Resources from Professional Development Sessions
Hitting the Target: Engagement and Communication Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The following resources are from the session held at Dulles HS in Room B202. Thank you to Ruth Jeffery and Dulles HS for hosting us! And thank you to all of the teachers who attended and shared so many good strategies and ideas. If you are willing to have me come to video you in your classroom demonstrating these strategies, please INVITE ME!
Here are my notes from the sessions. Teachers who were there, please correct any misunderstandings I may have had. I intentionally didn't mention names because I didn't get all names in my notes and I'm afraid that I may leave people out. If you have any other materials or ideas you want to share, please send me an email and I'll share that email like I did the one from Jennifer Chong below.
Teachers shared strategies that they use to keep students (and themselves) in the target language.
1. Specify definite times that English is not allowed to be used. Set a time (visible timer), give a task, and stick to it!
2. Have some kind of sign, item, or symbol that signifies NO ENGLISH or TARGET LANGUAGE ONLY. One teacher uses a pato (duck) as the signal.
3. Keep the contexts of tasks authentic. Make scenarios as realistic as possible. (Ask yourself...."Is this something you could see yourself or your student saying on the streets of Paris or in a real-world scenario?"
4. Consistency - Make these strategies and procedures a part of your everyday classroom.
5. Stand at door and make students speak to you in the target language before they enter the classroom. You may ask questions that have to do with current unit objectives and vocabulary.
6. Walk around and listen to conversations as students complete tasks- have a way to hold students accountable. Give some kind of speaking grade. One teacher gives a daily grade every 2-3 weeks, another gives students "positivos". Another teacher does a system with "buenos". That document will be attached below.
6. One teacher uses www.Classdojo.com to visibly monitor student participation.
7. www.maryglasgowplus.com/subscribe These are the Scholastic magazines - Spanish, French, and German. You can go on and get five or six free downloads. Subscriptions are relatively cheap, online, from my brief perusal and you get lots of authentic reading materials.
8. Victimas/voluntarios - one teacher ask kids whether they want to be a volunteer or victim......
9. www.audirio.com Spanish Audio podcasts - Free!
10. Post signs around the room identifying all the different things in the room - this is s word wall concept - also expressions that you want the students to use all the time. May I go to the restroom? May I borrow...?
11. http://www.cuentosinteractivos.org
12. Conversation in an envelope: Come up with conversations in the target language and separate them up into strips. To save your prep time, hand out to students first period and ask them to cut them into strips (tiritas). Give students time to put the conversations together.
13. www.goear.com Words to songs (Spanish only as far as I can tell).
14. Teacher's pick websites instead of popsicle sticks. Here's one I found. http://www.superteachertools.com/instantclassroom/random-name-generator.php
15. Teaching vocabulary - don't hand out entire list at one time or teach the whole list. One teacher divides vocabulary into different categories and works with that category at once. See the videos posted. Have students guess what the category or theme is by the vocabulary that is introduced.
16. http://www.wordle.com
17. Traffic light App.
Websites shared by Jennifer at the meeting:
Here are my notes from the sessions. Teachers who were there, please correct any misunderstandings I may have had. I intentionally didn't mention names because I didn't get all names in my notes and I'm afraid that I may leave people out. If you have any other materials or ideas you want to share, please send me an email and I'll share that email like I did the one from Jennifer Chong below.
Teachers shared strategies that they use to keep students (and themselves) in the target language.
1. Specify definite times that English is not allowed to be used. Set a time (visible timer), give a task, and stick to it!
2. Have some kind of sign, item, or symbol that signifies NO ENGLISH or TARGET LANGUAGE ONLY. One teacher uses a pato (duck) as the signal.
3. Keep the contexts of tasks authentic. Make scenarios as realistic as possible. (Ask yourself...."Is this something you could see yourself or your student saying on the streets of Paris or in a real-world scenario?"
4. Consistency - Make these strategies and procedures a part of your everyday classroom.
5. Stand at door and make students speak to you in the target language before they enter the classroom. You may ask questions that have to do with current unit objectives and vocabulary.
6. Walk around and listen to conversations as students complete tasks- have a way to hold students accountable. Give some kind of speaking grade. One teacher gives a daily grade every 2-3 weeks, another gives students "positivos". Another teacher does a system with "buenos". That document will be attached below.
6. One teacher uses www.Classdojo.com to visibly monitor student participation.
7. www.maryglasgowplus.com/subscribe These are the Scholastic magazines - Spanish, French, and German. You can go on and get five or six free downloads. Subscriptions are relatively cheap, online, from my brief perusal and you get lots of authentic reading materials.
8. Victimas/voluntarios - one teacher ask kids whether they want to be a volunteer or victim......
9. www.audirio.com Spanish Audio podcasts - Free!
10. Post signs around the room identifying all the different things in the room - this is s word wall concept - also expressions that you want the students to use all the time. May I go to the restroom? May I borrow...?
11. http://www.cuentosinteractivos.org
12. Conversation in an envelope: Come up with conversations in the target language and separate them up into strips. To save your prep time, hand out to students first period and ask them to cut them into strips (tiritas). Give students time to put the conversations together.
13. www.goear.com Words to songs (Spanish only as far as I can tell).
14. Teacher's pick websites instead of popsicle sticks. Here's one I found. http://www.superteachertools.com/instantclassroom/random-name-generator.php
15. Teaching vocabulary - don't hand out entire list at one time or teach the whole list. One teacher divides vocabulary into different categories and works with that category at once. See the videos posted. Have students guess what the category or theme is by the vocabulary that is introduced.
16. http://www.wordle.com
17. Traffic light App.
Websites shared by Jennifer at the meeting:
email_from_jennifer_chong_2.6.13.pdf | |
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