CI Sessions at the 2016 ACL Summer Institute

At this summer's American Classical League Summer Institute (the national conference for Latin teachers), there will be NINE CI-based/friendly presentations. This is up from four presentations last year! If you are a Latin teacher who is interested in CI, consider attending the 2016 ACL Summer Institute and checking out one (if not all!) of the following presentations.

6-hour PreInstitute Workshop

• Comprehensible Input Strategies: Scaffolding and Sequencing for the Latin Classroom - Keith Toda, Robert Patrick,  Rachel Ash

Regular Presentations

• Technology in the Comprehensible Input Latin Classroom: How to Go Beyond Kahoot - Keith Toda
• Let's Make a Story! ‐ Story‐Asking for the Comprehensible Input Classroom - John Bracey
• Hard Grammar? What Hard Grammar? Justin Bailey
• Comprehensible Consequences - Traci Dougherty
• Teaching Vocabulary with Movie Shorts - Rachel Ash
• Gradūs Parvī: Creating Tiered Readings for Any Level of Instruction - Kevin Ballestrini
• The Value of Writing in the Cl Classroom - Robert Patrick
• Teaching Latin with a Novel‐‐All Modes of Communication - Robert Patrick

If there are other CI presentations of which you know, please let me know so that I can add them to this list.

Camera Freeze Frame

If you are looking for a good 1.5 day project, this is a good one. Camera Freeze Frame is an activity which I learned from Carrie Toth at NTPRS a few years ago, and it is an extension of another activity which I had done in the past. Essentially, the basic idea is to give students a digital camera, with which they will take pictures which depict scenes from a particular story. These pictures can then be used as a matching activity (which scene is this from the story?) or as a digital storybook. Carrie Toth has taken this idea to a whole new level using the app Educreations.

The concept is still the same: give students a digital camera and have them depict scenes from a story which the class has been reading.

PreClass Directions:
As the teacher, you will need to do the following:

1. Pick out a short story which students will depict using pictures. I have found that the story should be no more than 9 sentences due to time restrictions.
2. Organize the class into groups of 6 (if possible). I preselected the groups myself based on student personality types so that there would be a mix.
3. Set up a Google Drive folder where students will deposit their pictures
4. Reserve digital cameras for the class. Each group will need a camera. I chose not for students to use their phones, because since they will upload their pictures to Google Drive, every student's phone is different which results in interface issues.
5. Reserve a few laptops so that multiple groups can upload their pictures at the same time.

Class Directions
Day 1

1. Go over your particular story to ensure that meaning has been established for all students. For this story, I did a choral reading and then played a round of Stultus.
2. Here are the directions which I handed out: Freeze Frame directions
3. Go over the directions with the class to ensure that all understand what they are.
4. Give the groups time to select student jobs and to begin to stage each scene.

Day 2

1. Give a digital camera to the photo taker in each group.
2. Give students a choice of props.
3. Set out 2-3 laptops around the room.
4. Each group will have 30-35 minutes to "shoot their scenes." 
5. When each group is finished, the photo taker will upload the pictures to his/her group's folder. 

Day 2 Post Class Directions

As the teacher, you will need to do the following:

1. Using Educreations,for each group, create a presentation by uploading each picture onto a slide. Because each picture has the sentence number in it, it is easy to put the pictures in order.
2. For each presentation, record your voice narrating each story. Add any graphics using the whiteboard function.

Day 3

1. Show each group's video to the class.

Observations

1. What a fun activity for students! This activity also ranks high on Bloom's Taxonomy, as it is a high-level critical thinking activity; students are creating their own meaning and interpretation of the story.
2. Students actually want to see each other's videos. Because they are all familiar with the story, students want to see how others interpreted the story.
3. In showing the video to students, you are getting in repetitions of the story, although students do not realize it. All students care about is watching the videos, but this is a VERY sneaky way to get into subconscious repetitions of vocabulary and of structures.

Here are some links to a few of the presentations which my students created (you will need Flash to view them):

1) Group 1
2) Group 2 
3) Group 3

Thanks again to Carrie Toth for this idea!

