If conventional language teaching is grammar-translation, then we’re all somewhat a group of heretics! Still, there are so many sub groups of CI that it warrants a bit of elucidation. At some point, John Bracey and I were talking about if either of us just started discovering CI right now, we’d have NO IDEA what to do or where to begin. Here are descriptions of all the different CI groups I’ve observed over the past 5 years already in existence, or just emerging:
ACTFL Proficiency
Input Expectations: The Updated ONE Rubric
I’ve had great success reporting scores of any homework, assignments, and quizzes in a 0% grading category portfolio, and then using those scores as evidence to double check and confirm each student’s self-assessed course grade based on Proficiency Rubrics. However, I’m constantly open to streamlining any teaching practice, so I’ve just updated my rubrics, distilling them into a single one. Students still self-assess their own estimated ACTFL Proficiency Level, but that level is independent from the grade they also self-assess. So, what’s the grade based on? Instead of proficiency, it’s based on course expectations of receiving input! After all, input causes proficiency, so why not go right to the source?
Move over Proficiency-Based Grading (PBG)! Hello…Expectations…Based…Grading (EBG)? It’s not as wacky as it sounds, trust me. In fact, it’s probably the least-restrictive grading practice next to Pass/Fail, yet still holds students accountable and provides all the flexibility I’ve enjoyed thus far. Here’s the rubric:
Writing for the Novice: Fewer Words, Shorter Sentences
When it comes to writing for the novice, nothing is more important than using words students know, and keeping sentences short. The use of fewer words is self-evident. Shorter sentences, however, help reduce cognitive demand, and likely result in more repeated words from restating the subject, and clearly separating contrasting ideas instead of piles of subordination.
Magister Craft’s latest October Equus is the most understandable novice-categorized Latin video out there that doesn’t establishing meaning in the video itself (though complete subtitles in English are available). There are 127 total words, and 86 unique. If we exclude names, and a handful of words with different forms, that brings it down to about 60 words. The most frequently repeated words are est (6), in (6), et (5), caput (4), and equus (4), with another 5 words repeated 2x. Even this most-likely-to-be-understood video is nowhere near comprehensible to my first year students, or any other students who aren’t familiar with about 58 of those particular words.
How to make this more comprehensible for my students? The first step, without reducing the word count, is breaking up sentences (the longest sentences are 10 words in length). This allows us to restate the subject, or verbs with multiple subjects, and then add one or two words from the original longer sentence. As a result, the novice student has more exposure to the big content words that hold meaning, and increases the chance that any new words are comprehended instead of part of a string of new words all at once. Here are examples:
NTPRS 2017 Resources
Here are links to my Thursday and Friday NTPRS presentations, and related posts for a) those who attended and are interested in reading more, b) those who slept in past 8am (I am slightly envious of that), but wanted to attend, or c) those who weren’t at the conference at all, but find the topics interesting just the same.
Presentations:
NTPRS 2017 – No Prep Grading & Assessment (PPT)
NTPRS 2017 – Same Skills Different Game (PPT)
Related Blog Posts:
No Prep Grading & Assessment
- 10 Workshops on Assessment & Grading
- Reporting Scores vs. Grading
- Grading & Reporting Schemes
- Proficiency Grading: The Last Rubrics You’ll Ever Need
- Assessment & Grading Game Changers
- Quick Quizzes: Piantagginish
- CI Program Checklist: 10 of 13
- K-F-D Quizzes
Same Skills Different Game
Picture Talk: A Discipulus Illustris Follow-Up
Adriana Ramirez shared videos of her and her students doing Picture Talk on Facebook. I apologize if you can’t see them, but the reality is that most of my professional groups have now migrated to FB, which is becoming THE way to remain current in the field, apparently.
Adriana used old family photos for Picture Talk topics of conversation (keeping in mind “conversations” with Novice language learners are interactive, yet require just a few words from students. The teacher—to the dismay of evaluators in the dark—SHOULD be doing most of the talking, here). Once her students developed a higher proficiency level by the end of the second year, she had them bring in their own pictures to talk about. I find it amazing that Adriana continued to provide input, and encourage interaction all throughout the “presentation” of the main student by engaging the class with questions, and checking back in with the main student—basically using Storyasking actor questioning techniques. In a more conventional rule-based language classroom, the teacher would be hands-off, and other students likely bored after 5 or 6 presentations. Not in Adriana’s class.
