I’ve gone through and updated Special Person with 21 questions that my students were most interested in this year. Also, a new format now includes just the question, and a short response starter (but not 3rd person). Download and enjoy!
I live by the “low-prep/no-prep” mantra. Yes, there’s life outside of school (maybe not if you teach high school ELA, sorry folks), and I enjoy sharing with others ideas on how to regain their personal life back while also being a damn fine teacher. As part of this, I pride myself on having not taken home student work for a few years now.
This first week, however, is different…
I’ve been used to starting the year with a half-day devoted to essential rules, some routines, and that school-required housekeeping stuff. Then, in next 8-10 class days over about 2 weeks, I would get into Circling with Balls (CWB), Total Physical Response (TPR), Discipulus Illustris, not to mention the No-Travel Story Script I was looking forward to trying out. Not this year. I see my students just 1 hour per week, which means those usual beginning activities would take us up through Thanksgiving! That’s simply too slow for he brain craving novelty. Expectations must be lowered. I’m just now recognizing exactly how much lower, too. This first week—one class—had to combine all that housekeeping with only a little bit of Latin…very little. You know what we did? placet (= likes). Yep, that’s it, at least as the only verb, although eī, tibi, -ne?, an, nōn, et, harpastum, minimē, and certē also made appearances. The focus was on just one student, and another parallel student to compare.
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.
Yesterday, the following events unfolded while riding my motorcycle:
**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.).
**Update 4.26.16 See how the checklist sets up a Sample CI Schedule for the Year**
**Read a post on the Week & Day Updated 12.9.17**
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 (TPRS, MovieTalk, Magic Tricks, Free Voluntary Reading (FVR))
Counting
✔ Reporting (Quick Quizzes)
✔ Showing Growth (Fluency Writes)
✔ Grading (DEA & Proficiency Rubrics)
Community
✔ Groups, Blogs, Contacts (LPB, moreTPRS, Tea with BvP, Ben Slavic)
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 (TPRS, MovieTalk, Magic Tricks, Free Voluntary Reading (FVR))
Counting
__ Reporting
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
**Read about DISCIPVLVS ILLVSTRIS, and Sabrina’s variation for some context**
Should we assess what students remember about their classmates, or should we assess whether students understand Latin?
Although the former has social benefits, let’s face it…we use student details as our understandable messages in Latin. It’s great to know that Johnny’s birthday is in April, but it’s better to be able to read and understand all of the Latin used to express that detail. Inspired by a brilliant new tweak to Ben Slavic’s Quick Quizzes, I’ll be making the following changes:
**See a more recent post with some changes to the Quizzes**
Last week at TCI Maine ’15, Sabrina Janczak discussed and demoed Star of the Week, her process for student interviews. Although I first discovered a practical interview process from Bryce Hedstrom’s, word has it that original credit goes to Jody Noble, along with Krashen’s 1983 The Natural Approach as a source for conducting “personal interviews” in the classroom (thanks to Eric Herman and Ben Slavic for those clarifications). Before I discuss Sabrina’s process, let me state that no CI classroom should be without some variation of this year-long activity. We often talk about not being prescriptive, but this is too important to overlook. I’m not suggesting that you do this, and neither is Shia Labeouf. Make time in your schedule, and you will be amazed at the positive change in class culture/environment, and increase in student language production. YES, spontaneous language production by June is not out of the question.
Magister P. 