”