A New Direction

This blog has been aptly named "My Journey as a Teacher".  As of May 21st this year, my journey will officially be over as a public school teacher.  I have done a lot of searching and reflection this year, which has lead me to the decision to take a new direction with my professional career.  I have nothing set in stone yet.  I have "had my nose to the grindstone" for so many years to get to this place where I thought I wanted to be, only to find where I want to be is some place different.  My plan now is to stop and smell the roses and to let my calling come to me through more searching and reflection. 

This is a truly exciting and scary time for me.  I wanted to also thank all of you who I have met personally or cyberly :).  You all have offered so much support, guidance and more over the last three years of my journey.  I know that in my future "teacher" may still be part of what I do, but it will not be in the sense it has been in the past.  

Thank you all again.  All of you teachers rock!

Reminding myself the power of CI

The end of February marks a different time of year for myself and my students.  By this time, the traditional TPRS and overall "enchantment" of school has worn off. The kids are burnt out.  I am burnt out.  It is tough to continue our pace and enthusiasm.  Thus, this time of year I find myself needing some reminding of the power of CI.
In my graduate class (LAST ONE!!!!) I have to facilitate a session to teach other teachers how to do what I do tonight.  While looking for some videos of student retells (which, bummer, I couldn't find), I stumbled upon Carol Gabb teaching ESL to her baseball guys.  I was instantly reminded of the power of what we do, and the possibilities to create real and lasting change in peoples' lives with CI and languages. 
If you're needing a reminder of the possibilities and power of what we do, check it out.  And, thanks Carol,   you've really inspired me!

Movitation and SLA

I'm in the middle of (or should currently be) conducting a literature review for my last (official!) grad course.  I decided to add on to my current lit review on SLA in the secondary classroom.  Initially I examined the research on best practices in promoting SLA.  Guess what I found?  TPRS/CI is the way to go. Duh! :)
But this time I wanted to see how student motivation played a factor in the classroom.  I believe that students who do not succeed in others' classrooms, sometimes succeed in mine (and vice versa) due to motivation-related factors. 
Why did I write this blog post?  Well I wanted to share two things that I am finding:
1) Anxiety and motivation are very closely related.  As anxiety increases in students, motivation decreases along with achievement.
2) Much of the research on the topic of motivation (and subsequently anxiety) in the SLA process is coming from Asia because of reforms in language teaching mandated by the government.  Specifically, Japan has initiated several major reforms at the high school level which aims to replace the grammar-translation approach to teaching.  Go Japan! 

Japan's progress makes me salivate; and the correlation between anxiety, motivation and achievement seems so obvious, but if it were so obvious to others (eh hum, administrators?) then the research wouldn't be needed.

Student Motivation

I recently go added to the #LangChat distribution list.  It has been pretty great so far to hear what is going on in that realm.  (Side note: I call it "that realm" because I don't really even know how to use hash tags!) But they recently sent out an interesting topic of how to motivate students to start and stay with world languages.  Obviously, as a language teacher, I think learning other languages is very important, but the best way to maintain students in our programs once they start is to capture their hearts and imaginations. 
I also think it's important to help them see that they indeed can acquire and use another language; that it is not some elite skill reserved for the 4% of "smart" students. 

If you're interested in knowing more, here's the link!  Also, they have a really neat FREE e-book recently out.  I would search for and download that too. 

Hope everyone's second semester is off to a wonderful start!

"Vacation" and Vacation

I just finished reading Ben's most recent blog post, and I couldn't agree more.  We all need to use our vacations as vacations and quit killing ourselves planning ahead and re-hashing our current situations. 

I have been known to use entire "vacations" to write lessons and plan ahead in order to increase my student's learning.  I am wiser now that I realize that it is unhealthy and quite insane to spend "vacation" time working rather than relaxing. 

So let's celebrate what was good and what we learned from in 2011, and look forward to a happier, healthier and more language friendly 2012. 

Happy holidays!

A visit to a guru...

