Additions to my CI Family Tree

In 2016, I wrote a blog post about those teachers who had played an instrumental role in my development and journey as a CI/ADI instructor. In 2017, I added Linda Li to my pantheon list. Now, almost 10 years later, I wish to add three more people to my CI family tree:

Martina Bex and Elicia Cardenas - Over these past years, I have served as a coach for their online course Acquisition Boot Camp (there is also an Assessment Boot Camp course). Acquisition Boot Camp consists of over 20 learning modules covering CI/ADI topics such as second language acquisition theory, foundational tenets, strategies, and assessing students. In each module, participants watch a short 10-minute video on a topic and then write short reflections in the online forum. As one of the coaches, my role is to respond to these reflections, to answer any questions, and sometimes to "herd" participants towards a more complete view and understanding of CI/ADI. Even though my responsibility in this course is to serve as a coach, I am still learning a great deal each time this course is offered! I am constantly reviewing their videos and although I am quite familiar with them, I still find myself saying, "Oh wow, now that concept is finally making sense to me!" My understanding of second language acquisition theory has deepened a great deal over the years from this course, and it is because of Martina and Elicia that I have moved away from performance-based grading to proficiency-based grading (and I am so glad that I did!). So often when discussing second language acquisition theory either online or in-person, I find myself using the exact language which they use in their videos. I am incredibly grateful to Martina and Elicia for trusting me to serve as a coach for their online course. 

Eric Richards - I have only known Eric a few years (I met him when we were both serving as mentors for the same squad at CI Summit in 2023), but I have learned so much from him over these past three years. If you ever get the chance to see one of his presentations or to be a student in one of his German labs which he is leading, do it - Eric has a such a calm, positive demeanor when he presents that he immediately puts you at ease. I absolutely love how Eric's mind works, because he is able to come up with so many great ideas (I am great at adapting other people's ideas, not creating them on my own). I have taken so many of his German lessons and "Latinized" them for my own classes. His book "Grafted Writing" has served as a tremendous resource for me in getting students to write in the target language. Eric is one of the first people whom I consult when I want to try out a new idea or need someone to bounce an idea off of (it helps that we both teach inflected languages). Eric and I have cowritten a number of blog posts here, and we have submitted a co-presentation proposal for this year's ACTFL (fingers crossed it will be accepted. It was turned down last year). He is also the one who got me to attend and to present at Comprehensible Iowa, a conference which I love, support, and will be attending for the third summer in a row!

Who are those who are part of your CI/ADI family tree?

The Simple View of Reading and the CI/ADI Classroom

As you know from previous blog posts, topics about about which I can talk forever (besides CI/ADI instruction and theory) are Star Wars and the Brady Bunch. However, in the past 12 months, I have become a HUGE fan of the podcast series Sold a Story, which details the effect of teaching students to "read" (more like "to guess") using the faulty balanced literacy/three cueing approach and how educators have neglected the science of reading. As a result of this, I have been very interested in this one question: what role (if any) does structured literacy (an alternate name for the science of reading) play in second language acquisition if as Krashen states:

Our reading ability, our ability to write in an acceptable writing style, our spelling ability, vocabulary knowledge, and our ability to handle complex syntax is the result of reading.

In a previous blog post, The Necessity of Background Language Knowledge for Reading in the CI/ADI Classroom, I wrote about the need for background language knowledge in reading in the target language. I discussed Hoover and Gough's hypothesis which addresses the importance of both word recognition and language comprehension when reading:

If one can do both of those processes when reading, then reading comprehension occurs. But if one lacks one (or both) of these processes when encountering a word, then comprehension cannot take place.

Gough is also known for his Simple View of Reading hypothesis (which is essentially the same as the above hypothesis). Essentially, it entails the same concepts as above but uses the term decoding (instead of word recognition) and presents it as a math equation. With Tumner (1986), Gough's Simple View of Reading is:

Decoding (D) x Language Comprehension (LC) = Reading Comprehension (RC)

In a nutshell, both skills are needed when reading. If a student is able to decode words (i.e., translate written words into spoken language through the mapping of sounds which those letters represent), the decoding score is 1.0. However, if the student does not know what those words mean, the language comprehension score is a 0. Therefore, 1 x 0 = 0, and no reading comprehension has occurred.

