My Professional Learning Goal for the Year - Being Purposefully Communicative

I have been teaching students for over two weeks already, and I feel like I am back in the swing of things, i.e., I have accepted that my summer break is over and that this is my life now for the next ten months (haha). I am back to lesson planning, and honestly, I am very excited about my professional learning goal for this school year: being purposefully communicative.

I have written a few posts on this blog about purposeful communication, but I feel like this past summer, I had the chance to interact with this concept continuously and have gained a whole new and expanded perspective on the topic. Purposeful communication is based on Bill Van Patten's definition of communication (if you have ever heard him talk on this topic, this is the definition which he always gives). In this book, While We're On the Topic: BVP on Language, Acquisition, and Classroom Practice he writes: 

"Communication is the interpretation, expression, and/or negotiation of meaning for a purpose, in a given context." 

Based on that definition, Van Patten continues that our purpose should be that we wish to discover and learn information about each other, ourselves, and the world around us through communication, text, and input. In addition, in his book Van Patten adds that another purpose of communication is to entertain: "When we tell a joke or write a story...our purpose is to entertain in some way."

This summer at Comprehensible Iowa, I gave a presentation on this topic called "Communicating Purposefully," where I demonstrated many ways in which we can be purposefully communicative in our classroom activities. However, earlier in April, a Coaching Summit was held prior to Mitten CI, where the coaching/skills lab model was overhauled to reflect an emphasis on this topic. This summer at Acquisition Academy, Fluency Matters Conference, and CI Summit where I served as a coach/trainer, this new model was implemented in the each of the coaching/skills lab. As a result of facilitating and interacting with this new model in the coaching/skills labs, my understanding of purposeful communication was greatly deepened and expanded.

As language teachers, our goals should be to deliver and to engage in purposeful communication with our students. We need to be incredibly mindful though that purposeful communication does not necessarily equate to full immersion, because while I can create a full immersive environment in the target language, if it is not understandable, no matter how purposeful our intentions are, that communication is a waste of time and just noise to students. And in addition while I can be 100% comprehensible to students in the target language, I could be completely missing the mark if that communication is not purposeful in nature. Van Patten states, "Language use without purpose is not communication."

So based on the above definition of purposeful communication, here are ways in which I plan to address its various components in Latin (both spoken and in readings). In many ways, I was already implementing many of these, but they were random and never intentional in purpose. This will be my guide and lens in lesson planning for this school year:

• to learn about each other and ourselves: 

1. Personalized Questions and Answers (PQAs) 
2. polling students in the target language
3. connecting with students and their interests through questioning in the target language
4. completion of communicative tasks 
5. SEL partner reading (although this activity is not really done in the target language, it can still lead to learning about each other).

• to learn about the world around us: 

1. teaching cultural topics and other content in understandable target language through readings and presentations
2. purposefully embedding cultural topics and facts into circling.

• to entertain/create with language in fun, engaging ways: 

1. TPRS/StoryAsking
2. One Word Image
3. the use of rejoinders in class.

Now not every activity which I will implement in class is going to incorporate purposeful communication primarily due to the nature of the activity, but I can strive to "communicatify" existing activities:

• GimKit/Blooket - when using these for vocabulary review, instead of showing isolated words, put those words in their original context from a reading.
• Grudgeball/Word Chunk Game/Trashketball - before a student shoots a basket, ask class in the target language for their opinion if they think that the student will make the basket; teach students to use rejoinders as cheers during the game,
• BINGO - instead of playing the traditional vocabulary BINGO, facilitate a game of Quick Grid BINGO.
• Sex Game - instead of the traditional Sex Game, instead play Sex Game 2.0.

I am actually looking forward to lesson planning now that I have this goal in mind! What are some ways in which you plan to be deliver purposeful communication in your classroom?