A couple of weeks ago I had the awesome opportunity to see Ben Slavic in action again.  I had seen him in a couple of workshops at NTPRS 2011, but this was even better than that.  Seeing Ben interacting with his kids was a real treat.  Seeing him made what he writes about in his blog and what he does in workshops really come to life. 
I learned so much from just that afternoon.  I was rejuvenated and it re-instilled my faith in CI (this year has been particularly challenging, hence the lack of posts - if you don't have anything nice to say, don't put it on the internet!).  I was so inspired by the power of the reading class we saw, that I went and attempted to re-create the same lesson in my own class the next day. 
I couldn't have worked out better because we were working on some of the same vocabulary.  We did the Anna Matava story "Don't Drink the Water" and I changed it to "He Shouldn't Drink the Water" to match the structures we were working with via our Realidades curriculum.  My students responded great.  They loved the reading being on the screen, the chance to just read and hear the Spanish then go back and translate.  Reading is really powerful stuff.  I need to focus on incorporating more reading next semester.
I am so thankful that I live in an area where CI is doing great things, where there are teachers embracing the method (even if it is not in my own school), where I can get support from internet acquaintances and complete strangers, where students are the priority.  Thank you Ben and Diana for having me.  It was a powerful afternoon, and just what I needed to see.

Universal Design for Learning

Hi all!  This still isn't the update I want to post (I do appreciate the words of encouragement and support everyone has been giving me this year!), but this provides some insight as to how I have been spending my semester outside my classroom... as a graduate student.  The good news is I'll be done in July.

Anyway, here is a link to a website I created supporting TPRS/CI with the universal design for learning  concept.  If you're not familiar with UDL, that's what the site is supposed to familiarize you with.

I thought it might interest some of you, so here you go!

https://sites.google.com/site/udlbasics/

An explanation for my absence...

I intentionally have not been posting on here since school started this year.  There is, in my opinion, a very good reason.  Unfortunately, I still am unable to voice that reason here.  BUT I feel that the time to tell my readers (anyone out there?) is approaching.  Hopefully sooner than later.  Stay tuned!

Quick update on the first 3 weeks.

There have definitely been some ups and downs with the start of a new school year.  This, of course, is to be expected. 
Re-cap of important events, in no perticular order:

• PLC meeting with tough discussions about the assessments we have created
• SBG fall out
• First year students excitement to hear they will be reading a novel
• Throwing more reading at my third years as per what Ben Slavic recommended
• Third years haven't completely lost their ability to be silly
• My PLC facilitator came in to watch me teach
• Started my second year of graduate school
• Reflected upon my teaching

Just a short update.  Boy, the beginning of a school year goes quickly!

Back in the Saddle

The students came back on Monday this week, and it's been a pretty good start.

Positives:

• First year students overall seem very positives and engaged in the class. 
• Circling with Balls (a la Ben Slavic) is proving to be a powerful way to reach those students who seem to always be on the outside, just as promised.  
• I'm trying class jobs, and so far, so good!  I really like the Greeter idea.  It's a truly wonderful way to welcome students to class.
• My students from last year are excited to see me, and say hello.  I really think this TCI thing really builds up that bond with each student. 
• I have a student assistant! 

Areas that need improvement:

• I will feel better if I change my attitude about my 3rd year classes.  They are so much tougher to teach because most of them don't want to play the TCI game.  I reached out to Ben and his bloggers to see what they recommend, and they have a few good ideas.  I just don't want to feel so beat up (Yes, already!) from giving my all and it not being reciprocated.   I even contemplated going back to textbook and sticking with TCI in year 1, but for some reason that would kill me. 
• SBG is proving to cause me more stress than I had originally thought.  I think it's because I coupled it with shifting to the textbook to TPRS model.  Oh boy, what was I thinking? 
• I will feel more grounded if I look back at the goals I set before I started school.  

So as all teachers know (well at least in my experience), teaching is quite the roller coaster ride.  Ups and downs.  I think it should smooth out in the next couple of weeks.  Just remember "this too, shall pass." 

The TCI Train Isn't Slowing Down.

Today was my first day back at school with all my teacher colleagues.  I was really excited to see everyone again, but I was surprised with the curiosity and eagerness to learn more about TPRS/CI from a few of my colleagues.
I should back up and say that I ruffled some feathers last year doing my own thing with TPRS/CI.  It was not a pleasant experience, but I have come to believe that change doesn't happen without discomfort.  I was inspired by Michele Whaley at NTPRS this year for her session on the Alaskan TPRS Miracle.   I'm not hoping for anything like a miracle or as large-scaled as what she accomplished; but I do hope to be the change I wish to see in the world language classroom, and by doing that, I hope to inspire others to get uncomfortable with me and try TPRS/CI. 
This morning the TCI Train pulled into my school and a few of my colleagues really took notice.  After arriving at work this morning a couple colleagues shared with me the exciting news (well, exciting to me anyways...) that a colleague that left our school for Denver Public was going to be using TPRS/CI as well.  This woman was inspired by the power of the method, and she was able to share that inspiration with a couple of my colleagues without fear of backlash, which was great.  After we talked a little about what our former-colleague said, it was suggested that I do a little presentation on TPRS/CI for the department in order to educate them on the method and maybe share with them some TPRS/CI activities that they can use.  Obviously I was excited.  Nothing is set in stone, but it feels good to come back to positive attitudes and open minds.  One teacher is even entertaining the idea of TPRS/CI this year!
I cannot wait to see what the rest of this year has in store for me!