A Time for Change

I wanted to let you all know that I will be transferring schools next year. I have decided to leave Brookwood High School (where I am currently one of four Latin teachers) to go to Parkview High School (a school 10 minutes away from my current one). Bob Patrick, the department head, asked me to become the school's 5th Latin teacher there next year, and I have accepted. In August, I will join its current team of Latin teachers and will be teaching alongside Latin CI users Bob Patrick, Miriam Patrick, Rachel Ash, and Caroline Miklosovic. 

The big question which folks are asking is why. I wish I could give a better response than "It is time for a change," but that is indeed the truth. I wish I could say that I was mad, angered, or offended at my co-workers or administration, but that is far from the reality; they, in fact, are the reasons why I wanted to remain. Simply put, though, it is time. I have been at my school for 17 years (over 1/3 of my life!). My stay has run its course, and it is time to move on. 

Yes, the opportunity to work in a completely CI Latin program certainly was a HUGE motivator but not the sole reason. I am very much looking forward to working alongside Bob, Miriam, Rachel, and Caroline, as they have "untextbooked," and I am so ready to leave behind the textbook. One of the main draws for transferring was that they are teaching from CI Latin novellas, which they themselves have written. I also really want to teach the soon-to-be-published Latin version of Brandon Brown Wants a Dog! I have been waiting years for this book to come out, and nothing is going to stop me from teaching from it!

I am thankful for my time at Brookwood. Over the past 17 years, my administration has always been incredibly supportive of the Latin program. I came to Brookwood in the fall of 1999 as the 2nd Latin teacher, where the Latin enrollment was 225 students. Now in the spring of 2016, I have helped grow the program to now four Latin teachers and over 500 students enrolled in Latin. I know that I am leaving the Latin program in the very good hands of my three colleagues.

My goal for these final 3 months is to enjoy every moment left at Brookwood, even the bad ones. I am very grateful for what I have learned at my current school and am looking forward to what my new job will have to offer. 

Conference Season

It is the beginning of March, which means that I am in the midst of conference season. For the past 3 weeks or so, I have been presenting on Comprehensible Input at a number of conferences, and I still have one more presentation to give this weekend. 

A few weeks ago, I attended the 2-day Living Latin in New York City (LLiNYC) event sponsored by the Paideia Institute. This event drew the top Latin speakers from all over the country (and from parts of the world) in an effort to promote Latin as a living language. Around 150 people attended this event. The Paideia Institute had invited Bob Patrick and me to present on Comprehensible Input in the Latin Classroom at the event, so Bob and I flew up for the event (thanks to Paideia Institute for paying for our travel and hotel!). Both Bob and I were given two slots each, so we decided to give a two-part presentation on CI theory on the first day (with him going first in the early afternoon and then me later that afternoon) and then to give a two-part demo on the second day.

Now leading up to my first presentation at LLinYC, I was feeling like a fish out of water. By no means am I a master Latin speaker at all - even after attending six Rusticationes, I am only an Intermediate Mid/High speaker at best. Prior to my presentation, I kept thinking, "What the heck am I doing here? What is my name doing on this list of expert Latin speakers? I do not belong to be here. Even if I am here to present on Comprehensible Input, what do I really know about it? I can understand why Bob was invited, but me? I write a blog on CI, and suddenly now folks think that I am an expert on the topic. If folks only knew..." I was dreading my presentation, because I felt like a complete and total impostor.       

But then I began to speak and to give my presentation. Immediately, the doubt completely disappeared, and I was 100% comfortable speaking to the group. I began to speak from my heart on the topic, and quite honestly, it was like another person was talking through me, because this person seemed to really understand CI theory (that couldn't be me, could it?) and to speak with authority on the matter. An excitement was surging through me as I was speaking. In short, I was having so much fun presenting on the topic.

I do not write this to brag, because quite honestly, I still do not recognize who that person was who gave that presentation. I write this to say thank you to all of the CI teachers, whose blogs I have read and have showed me that I am not alone in my CI journey; to all of the CI presenters whose presentations have taught me so much and of whose audience I have enjoyed being a part; and to all those CI users, who have encouraged me and motivated me to want to become a better teacher. It was all of your voices which were speaking through me at LLiNYC. Maybe one day, I will be able to add my own voice.

P.S. That weekend was my first trip to New York City. For the record, it was SO cold! The wind chill was in the negatives! In spite of the freezing weather, I absolutely loved the feel of the city. I hope to return again!