CI Goals for 2016-2017

Alas, my summer vacation has come to an end. I had a great but very full summer. After a little over 1 1/2 years of grad school, I finally completed my Ed.S degree in Instructional Technology this summer, while also attending and presenting at the ACL Summer Institute and IFLT. One of the best things about attending IFLT (click here for my blog post on it) was that it kickstarted me to thinking about the school year. As I have done before on this blog at the beginning of each school year, here is my list of CI goals for the year. This year's list is short - only three goals:

1. Personalize the class for students. I have always made stories about students in my classes and elicited their suggestions when asking a story. I have tried my hand at implementing Circling with Balls, facilitating PQAs (Personalized Questions and Answers), and incorporating Social Emotional Learning with success. At the same time, I really have not used the language to learn more about students as my goal - in the past, personalization was just a way to keep things novel and to engage students' interests in class. When students feel like they belong in the class, realize that they are valued, and feel part of the classroom community, they are more likely to be engaged and to want to be there in the classroom. This year, I really want to implement Bryce Hedstrom's Special Person Interview.
2. Utilize more processing time when asking questions. When observing Anabelle Allen during a lab at IFLT, one of the great strategies which I noticed (and believe me, she did SO MANY wonderful things during that lab which I want to implement) was giving her students time to process their answers whenever she asked questions. After asking a question, Annabelle simply said, "uno, dos, tres," and then students responded. I thought that this was great, because it was a way to level the playing field for all. Normally, when asking a question in class, I do receive a choral response from students, but is it just from the fast-processors? How about the slower-processors who wish to respond but need that extra second or two? Anabelle's strategy is such a simple way to ensure that possibility for all  
3. Incorporate brain breaks daily. Although I have facilitated brain breaks in my classes, I never have done them on a daily basis. I will usually implement at least 2-3 different activities in a class period, since "the brain CRAVES novelty" - in my mind, switching to a different activity every 15 minutes or so is the same thing as a brain break, right? According to Diana Noonan, one of the IFLT facilitators, it is not the same thing. A brain break is exactly what it sounds like: a break for the brain, but even more, Diana stated that brain breaks allow for the break to "reset" and to store what has been acquired. She also advocated that a brain break be given every minute for the age of the students, e.g., 8-year olds should have a brain break every eight minutes or so. Again, this is something which I saw Anabelle demonstrate with her elementary school aged students, as every ten minutes or so, she gave them a brain break, and she did SO many different kinds: various versions of rock, paper, scissors; and doing a dance to a video. As the class progressed later in the day, Anabelle did a brain break every 5 minutes or so, since the students were getting tired. 

Some resources for brain breaks:

• Martina Bex - a great writeup about brain breaks
• Cynthia Hitz - how one can use balloons to give students a choice in brain breaks
• Michele Whaley - another great writeup with some quotes from Karen Rowan and Carol Gaab

Below is a short video clip of Anabelle Allen teaching elementary school students at IFLT. Thanks to Martina Bex for uploading this to YouTube. In fact, please read her writeup on Anabelle at IFLT.

Mid-Year Report

I am back after taking 3 weeks off from blogging, and to be honest, I really did not miss it. Not to say that I do not enjoy blogging, but during the winter break, I deliberately chose not do anything related to academics/school, e.g. lesson planning, reading CI blogs, following Twitter, etc., because quite honestly, I needed a break. I was also in between semesters of my graduate school courses, so I wanted to take full advantage of that time off. I traveled back to CA to visit family for Christmas and then upon return back to GA, I spent the remainder of my break enjoying time with friends, celebrating the New Year, and of course, seeing Star Wars (I have waited 32 YEARS for Episode 7 - there was NO way that I was NOT going to see it!). As a result, I return back to second semester feeling completely rested. 

So now that second semester has started, I want to reflect on my CI goals for the 2015-2016 school and on my CI experience itself:

First off, I feel SO much more confident of my CI abilities this school year compared to one year ago, primarily because I feel like I have a much better, stronger foundation. This is my 3rd year in which I have dedicated myself to being a CI teacher, and I definitely have a much better idea now of writing compelling stories for my students, of sheltering vocabulary but not grammar, and of scaffolding lessons properly. I am definitely much further along in my level of comfort with CI than I was a few years ago. Attending NTPRS for the past two years has definitely been a great help.