Processing NTPRS for Success in a New Year

The title makes it sound relatively easy, but as I try to re-read my notes I feel daunted.  I am extremely excited to go into my second year of TPRS and third year of teaching, but I need to focus myself in order to improve my skills for my students.  I feel daunted now because of the copious amounts of knowledge that was shared with me at NTPRS.  It was an invaluable experience because now I know that I am no longer alone.  Last year I clung on to the internet (Laurie's blog, Ben's blog, moreTPRS listserv, etc) in order to feel not alone, but there's something new this year with actually meeting people who are doing this.  I am forever grateful for the TPRS army (credit to mme. Hayles).

My take-aways from NTPRS:

1. SLOW - Thank you Linda Li & Bryce Hedstrom (& Ben Slavic for his recent post on research regarding this)
2. The brain craves novelty - Thank you Carol Gaab & Kristy Placido
1.  Jibjab
2. Stories worth retelling (credit to Bryce Hedstrom)
3. Use news stories and culture stories
4. Use props like my dog uses toys.  Circulate them as the kids loose interest.  Not every story has to have a bunch of props.
3. You don't have to be creative on your feet immediately, write down each sentence of a story on note card with possibilities for each thing (10-15 note cards/story) - Thank you Michelle (not sure of the last name, but she was a French teacher and fantastic coach!)
4. There are other people who are more isolated than me doing this - Thanks roomie Kristin Duncan
5. Organize and Manage the Board - Thank you Carol Gaab & Susan Gross
1. TL and L1 in different colors
2. Don't over-fill the board - have the structures up there and then enrichment vocabulary, not everything needs to be written down
6. Give sts jobs in order to personalize the class - 
1. See Ben Slavic's post (members only)
7. Contrast Grammar in order to fulfill the curriculum - Thank you Susan Gross & Betsy Paskvan! (This was my big break-through in the coaching room too)

My professional goals for August:

1. Check-in with colleagues to see how they are doing (esp. Charlotte, Vicki, Carrie and Laura)
2. Focus on SLOW and personalized input (TPR and Circle with balls)
3. Use Scott Benedict’s textbook to TPRS to help align myself with the curriculum/vocab again and to model to my colleagues that it can be done without abandoning the safety of a textbook.  Focus on having characters DO what the student objectives are for each chapter.
4. Begin using standards-based grading with my sts.
5. Video one class and submit it to Ben.

Lastly, I made slides to print out to help me accomplish my goals in my classroom.  I made them available here.  They're similar to the ones at NTPRS in the coaching rooms. 

NTPRS 2011 Notes

I got back from NTPRS on Friday night.  I was sad to leave the people but oh so happy to be back with my family and dry heat.  As I have told many people, my "cup" (brain!) has been overflowing since Monday with all the good ideas and support my fellow TPRSers offered at the conference.  I have been hoping to get some down time to process it all, but it doesn't look like that will happen for at least another week because the Mr. and I are leaving on our honeymoon tomorrow morning, so I've got my work cut out for me. 

Anyhow, I wanted to share my notes from my google docs.  It's almost all of my notes except for the ones scrawled on the back of my notebook.  Enjoy!

