CI Program Checklist: 9 of 13

Classroom MGMT
✔   Rules (DEA & CWB)
✔   Routines (Routines, Student Jobs, Interjections & Rejoinders)
✔   Brain Breaks

Comprehensibility
✔   Inclusion (Safety Nets, Gestures & Question Posters)
✔   Shelter Vocab (Super 7, TPR ppt, TPR Wall, and Word Wall)
✔   Unshelter Grammar (TPR Scenes)

Camaraderie
✔   Secrets (Class Password)
✔   Students (People)
__ Stories

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CI Program Checklist: 1 of 13

I have an upcoming workshop at CANE’s 2016 Annual Meeting on how to continue Teaching with CI. My abstract reads:

[…] Despite the success and enjoyment of experimenting with CI, many Latin teachers tend to abandon CI methods and strategies after a brief yet blissful period of refreshing change in favor of familiar ways. This workshop addresses how to continue using CI after the honeymoon phase ends by establishing routines, maintaining engaging activities, and having assessment systems in place to support you and your students.

These next 13 blog posts form a CI Program Checklist (emphasis on “a“), which serves as the basis for my workshop. The checklist is organized by words that begin with the letter C…they’re all the rage right now.

The Cs
Classroom MGMT
Comprehensibility
Camaraderie
Counting
Community
*Compellingness*

Let’s get right to it:

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Updated DEA

**Updated Expectations Rubric**

“But it only counts for 10% of the grade” whispered a student as I pointed to our posted DEA rule agreements. I couldn’t believe it. This student really didn’t think it was important enough to Look, Listen, and Ask about Spanish just because I assigned a low grade weight! Over the course of a few weeks, I overheard the same rationale from different students who consistently messed with the CI flow of class. I had no idea 7th graders would be that snarky about grading!

So, I had to adapt my system. My Proficiency rubrics remain solid, but DEA is now 50% of my 7th graders’ Exploratory Language grade (up from 10%), and reduced to two rules; Pay Attention, and Be Prepared. The latter is only used for homework (rarely assigned) or other obligatory school stuff I don’t want in its own category. Otherwise, Pay Attention is our main focus during class. I’ve posted three suggestions on how to acquire a language on a daily basis:

Look
Listen
Ask

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