The inverse is true too. If a student possesses a huge background knowledge of language (primarily gained through listening), the language comprehension score is 1.0, but if the student cannot decode the word itself when reading, the decoding score is a 0. Therefore, 0 x 1.0 = 0, and no reading comprehension has occurred.

Notice that the reading comprehension score is NOT an average but a product. According to the Reading Rockets webpage, "When one variable is strong, [reading comprehension] will be equal to the weaker variable."

• 1.0 (D) x 0.5 (LC) = 0.5 (RC)   

In addition, "When BOTH decoding and language comprehension are less than strong, reading comprehension will be lower than either decoding or language comprehension."

• 0.5 (D) x 0.5 (LC) = 0.25 (RC)

Here is a video which does a great job of explaining the Simple View of Reading:

So What?

Whether or not you agree with the science of reading and structured literacy, you cannot deny that when students experience difficulty in reading comprehension of the target language, we usually chalk it up to a lack of language understanding, whether it be vocabulary or structures. I have already discussed this in The Necessity of Background Language Knowledge for Reading in the CI/ADI Classroom.

However, how much does decoding play a part in our students' struggle to read? What if their reading issues are with decoding target language words and not with language comprehension itself ? I think that we as world language teachers immediately project our students' current English reading level onto their target language reading level and assume that it is a 1:1. In reality, it is not. We must remember that our students are novice-level learners in the target language (babies/toddlers, if you will, in terms of their target language development). Therefore when students are learning to read the target language, their brains immediately and subconsciously will flip to their native language decoding system (assuming that they know how to read in their native language) and apply this pronunciation system to the target language. 

For example, it is difficult for me to read French, because I do not know the French system of pronunciation, letter sounds, vowel sounds, etc. So to me, the French which I know from hearing looks nothing like the French which I see when written - I cannot decode French when I read it. Hence, my reading comprehension score of reading French words which I know solely from hearing would be a 0, because my decoding score is a 0. When I read French, my first instinct is to apply English pronunciation rules to it. Even if I were to apply Latin pronunciation to French, it is incorrect. For example, the French word for bird is pronounced "wuh-ZOH." If I were to hear that word, I know for sure that it means "bird." Yet, in French it is spelled oiseau - to me, that word is pronounced "OY-sue." I have no idea why those letters and vowels when put together make a "wuh-ZOH" sound, because I do not know the French system of phonemes. Therefore, I certainly would not recognize the word when reading/decoding it.

Now I am not saying that we as World Language teachers need to do full-on target language phonics lessons in our classrooms and to drill individual phonemes/sounds in our students or that we should be explicitly correcting students' pronunciation - I do not even agree with the "I say the word and you repeat after me" drills which goes on in many classes. But how can we as CI/ADI teachers teach students target language phonemes necessary for decoding when reading without going overboard and yet still remain true to CI/ADI philosophy? The answer is that most likely we are already doing a number of these strategies but just need to tweak them a bit.

Stay tuned - that will be a future blog post.

Vocabulary Sorting and Matching - Google Slides Manipulatives

A few weeks ago was the Teacher's Discovery/Voces Digital Spring into Reading Virtual Conference (click here for recordings from the conference). I always make an attempt to attend a few of the online sessions, because there is a such a great slate of presenters from whom I learn so much. The sessions which I attended a few weeks ago definitely did not disappoint. 