NTPRS 2011 - Tuesday

Well, it has been quite the conference already.  I've just gotten into my pajamas after day two of NTPRS 2011, and I am exhausted, but in a good way.  I am exhausted after being truly inspired, awestruck, humbled, energized, eager, and studious among other things.  These are all great things from my perspective, so let me explain a little more about how I've arrived here today.
Sunday was a day for travel and meeting and mingling.  I got up at a decent time to make the flight from CO to MO.  It went relatively well -- no unexpected problems.  When I arrived in STL, my bag was quickly available and the shuttle was conveniently waiting for me outside the baggage doors, so it was on to the hotel.  At the hotel is where I was met with the first inconvenience -- my room wasn't ready yet.  I had to wait an hour or so, but it was no big deal.  I got checked in once it was ready and then met my roommate after a couple minutes of being in the room.  I don't think I could have arranged a better roommate situation.  After talking for entirely too long, we headed down to the mixer BBQ where we met some really great people and sweated a lot.  We finally headed back up to our room after three hours outside and then chatted for a long time about our experiences. 
On Monday we began in the beginners group, which was to last 1.5 consecutive days.  After meeting Donna Tatum-Johns and Katya, learning a bit of Russian, and listening to an engaging talk by THE Dr. Stephen Krashen, we decided that the beginner track wasn't for us despite that we have only TPRSed for a year.  We went to our first "advanced" workshop with Carol Gaab (AMAZING) then finished the day with Michelle Whaley (INSPIRING!) before going to Dave and Buster's with some wonderful teachers.  We came home and crashed (not without talking passionately for far too long for sleep's sake...). 
Today was another fantastic day.  Another great day to be a TPRSer.  We started with the infamous Susie Gross and Betsy for some Contrastive Grammar, which was amazingly helpful.  Then we moved to Michael Miller and Barb Watson's Personalization workshop, and saw some pretty powerful stuff which made me excited to see my kids again.  We ate lunch at the Classroom Management table and met some great people and even snagged a ticket for tonight's excursion to  downtown STL.  Then we went to Ben Slavic's Beginning of the Year Personalization workshops, which was also very powerful. Then we went to the arch and out to dinner with another group of wonderful TPRSers.  Now we're wrapping things up before going to bed.  I hope to write more about each session, but at least share my notes on Google Docs, so keep checking back... if you're out there. :)

My last thoughts...It's been really refreshing to have a wonderfully inspirational, supportive and positive group to talk with, debate with, and learn from.  The stories that others share inspire me to continue to be the change I wish to see in the World Language classroom.  I am so grateful that I've been able to attend NTPRS 2011.

World Wise School Update

So last summer, in the midst of my dive into TPRS, I found this because of my continued interest in the Peace Corps.  It is a program in which current classroom teachers are matched up with current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) to enhance the classroom experience.  I was excited when we were matched with our PCV because she grew up in the community I teach in.  However last year didn't prove to be the most successful.

Our PCV recently emailed me with some amazing ideas for the coming year, so we have a renewed sense of hope.  It just so happens that I am tinkering with standards-based grading (SBG) this year in order to align myself with the new state and national standards, and these new ideas really hit on the new standards.  We are hoping to facilitate proficiency of the standards through video responses by real Hondurans to my students' questions and through short letters. 

I am totally excited and trying to be as purposeful as possible, even though I was going to take today "off", but now I'm too compelled to stop.  Here's to another year of possibility.  I'm getting excited to get back with my students!

"Must be nice to have the summer off."

It's no lie that most teachers get the summer "off".  But it's delusional to think that all teachers do in the summer is sip on iced tea and go to the pool.  Although I cannot speak for every teacher, this effective teacher tries to take some time for myself and continue to work on school-related things. 
Now I realize I may be preaching to the choir, but I feel slighted when people say "Must be nice to have the summer off." I worked hard for this thank you very much.  Just in the past two weeks in addition to finishing up my last graduate class of this year (much of which involved curriculum mapping/planning), I've spent at least 4 8-hour days working on bettering my craft for the upcoming school year. 
I'm working on aligning my curriculum to the new Colorado Academic Standards and to the new national standards from ACTFL.  I've done this through moving towards a standards-based grading system, which is something that has always interested me (although now that I'm writing this I realize I need to actually do research about its effectiveness).  I have planned out when assessments need to be and begun writing them.  But I need to step up my game on my third year class.  I guess I'm stuck as to how to best facilitate language acquisition with them.  I hope to get this resolved next week.
Next week I will be in St. Louis for the National TPRS conference.  It will be 5 wonderful days of learning, networking and reflection.  I hope to learn a lot and to be able to better facilitate language acquisition.
But now, I'm going to read Pyramid Response to Intervention by Buffum, Mattos and Weber.  This was a book assigned on my summer reading list by my administration.  I'm interested to see what this book has to say, how research-based it is (I look at just about everything with a critical eye), and how I can better serve all of my students.
So to all of the nay-sayers who think teachers have summers off (among other things), I hope you realize that not all of us are parked by the pool sipping iced teas for the entire summer.

New life, new blog.

In my personal life, there has been a big change.  I got married.  Since I am starting a new life, I am transferring my blog to a new location with me.  I've been getting things back to normal after this crazy year this summer.  I am enjoying reading and reflecting right now, but I will update later.  Keep checking back!