I instantly thought of how this could follow up Discipulus Illustris (one of 7 language versions of La Persona Especial). Although Adriana had second year students do the presenting, you could do this early on with students of lower proficiency—just be the one providing input and encouraging interaction. To do this, a student emails you a pic to use as a prop. Yes, students are great props, but something novel to look at should grab the attention of others just because it’s different, and fools the mind into thinking the activity is completely different while you could be asking the very same Discipulus Illustris questions about the picture!
I love how it’s no-prep. Actually, it’s can’t-prep, which is exciting on its own. Sure, you could preview the pic (especially if you have students engaging in tomfoolery often), but part of the fun is keeping it lively with unexpected, compelling diversions from what is likely a boring school day. Teachers need to feel energized as well, so try something new.
Performance vs. Proficiency: Why I choose Proficiency (or at least NOT Performance)
I used to be all about Performance Tasks/Assessments, but that was when I had things all backwards about practice. You can read ACTFL’s Performance Descriptors for a more detailed explanation of the difference between Performance and Proficiency, but here are my thoughts below each comparison found in the ACTFL document:
Sample CI Schedule: The Year
**Use this schedule with the Universal Language Curriculum (ULC) Updated 2.4.18**
**Read a post on the Week & Day Updated 12.9.17**
A major reason to ditch what you’ve been doing (or what others expect language learning to look like), and teach with CI is for the flexibility in planning. In fact, the longer I teach with CI, the less I plan, and the better the results. This is probably the least intuitive concept as an educator, especially for anyone still green from their teacher training that included an obsession over Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design, the push for posted objectives, a need for required lesson plans tied to Bloom’s, etc.
I’ve written 13 blog posts and a summary about what should be considered and/or put in place in your classroom in order to continue teaching with CI. Here’s a perspective on a full year of teaching that might help you see the big picture of how simple it is to actually make this happen:
The Day **Added 12.9.17**
– Routines
– Reading
– Students
– Stories
The Week
– Telling/Asking stories, then reading them
– Learning details about students
– 1-3 unannounced “open-book” Quick Quizzes
The Month
– 1-2 unannounced, no notes, 5-10min Fluency Writes
The Grading Term
– Students self-assess Rubric (but check these to see if they’re being too hard on themselves)
The bulk of “planning” then becomes varying how you tell/ask stories (e.g. One Word Image, TPRS, MovieTalk, Magic Tricks, etc.), what you do with them (e.g. Choral Translation, Airplane Translation, Read and Discuss, Running Dictation, Draw-Write-Pass, OWATS, etc.), and how you’ll learn more about each other (e.g. ask students for a new batch of questions to use during La Persona Especial/Discipulus Illustris, etc.).
Proficiency Grading FAQs, and New Rubric Option
**Updated Expectations Rubric**
I’ve had many questions when it comes to implementing my complete grading system, or proficiency rubrics independently from DEA. As a result, you’ll find minor adjustments in their appearance, as well as a few changes that highlight the FAQs.
Proficiency Goal Rubrics
Independent Rubrics (when NOT used in complete grading system along with DEA)
Simplified Rubrics (for exploratory, middle school, or less-prescribed high school programs)
Latin…Online…3rd Graders (oh my!)
This is my first post about Teaching with CI Online, but I’m skipping ahead to showing some student work samples before explaining a bit about how CI Online is working out. That post will follow shortly.
So, here’s the context for the student work I’m showing you:
Proficiency Grading: The last rubrics you’ll ever need
**Updated Expectations Rubric**
OK, so maybe you’re not ready for a complete grading overhaul, or it might be that you are, but someone else isn’t. In this new post, I offer an example of how to use Proficiency goal rubrics independently within a traditional department-defined system using common grading categories. A simple process would be to keep the categories your department has, and use the Proficiency goal rubrics to grade work. A more complete process requires renaming grading categories for the sake of consistency, and communicating CI principles, but otherwise keeping the weights intact. I describe the more complete process in this post.
Magister P. 