Let me now address my progress on a number of my goals for this school year (from a previous blog post). 

1. Associate vocabulary with gestures and get in TONS of repetitions using those gestures - I have definitely incorporated more gestures in my classroom in order to teach new vocabulary, and in the beginning of first semester, I saw that gestures indeed did help students recall vocabulary. As the semester progressed, I found that I did not need to use gestures to teach new vocabulary as much, because students did not need them. The question is why? The jury is still out on that...
2. Use student actors when telling a story - I have had no problem in accomplishing this goal, because after I did my first Readers Theater and Movie Director last semester, students were constantly asking me (and not the other way around) if we were going to act out whatever story we were reading at that point. I feel very blessed to have this situation! I am definitely not taking this for granted, because in years past, I have had classes where NO ONE wanted to act anything out. 
3. Incorporate more Movie Talk in my classes - I have yet to do a Movie Talk this school year. Not for a lack of trying, but rather, because I have been doing so many other different activities. This semester, however, I do have one already planned. 
4. Ask HOT questions - For every story, I now devote 1-2 activities to HOT questions. I have found that my quietest students suddenly become the most active participants whenever I do HOT questions. Considering the change in the SAT, with more emphasis on critical reading, incorporating HOT questions is a wonderful way to be SAT relevant. See here for a previous blog post on the topic. 

So like I said earlier, I am very pleased with how things are progressing. I feel like I am in a really good CI place at the moment, and I look forward to giving you my final report for the school year in May!

End of the School Year Reflections

My school year has come to an end: Final exams have been graded, the semester averages have been posted, and my classroom has been packed away for the summer. I am now officially on summer vacation. 

Honestly, I feel restless at the moment. It always takes a few days for me to decompress from it all.To me, the end of the school year is always a crazy time with finals, graduation, etc., and I liken it to being on a runaway train. The train is not going to stop whether I like it or not, so alI I can do is just hold on. And then suddenly, the train stops, but due to the laws of physics, I am still in motion and am hurled forward. I once told a class this analogy, and a student just looked at me dumbfounded and said, "Wow, that is SO deep..."

Yesterday at my school's end-of-the-semester luncheon, my principal handed back to us teachers two goals for our school year which we each had written back in August. This was his first full year as principal (he had been with us though for many years as an assistant principal and then took over as principal halfway through last school year), so he had wanted to know what we were feeling. Quite honestly, I had forgotten that I had even done this, so I was pleasantly surprised to read what I had written down as my goals:

1. Goal #1: to make my classroom a Comprehensible Input classroom
2. Goal #2: to not allow what I view as educational obstructional policy to sour my view and love of teaching

I'll address Goal #1, but gosh for Goal #2, did I really write the words educational obstructional policy for my principal to read?!! Wow, that was pretty brazen of me! (In an earlier post, I address my reaction to "educational obstructional policy"). My principal actually included a really nice note to me when we got back our goals, and in it regardng this particular goal, he wrote, "Your passion and POSITIVE approach continue to produce excellent results for students. You make Brookwood a better place." I truly do appreciate my principal. He has been an ardent supporter of the Latin program at my school (we will be adding our FOURTH Latin teacher next year) and in fact, our school will be paying for one class of Latin 1 to be taught at the local middle school in order to start up a Latin program there!

Regarding Goal #1 and making my classroom a Comprehensible Input classroom, I would give myself a letter grade of B. This year, I was only teaching Latin 1 and AP Latin (talk abut extremes!). On the one hand, I see all of my shortcomings, failures to deliver Comprehensible Input, the times where it was easier to show a video instead of teach, and the days where I failed to engage students due to falling back on grammar-translation ways; plus I was teaching AP Latin which is not truly CI-friendly. On the other hand, this was my second full year of teaching full-out Comprehensible Input (I had been doing TPRS for years prior to this, but I did not truly understand CI when I was doing it), and I felt like I had a much stronger hand on CI this time. I have heard that it takes three years to get the hang of teaching CI, so watch out next year!

