Señora! How will you get your kids to use Spanish this summer?
I mean, sure, in December, they all seemed to think it was reasonable to get 4 portfolio sections completed in the calendar YEAR they were going to have between Spanish I ending and Spanish II beginning. (There are advantages and disadvantages to the way my school is set up.) But since December, only 3 people have bothered to turn even 1 section in!
Back then
So I assembled all of their portfolio and IPA scores for Spanish I, eyeballed them a bit, thought back on my experiences with them and overall impressions of
A) their ability levels and
B) their anxiety levels.
And I assigned them a level to “maintain” over the year-long hiatus, complete with cute custom badge printout for their notebooks.
So they agreed to submit a new set of evidence for each of the four skills at their prescribed level. They also agreed it probably was a good idea to spread out the refreshing and maybe avoid an end-of-semester crunch this fall by at least offering a little extra credit carrot to get as many sections as possible done by summer’s end.
In the meantime
I set up the spreadsheet I’ll be using to track their progress in each skill next semester, and I added a column to enter their semester-end designated level.
I added another column next to the “I” levels and labeled it “Re” for “Refresh” so that I can record their results.
For spring break I had posted the Reading assignment, complete with
objectives for each level (Novice Mid through Intermediate Low)
suggested tasks for each level
linked resources to complete the suggested tasks
You know, just in case they got bored. I also posted Writing before exam week: after all, they had all that spare time when they finished college classes! Mind you, in that time THREE people got some portfolios in, and those only Reading.
Time for some
About now
I’m about to archive last year’s classes and hit the old “Reuse Post” on Google Classroom to transfer Reading and Writing to the “Class of 2019” class that the whole school uses for that cohort’s announcements. Oh, and “Schedule Assignment,” so they can go out while I’m on the plane to Mexico!
Speaking of scheduling things to go out while I’m in Mexico, I also just discovered the Boomerang Chrome Extension that allowed me to send reminder emails from the plane as well! You see, unless students took their notebooks home with their cute badge printout stickers (or, Heaven forfend, they wrote it down themselves and kept track of it), they’re probably not sure which level they should be submitting for what anymore.
So I…
pulled up my spreadsheet master list of accomplishments and accomplishments-to-come
opened up the Class of 2019 students list in Classroom
checked off all of the kiddos who had NM on the spreadsheet
clicked “Actions” and “Email”
jotted a little email reminder with NOVICE MID READING in big huge red letters and
programmed it in Boomerang for plane time too!
And voila! Private reminders that don’t take forever!
Then of course I went back, did the same thing with NH and IL! And then again with all of the Writing accomplishments NM-IL. And, you know, eventually will do the same with Speaking and Listening.
And SPEAKING of LISTENING…I have a few more fortuitous posts for my young ones in need of refreshment coming up!
And THEN
After the plane lands, I’ll not only have some more authentic text signage for their Reading portfolios on my Instagram @SraSpanglish, #sxtnletrero (PS my wish for Instagram to Pinterest recipes from last year was granted!!), But I’m ALSO going to take my first dive into Periscope and send out some TL videos about my experiences whenever I get a chance! (#envivo #prayforwifi)
Who knows? Maybe I’ll even Snapchat!
So basically, my plan–aside from fair warning and discussing plans with kiddos ahead of time–is to
offer a familiar assignment–for a quiz grade or four,
keep the assignment updates flowing via Classroom and email, and
provide new and intriguing–and accessible–resources to tempt them to interact
Laura Sexton is a passion-driven, project-based language educator in Gastonia, North Carolina. She loves sharing Ideas for integrating Project-Based Learning in the world language classroom, including example projects, lessons, assessment tips, driving questions, and reflection.
I have been making videos with Adobe Spark with photos I just happened to have. Those have GOT to be getting boring, kitties and puppies or no. I want to entice more students to engage with this extra practice, and how better to do it than with their peers and THEMSELVES?
I’m not gonna lie, this remote learning situation took me all the WAY back to the drawing board. I couldn’t think of a single thing that I was going to do that would actually be Read more…
I knew Duolingo would be the winner in my Google Classroom poll, but a surprisingly close second was the option with a choice of Duolingo or Señor Wooly PLUS an optional daily video/reading. (No one, Read more…