Taking care of yourself should be priority #1.

I don't care what anyone else tells you.  This is probably one of the most difficult things for me to learn and to live by.  But I'm trying.  If I do this, I am more relaxed, level headed, a better teacher, a better human, and better able to handle everything that comes at me in and out of the classroom.

I faltered the last two weeks and violated rule #1.  I paid for it. My fiancé paid for it.  My students paid for it.  And I suffered, and so on and so forth.  Well after a particularly difficult Saturday, I found myself determined to "take back my life".  I went to yoga because that's where I go to become a better person.  I went to yoga again today. 

And guess what?  I had some wonderful PQA with two particularly difficult classes and decent other classes.  I actually did successfully provide CI today, which has been something I haven't been able to do in almost two weeks. 

And guess what else?  The tests didn't get graded.  And no one asked about them.  The students know it's the end of the year too (imagine that right?).

So yea.  Make taking yourself rule #1. It's kind of like when you step in your classroom, and you make your students feel safe they'll play the CI game, but if not, you can forget about it.  It's like that.  If you take care of yourself, you'll be able to lead the CI game, but if not, you can forget about it.

It's a tough time of year, but this too shall pass.

"Is there anyone else that teaches like you?"

I have to share one of the best moments in my (short) career.  Not only did I have a great day creating compelling, contextual and comprehensible stories, but my fourth period said something that made me believe in TPRS/CI all over again.  They asked me about what teacher to take for second year Spanish.  I told them that I didn't have a favorite, each one was great in their own way, and each one would teach them a lot.  Before letting up, they asked, "Does anyone teach like you?" Throughout this year, I have explained to them that there are a few ways to teach languages based on the goal in mind.  They know my goal for them is fluency.  They got the answer they weren't hoping for: no.

And guess what?  THEY COMPLAINED!  They said, "But we like this class." Read: we feel successful in here.  We feel valued in here.  We feel confident in here.  One girl, whom I've had the pleasure of teaching Spanish 1 to twice said to me, "So next year is going to be difficult."  But I was sure to let them know that they could come back to me for 3rd year.  And I hope they do.  And I hope they tell their friends about me.  And I hope this TPRS/CI spreads like wildfire.

Oh, and on another note a boy asked about past tense.  Not in a grudgingly way.  Not in a "oh goodness I have to memorize another tense." In a curious sense.  With a sense that he wants to be able to communicate in the language.  It even sparked the thought that maybe I could start the past tense a little bit this year... but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.  I don't want to rock the boat too much.

I am sold.  If fluency is our goal.  This is our method.

A Saturday of Professional Development

Today I spent my day in then annual technology conference put on by my district.  It was thought-provoking, inspiring, overwhelming and exciting.   Each session lasted about an hour and was jam-packed with information that I'm trying to process, but I'm inspired to write about this day so I'll attempt to do both in one sitting.

Getting started:
This was an exceptional presentation by two younger teachers.  It really addressed my overwhelming feeling about taking on more technology.

Collaborative writing:
This presentation was exploding with great uses for google's platform of presentations, documents, groups, sites, etc.

Flipping your classroom:
Karl Fisch always does a great job of provoking thoughts.  Today he picked my mind about what I can do outside of my classroom.

Gone global:
During this presentation the overwhelming feeling and guilt spread over me.  I had signed up for the Peace Corps' World Wide Schools partnership this year, and typically of me, it was too much.  We haven't done much with it because there just isn't enough time.  Perhaps I can combine this idea with Karl's and have it as an outside of the classroom connection.  I do realize that this is an extremely valuable undertaking, but I get anxious just thinking about attempting it.

Innovative Libraries:
I found myself asking, "What does technology literacy mean?" a lot during this presentation.  Thankfully, our CIO answered - It is determining who a source is from, not where it is from in order to identify it's credibility.

I happily left the conference (we got out a half hour early!) with lots to process.

What I have come up with for next year is that:

1) I would like to explore with making my class more tech-friendly.  I'm looking at developing my teacher page into something to use as more of a resource.  If this is not possible, I'll try to look at google sites or a wiki.

2) I hope to increase the amount of time students have with comprehensible input through the use of technology, especially for my third year students (a 3-day/week class).

3) I want to use google docs/presentations more instead of Microsoft products myself and with my students (in order to stop supporting the "commercialism" of public schooling).

What a wonderfully thought-provoking Saturday.  I just wish I actually had the time to sit down and process it all!