In August, I had written a list of CI goals for the year. Let me write up here how I felt I did. This only applies to my Latin 1 classes:

1. Leave the textbook behind - On the one hand, I did leave the textbook behind in that my students never used it  - in fact, although I was required to check out books to students in August, I told them to keep it in their lockers for the year. On the other hand, due to my Latin colleagues closely using the textbook, I could not leave it behind complelely. I looked at the sequence of how topics/vocabulary were presented in the book and then taught it how I wanted when I wanted. It was quite a tenuous task, since at the same time I needed to prepare my students for my colleagues who do follow the textbook. I will discuss my experience at this summer's NTPRS in a presentation called "Detoxing from the Textbook."
2. Deliver understandable, comprehensible and compelling language to students in word and on paper - I feel like I did a good job on this and am looking forward to expanding it even further. Was I teaching 90% of the time in the target language. Not even close, but I'm getting better! I really enjoy writing, and I found that it is indeed possible and very easy to write compelling stories with a limited amount of vocabulary.
3. Limit vocabulary - I felt like I did a good job...maybe too good a job. In some ways, I feel like I underprepared my students for my colleagues who may expect that they know more words. However, I feel like my students truly acquired them and have a working knowledge of their vocabulary, instead of just having learned them from memorization.
4. Hit the high frequency words first - Wow, what a simple concept! Done and done!
5. Incorporate a Word Wall in my classroom - This is definitely something which I am going to do every year. Why did I not do this before? Students told me how much they liked it, because it helped them self-monitor their own knowledge of vocabulary. Reviewing words on the word wall 2-3 times a week is a great warm up activity.
6. "Point and Pause" more - I have definitely gotten better at doing this. See an earlier post here where I discuss it.
7. Vary things up -  One of the best things which I have learned from Carol Gaab (and believe me, she is a font of CI/TPRS knowledge) is the phrase  "The brain CRAVES novelty." She was the first TPRS/CI presenter whom I ever heard say "Just doing circling questions and PQAs gets REALLY OLD, REALLY QUICKLY for students." I have learned to vary up circling in a way so that it does not even seem repetitive at all, and I now have students go over a story at least 6-7 different ways. The 4%ers (who have already probably mastered the story) appreciate the novelty of the new activity, while the slower processors appreciate the reps. As Rachel Ash says, "The goal is to get in repetitions without being repetitive." 
8. Focus on student reading and re-reading of material -  I can honestly say that reading and re-reading is where the magic happens in language acquisition. The job though is to vary up the readings and to find those stories which are compelling to students. This week, on my Latin 1 final exam, I put two reading passages which students had already seen before on previous tests from months ago but with a different set of questions. The feedback which I received was overwhelmingly positive about how easy they were to read, since they already had a background knowledge of them. After the exam, a student told me "Those passages were almost too easy, " to which I replied, "Wow, that just shows you how much your reading ability has improved in just a few months." 
9. Read more CI/TPRS blogs - Reading blogs has been my lifeline for my teaching this year. There are so many good ones out there. In addition to learning so much from them, I feel such a strong sense of comraderie now with these bloggers, as we are all headed towards the same goal of student language acquisition. 
10. Attend CI/TPRS presentations at conferences - at ACTFL, I attended some really great CI/TPRS workshops. Unfortunately, now that I am pursuing an Ed.S degree in Instructional Technology, whenever I attend conferences, I must attend tech presentations in order to accrue lab hours for my classes.  
11. Teach fearlessly - DONE!

So thanks to everyone who helped me achieve my goals. I learned so much from your blogs, presentations, tweets, and emails. I am so grateful for you, and I am already looking forward to next year. Now off to enjoy my summer vacation...