Margarita Perez Garcia has been a presenter for the past three years, and she has recently played a tremendous role in my growth as a CI/ADI teacher, especially in the area of the importance of level-appropriate, comprehensible readings for students (see my post on my own experiment with reading her novellas as a novice-low, Spanish reader). I know that I will always walk away from her sessions with some great ideas and a deeper understanding of CI/ADI instruction. This year, Margarita presented on word clouds and how to use them to develop pre-reading comprehension in students. I had never thought about using word clouds in this way! Below is the recording of her presentation:

This week, I had to be out of the classroom for a day of department head staff development, so I took an idea from Margarita's presentation about vocabulary groupings/associations (see 28:17 in the video). Essentially, the idea is for students to categorize vocabulary words by commonalities/associations. She states, "Classifying words into meaningful groups helps students to remember them." Margarita was demonstrating this with a word cloud for pre-reading comprehension, but since I was going to be out and needed a substitute lesson plan to post on Google Classroom, I created a Google Slide manipulative where students dragged already-known vocabulary word to their proper categories.

Here are some of my Latin 1 slides which I created (there were four slides total):

Observations

1. I really liked the higher-order thinking involved with this. Students had to think about not only the meaning but also to which category it best fit. This was for Latin 1, so the categories were rather basic.
2. I turned this into a Google Slides manipulative using already-known vocabulary solely because it was a sub lesson plan activity. However, I would like to use this using a word cloud like Margarita does as a pre-reading activity for new words and have students write their answers in the columns. Writing in the target language, even if it is just words, causes the brain to add to/refine its mental representation of the language. Because it would be used for pre-reading, students would then enter into the actual reading with a deeper knowledge of these words.
3. Notice that none of the categories were "grammar-related," e.g., adjectives, adverbs, 1st conjugation verbs, 3rd declension adjectives, etc. Instead, the focus was on meaning. The closest I got to naming a grammar category was "words where the subject is I," "adjectives related to size," "words a Roman would shout" (instead of using the word "interjections"), and "words which can complete this sentence."
4. Students told me that it was "fun," because it was a different kind of activity and did require some thought. 
5. Definitely telling students explicitly how many words were in each category helped! There was no ambiguity with words maybe being in more than one category or any words not used.
6. I think that grouping these words into specific categories did mentally help organize the vocabulary for students, i.e., in that although they have acquired a lot of vocabulary so far, there is a degree of logic when they are organized into common associations/groups.

As always, thanks to Margarita for this idea! I hope you will try it out using the word cloud as a pre-reading activity - let me know how it goes!

Being a Guest on Claudia Elliott's Podcast "Growing with Proficiency"

Recently, I had the opportunity to be a guest on Claudia Elliott's podcast "Growing with Proficiency," sharing about making dictations purposefully communicative (here is the original blog post). If you have not listened to Claudia's podcast, what a treasure trove of guests and topics related to proficiency-based, CI/ADI language instruction!

WOW, what a privilege and honor it was for me to be a guest on this podcast! Over the years on this podcast, I have listened to so many great teachers whom I so greatly admire and from whom I have learned a great deal - so to be invited to be a guest was something which I did not take lightly!

Although we had to record this episode twice due to technical issues the first time, I really enjoyed my time! Claudia has a great personality and is a wonderful communicator, so it felt more like an organic, spontaneous conversation between two teachers and not like an interview.

Check out this episode - Dictation + Communication: How to Make Dictation Purposefully Communicative (Ideas You Can Use Tomorrow)

Task Rotation

Are there classroom days where you need to leave something for a substitute or where you just need a break and you want students to work on something independently but you can still introduce some new material in a bite-size chunk way? Well, here is an activity which may work for you!

I am currently taking a gifted certification class, so I am required to implement a number of gifted strategies in my classes and to turn in lesson plans showing that I facilitated them with students. While these strategies work great for core subject areas, unfortunately most of them are not aligned with the second language acquisition process, so I end up having to tweak them to fit my situation (which ends up not really resembling the original but rather the "spirit" of it). Here is a "gifted" strategy which I tweaked and tried with students on a day where I just needed a break.

The strategy is called "Task Rotation," and the concept is for students to work with a concept through completion of tasks which address different learning domains: 

• mastery - ask students to remember and describe.
• understanding - ask students to reason and explain.
• interpersonal - ask students to explore feelings and relate personally.
• self-expression - ask students to imagine and create.

