Easy Ways to Begin Giving Students Choice and Differentiation

One of the current buzzwords and phrases in education is student choice, or more commonly known as differentiated instruction. To a degree as language teachers, we are probably already addressing differentiated instruction, since language encompasses so many different modalities of input/output such as listening, reading, writing, and speaking. How can we allow students to learn and to demonstrate mastery in a way which best suits them and their interests?

Let me say that the topic of student choice/differentiated instruction is HUGE and cannot be fully addressed in a single blog post, nor do I want to oversimplify the topic. However, here are some initial ways/baby steps in which you can modify some of your current activities/assessments to begin implementing student choice:

• On any type of written assessment (outside of final exams and other standardized assessments), give students choice of the minimum number of questions which they must answer to demonstrate mastery; anything which they answer beyond that correctly can count towards backup credit. For example, if you give 10 questions, students only have to answer 8 of them but may answer more as backup credit. On a recent sight reading comprehension assessment which I gave, there were three sections which students had to address. However, these were the directions for each section:

• 1) Main Idea - pick TWO of the details below to answer in English. You may answer all three as backup credit:
• 2) Details: Marcus experiences a number of different emotions in this reading. Pick TWO of them to answer in English and explain why he feels that way according to the story. You may answer all three as backup credit.

• 3) Drawing Conclusions: Answer ONE of the following questions in English. You may answer both as backup credit.

• For formative listening comprehension assessments such as a dictation, give students the option to either draw a picture of what they hear or to write out a translation of what you are dictating. Do not mark errors in a translation unless it does not demonstrate comprehension.
• Culture Choice - when addressing a cultural topic, give students a choice of aspects of the topic to address. Last week in my Latin 2 classes, since we are reading Emma Vanderpool's Incitatus (a horse whom the Roman emperor Caligula made a senator - yes, most likely this did happen in history!), I wanted students to learn about Caligula (not an easy topic to address if you know anything about him). It turned into a 2-day in-class assignment where on day 1, they took notes on an article called "Caligula - The Embodiment of Cruelty." However, on Day 2, students then had a choice of topics about which to read which focused on "the other side of Caligula". Students then had a Google Form to complete where they used their notes from the Day1 article combined with whichever Day 2 topic they chose in order to "reconcile both sides" of Caligula: 

Observations

1. I have found that when it comes to assessment questions, students are VERY appreciative of having the choice of which questions to answer. While I have found that most students will indeed answer all of them, there are those who like that they do not have to answer every question, especially if they do not know the answers to those questions! In giving students a choice of which questions to answer, they are able to demonstrate mastery to me in those areas where they feel successful. 
2. In a drawing dictation, I love giving students the choice of drawing or translating what they hear me dictate. In either choice, students are demonstrating comprehension in the way which feels best for them at that moment. Plus, I have students who HATE drawing!
3. The Caligula Choice Board went very well, and I was very pleased at what students had to say about this emperor based on the Day 1 article and their Day 2 topic choice. No one topic was chosen over the others, so students apparently were able to pick something which interested them.

Write and Discuss as Pre-Writing Preparation

Update - there is a new blog post detailing "Write and Discuss - the OG version"

Writing in the target language is a skill which we want our students to develop, but so often we give students a topic and say, "Go ahead - write!" Students struggle to put down words, and even as sympathetic readers (an ACTFL term) who are focusing on "Am I able to understand what students are communicating errors and all?", as teachers many times we see that it can be difficult for students to "produce language." I am a firm believer that students cannot output unless they have enough comprehensible input and that students will write when they are ready to write. Personally, I feel like students can never have too much comprehensible input - we want to bathe our students in it to such a degree that as a result, students will naturally overflow with output. So if we are providing students with input, why do they struggle with writing and putting down ideas as output?

A few weeks ago, I gave my Latin 2 students a timed write where the topic was about Incitatus, a novella by Emma Vanderpool which we are reading. We had been back for second semester for 3 1/2 weeks, and I had spent the first week previewing the target vocabulary and structures through a movie talk and a subsequent reading. The following 1 1/2 weeks we read (and re-read!) through the first chapter of Incitatus, and in my opinion, I felt strongly like we had covered it to such a degree that students should be able to write about it, right? I was wrong! Now it wasn't that students could not write, but I could tell that many students were really struggling. My question was why? Was it that students were not ready for it yet? Had I not given them enough input for them to be able to output? Was I pushing them into something which was above their current capabilities? Was I at fault for possibly projecting too high of an expectation on them?

In many ways, there are other factors involved, so I cannot oversimplify the situation and say that comprehensible input is a panacea for all of this. I know that if I were to ask students to write paragraphs in L1, many would struggle even with that. So what are some ways I can assist students in helping them to write in the target language?

In looking over their post-writing reflections, a number of students wrote that we had not done a timed write since Thanksgiving (December was dedicated to exam stuff), so they felt very rusty when it came to an extended write. Other felt that they did not feel like they knew "enough" Latin from the story to answer the prompt. This feedback was very helpful.

This week, we did another timed write, but this time, I did a pre-writing activity the day before to help prepare students for the write. As a class we previewed the writing by doing a Write and Discuss, which is exactly what it sounds like: as a class, you corporately review a story together by asking students to help you retell the story by writing it on the board in the target language, and then you discuss it. We are currently finishing up a Movie Talk reading on The Smoke Seller, so since it was a Movie Talk, I projected screenshots from the animated short as prompts. Each time, I asked students to volunteer responses in Latin for what was happening. I wrote their responses (and edited their grammar when I wrote it but did not call attention to it), and students copied down what I wrote on the board. Many times, I would guide students by asking in both English and in the target language "Who is in the screenshot? What is that person doing? Where is that person? What is emotion of that person?" 

On the next day, we did the actual timed write and used the screenshots as prompts.

Observations

1. Wow, in their post-writing reflections, students told me that they felt MUCH better about this timed write than the one they did in January. In their post-writing reflections, here is what some students had to say about the Write and Discuss activity: 
• "Working on how to write and practice really helped." 
• "The activity yesterday really helped immensely with giving me ideas about what to write." 
• "Going over the story yesterday helped vocabulary stick to me more." 
• "I was able to remember details in Latin about the story better."
• "I felt much more confident in writing this time than before."
2. This was a great way to review a story corporately together for the purpose of preparing students to write.
3. Having students write down the sentences as I wrote them down definitely kept students focused and also helped prepare them for the timed write.
4. Reviewing the story in this manner definitely gave them more understandable input!
5. Due to the hybrid teaching situation last year, these Latin 2 students are probably more like "Latin 1.5" in terms of their foundational knowledge of the language. This Write and Discuss pre-writing activity truly did give them a lot of support for their actual timed write.