Progress Report

A few months ago, I wrote up a posting here about what my CI goals were for the year. With 1st semester having ended and 2nd semester to begin in a few days, I thought that I would give you all a progress report of how things are going so far this year. Here are my reflections:

1. Leave the textbook behind - I have not completely left behind the textbook, but rather I am doing a "hybrid" approach. As I have two other Latin colleagues who follow the textbook closely, I cannot just abandon it. Instead, I took a look at what needed to be covered for the semester and took my own approach at it: covering the material how I want to and in what order I want to. In some ways, I have been successful, but in other ways, there have been some "grammar" concepts which I did not get to. I am not concerned though. 
2. Deliver understandable, comprehensible and compelling language to students in word and on paper - I have gotten better at this, but I still have a long way to go. On many occasions, I feel that I am indeed delivering messages, but they are not 100% comprehensible or compelling. As I have read on a number of CI/TPRS blogs: less is more. 
3. Limit vocabulary - This is the one area where I start to panic a bit. If I were following the Latin 1 textbook, at this point, students would “know” 160 words. For me, I have only introduced 60 words, so part of me feels like “Wow, I am SO behind.” But I also realize that:

• I have introduced lots of high frequency vocabulary first which the book does not until much later
• in limiting vocabulary and lots of interaction with the language through meaningful repetitions, my students have truly acquired these words. They are not having to make flashcards to learn these words, because they are learning them subconsciously. My students truly know these words now, because they have ACQUIRED and internalized them. The proof: although my vocabulary quizzes are unannounced and cumulative in nature, 90% of the students are scoring 100s on them (the lowest score is around an 80). Plus, students are using these words on their own in their timed writes.

         I would much rather have that students acquired 60 words than "memorize" 160 words                 for a quiz and then forget them.

     4. Hit the high frequency words first - Wow, this has completely changed the way in                        which I teach language. I do not know why textbooks do not do this! Hitting high 
         frequency vocabulary first has given me so much freedom and for students to create 
         language. Here is a great post by Crystal Barragan about what high frequency verbs 
         should be taught first.
     5. Incorporate a Word Wall in my classroom - DONE! I love having a word wall, and I 
         do not know why I waited so long to do one. I will address this in a later post.
     6. "Point and Pause" more - I am doing a much better job at this. I have always written 
         new words on the board in order to establish meaning, but now I am deliberately 
         "pointing and pausing." In fact, I am pausing for a longer time than I have before. It 
         slows me down in presenting the words, which as a result allows for added time for 
         students to process the vocabulary. At NTPRS last summer, when learning Japanese                     from Betsy Paskvan, I remember how much I appreciated it when she "pointed                                and paused." 
     7. Vary things up - I have adopted Carol Gaab's mantra "The brain CRAVES novelty." I 
         try to do 2-3 different strategies/techniques a day and not to repeat a strategy until 3-4 
         weeks have passed in order to preserve the novelty. I have written up an earlier post 
         addressing this. Even in circling, I have followed Carol's advice and vary it up every 
         4th/5th question by then doing a PQA and then after every 4th/5th question of that, 
         I will change it up again.
     8. Focus on student reading and re-reading - This seems like such an easy and given 
         strategy but gosh, we language teachers completely neglect this. Reading and re-
         reading is indeed where the "magic" happens in second language acquisition! The 
         key though is to vary up the strategies so that the re-reading has a different focus 
         each time, thus preserving the novelty.
     9. Read more CI/TPRS blogs - I have read some really good blogs out there! I will                               address this in a later post. 
   10. Attend CI/TPRS presentations at conferences - At ACTFL, I did not attend one 
         Latin session (outside of the one on Untextbooking as it was led by Bob Patrick, 
         Miriam Patrick and Rachel Ash), instead focusing on sessions which addressed 
         Comprehensible Input. There were many Latin teachers there who did not even know 
         that I was at ACTFL until the ACL reception, because they did not see me any of the 
         Latin sessions.

So far, I am very pleased with how my CI progress is going. It is actually very exciting seeing the acquisition process occurring in students - it is SO much different from the results which I have seen using past memorization/drill-and-kill methodology.

I am looking forward to this new semester - at the end of May, I will give you my final update.