So on this day where I needed a break, I created a Task Rotation for my Latin 2 students where the goal was to introduce four new vocabulary words and then have students do different, short learning domain tasks with them - again, this activity in many ways just reflects the "spirit" of the original strategy. NOTE - I had to label the domains as part of my gifted assignment. When I do this again, I will leave out the domain titles. 

As a class, I first defined the four vocabulary words so that everyone had a common meaning for these words. After that I explained what the three other tasks were but that they could do them in any order.

Observations

1. Because I was using this to introduce some new vocabulary, obviously me defining the words for the class for the "mastery domain" is not true mastery. 
2. The interpersonal examples which were given in my gifted class were "Write a personal letter to a close family relative explaining your feelings about X topic" or "Describe the feelings you have when you must use the quadratic equation. How do you deal with those feelings?" These were level 2 students, and asking students to describe their feelings in the target language through writing a letter or a diary entry seemed WAY BEYOND their proficiency ability, so I just had them write a 3-4 sentence story in Latin which used three of the new words. This was not difficult for students to do, because they were already familiar with doing a 4-Word Story. In addition, it involved higher-order thinking, since students were creating their own meaning using the target language.
3. Afterwards, students told me that they liked doing different things with the new words and that it was not just "only write a story in Latin" or "only illustrate the following story" - they enjoyed the variety and that it was short but effective.
4. Did students acquire these new words as a result? By no means, but they were definitely more familiar with them because of the interaction with them and usage.

So consider this as an independent work day activity or when you have a sub. Also, if you do actually use the four domains as prescribed, I would like to see how you had students do it in the target language.

Voces Digital Blog Post - My Experience at CI Summit

Recently I had the privilege of writing up a blog post for Voces Digital about my experience at CI Summit, and yesterday it was released on the Voces Digital website. I hope that you will take time to read it and that it will inspire you to consider attending CI Summit this summer. I hope to see you there!

Voces Digital blog

Freeze Frame as a Listening Proficiency Assessment

Want a quick summative way for students to demonstrate proficiency in their listening comprehension? Consider doing a take on the Freeze Frame activity! Because proficiency-based assessments test language modalities in an unrehearsed scenario, Freeze Frame is a great way to determine if students have aurally acquired language. I wrote about this activity in 2014, but I know that there are many others who use this activity too (if you have ever seen Eric Richards' presentation on whiteboard activities, he demonstrates this).

Freeze Frame is simply having students illustrate one giant picture which they hear you narrate in the target language. Students are not illustrating individual cartoon frames but drawing one picture, to which they add more details which they hear you narrate. (see blog post for an example of the picture and paragraph to read). 

Directions

1. Using known vocabulary words and language structures, write a description in the target language of a single picture which you wish for them to draw. The more random the picture, the better! The description should be about 10-12 sentences.
2. The paragraph needs to be something with which students are unfamiliar so that what they are hearing is unrehearsed - this preserves the proficiency and summative aspect of the assessment. Also, keep in mind that the paragraph must be 100% comprehensible to students, hence you are definitely recycling known vocabulary and structures but just not identical to a known passage. Having students work with a passage with which they are already familiar is performance in nature and reflects a formative assessment. 
3. You can print up a sheet on which for students to draw or you can have them do it on their own sheets of paper.
4. Explain to students that you are going to read a description to them, and their task is to draw a picture of what you read to them.
5. Read the paragraph in "chunks," i.e., parts of the picture at a time. 
6. As students hear you read the "chunks," they are to illustrate what you say. Repeat the sentences MANY times!
7. Since this is a proficiency-based listening assessment, grade according to a rubric. Below is an example of one which I modified/adapted. I found this on Elicia Cardenas' blog The Deskless Classroom.

Observations

1. Wow, this was a fast assessment. It took about 10 minutes to administer!
2. Grading according to a proficiency-based rubric like the one above made it so easy and quick to grade. 
3. I would advise doing some practice with this kind of activity first before using it as an assessment so that students understand that they are drawing one giant picture and that you are giving them parts of the picture to draw a few sentences at a time.
4. The repetition of the sentences as they draw allows students to hear continued exposure of understandable messages.

Give this a try as a summative listening comprehension assessment!