CI Goals for 2014-2015

I have been in school now for a month - here in GA, we start school the first week of August (it is all relative, because we also get out before Memorial Day). So even though I have one month under my belt, I feel like I should list out my Comprehensible Input goals for the year - this way, I have a record of what I hope to accomplish and can refer back to this list throughout the school year:

1. Leave the textbook behind - this can be absolutely scary for WL teachers. The textbook is "safe and familiar," and we probably have TONS of worksheets and lesson plans which support the book. But just because the textbook is "safe and familiar" for you as the teacher, does that mean it is the best learning tool for every student in your classroom? Or rather, is it best just for certain types of students and for you? Now since I have two other colleagues at my school who use the textbook, I will follow the "spirit" of the textbook, i.e. I will make sure that I cover X topics by the end of the semester but I will do it MY way. Check out the following link from Carrie Toth's blog about Leaving Behind the Textbook.
2. Deliver understandable, comprehensible and compelling language to students in word and on paper - this is just a CI/TPRS given. 
3. Limit vocabulary - Why the heck do textbooks give lists of 20-25 words for students to learn? We all know that students simply memorize them for a quiz but do not retain those words. So far these past four weeks, I think that I have been doing a good job at limiting vocabulary, as I have been introducing only 4-5 new target vocabulary words a week. The first week had about 10 words, because it was necessary, but since then I have been cutting back. I have been throwing in a number of incidental words (e.g. elephantus, dulciolum, crustulum, lightsaber, displodit) for the purpose of stories, but I am not holding students accountable to those words just yet. And it is completely possible to write a COMPELLING 60-word story with only 14 distinct vocabulary words!
4. Hit the high frequency words first - I do not know why we as WL teachers naturally do not do this and rather rely on the textbook - if these are the words which are going to keep coming up over and over again, we should be teaching those right away! So after just a month, I have already taught the high frequency words est, it, ad, non, habet, amat, dat (in teaching this word, i left out the dative - it is much easier for students to learn this word as pure vocabulary before jumping into the dative at the same time), vult, videt and capit. Believe me, you can get A LOT of mileage out these words in a story.
5. Incorporate a Word Wall in my classroom - I already have set one up with 21 words. Such a great way to review words and to keep them constantly in the eyes of students!
6. "Point and Pause" more - this is a Blaine Ray TPRS technique. When establishing meaning of new words in TPRS, write the target words on the board in both the target language and English. Whenever a particular target word is used, point to that word and pause for a few seconds in order to let the word sink into the minds of students and for them to process it. Most of the times when I do a TPRS story, I point to the word but I do not pause. I need to slow down.  
7. Vary things up -  If you have ever heard noted TPRS/CI presenter Carol Gaab, you know that her mantra is "The brain CRAVES novelty." She was the first TPRS/CI presenter whom I ever heard say "Just doing circling questions and PQAs gets REALLY OLD, REALLY QUICKLY for students." I wanted to run up to her and to give her a giant hug when I heard her say this at NTPRS, because that is how I felt too, but as I had never heard anyone else say the same thing, I kept that to myself and thought that maybe I was the problem. Now I do believe that learning to circle and to do PQAs are necessary and foundational TPRS/CI skills, but students catch on VERY quickly to the method. My goal is to incorporate as many different, deliberately scaffolded CI activities and strategies as I can this year.
8. Focus on student reading and re-reading of material -  One of Krashen's main tenets is the importance of reading in second language acquisition. I plan to incorporate more level-appropriate embedded readings and by assigning already-seen classroom stories for students to re-read on my teacher website. 
9. Read more CI/TPRS blogs - there are some really good ones out there!
10. Attend CI/TPRS presentations at conferences - sorry, Latinists, but I will not be attending your presentations, unless they further my use of CI/TPRS in the classroom. 
11. Teach fearlessly - I owe this phrase to Jason Fritze, another noted TPRS/CI teacher. At the 2013 Pedagogy Rusticatio (the topic that year was TPRS/CI), Jason was our main presenter. Wow, he is absolutely phenomenal! Jason had to leave very early in the morning on his last day, but he wrote these words as a goodbye message for us on a whiteboard by the door. I typed up this phrase and have it taped on my classroom desk. I am seeing incredible student results in using CI/TPRS which I have not seen before - why should I be afraid, apologetic or ashamed of what administrators, parents and other Latin teachers may say?