Word Frequency Counter Tool

I have had the pleasure of seeing noted CI/TPRS expert Karen Rowan present many times both in my district and at NTPRS. Every time I see her present, I walk away with a number of new strategies and tools. One online tool which I have seen her demonstrate is a Word Frequency Counter website.

NOTE - there are numerous word frequency counter websites online. This particular one is no different from any others, but it happens to be the one which I use.

What I love about this website is that it allows me to type (or cut/paste) a text and to find out the frequency of each word. When I am writing stories for my students, this is very important, because it helps me see if I am getting in enough repetitions of a target word/structure. If I feel like it is not enough, then I need to find ways to get in more repetitions.

The tool is quite easy to use 
1) Go to http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/tools/word_counter.html

2) Type in your text in the "text box"

3) After inputting the text, click on "count words"

4) You will then see a list of words and how many times each word appears in the story. It will break it down into total words in the story and then into unique words in the story. You can also choose to have the list arranged alphabetically. NOTE - a different form of the word counts as a unique word, so for Latin, that may be something to consider. 

This tool has been of great use for me - I hope that you will find it helpful too!

One Word at a Time (OWAT)

This activity was developed by my friend and fellow Latin CI user Bob Patrick, and it has now become one of my go-to activities for starting a new "chapter" because it allows me to introduce 8-10 new vocabulary words/structures in a fun, engaging way.

Directions

1. Pick 8-10 new vocabulary words which you wish to introduce. A mix of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs is good.
2. Write one vocabuary word and its English meaning on an index card. Repeat until all words are done.
3. Organize class into groups of 3-4 students.
4. Each group needs to have a sheet of paper, a writing utensil, and a student who will serve as recorder.
5. Give each group a card.
6. Inform students that they will be writing a short story in Latin as a group.
7. As a group, the students are to create a sentence in Latin which uses the word on the card. They are to underline their word in the story when they use it.
8. When the group is done, they call you the teacher over to check the "grammar" of the sentence. If something needs correcting, then tell them.
9.  When the group is done with the word, they are now to switch with another group who is done. Sometimes, I have more words than groups, so I put the extra cards on a desk so students can go up to the desk and exchange words there.
10. The group then writes a new sentence as part of a story which now incorporates the new word. The group calls you over to check the grammar and to make any corrections. Once that is done, the group finds a new word and repeats the process.
11. Once most groups have used 3/4 of the words (if not all of them), tell the groups that they have a few more minutes to come up with an ending to their story. For this part, they will not call you over.
12. Collect the cards and stories
13. You as the teacher type up their stories (they may require grammar editing), and read them as a class on the next day.

Observations

1. This is a fun activity, because since students do not know which new words they will be getting, the stories suddenly become very random, which makes them all the more fun to read.
2. Students really want their group's stories to be read.
3. This is a great way to do pop-up grammar when students ask you to look over their sentences.
4. Because each story has specific targeted vocabulary in it, students enjoy seeing how different groups use those words, so there is a degree of anticipation and of vested interest.
5. Because each story has specific targeted vocabulary which students had to use, and because you review each story with them as a group, students acquire those 8-10 words VERY quickly.

Here are some other writeups about OWAT

Latin Best Practices CI Resources 

TPRS Q&A

Example of OWAT w/ Latin 1

Targeted Words

1) sollicitus 

2) invenit

3) femina

4) bonus

5) frater

6) fortis

7) semper

8) parvus 

9) conspicit

10) gladius

Story

Ariel est nympha marina (mermaid). Yoda Arielem conspicit. Yoda est parvus. Ariel fratrem emere vult. Yoda est sollicitus et perterritus, quod Ariel Yodam emit. Ariel est tristis, quod Yoda non est bonus frater. Ariel fortem fratrem vult. Ariel fortem fratrem videt sed eheu! frater est femina! quod frater est femina, Ariel est irata, et gladio (with a sword) feminam necat (kills). nunc Ariel est semper irata. Ariel fratrem non vult, sed pecuniam vult. Ariel Publix invenit, et Yodam vendit. Ariel pecuniam habet. subito Flavia apparet! Flavia Yodam emit, sed Flavia displodit. edepol!

Getting Caught Up in Activities and Not in Acquisition

Every time I go to world language conferences, I am always looking for new activities for my students. If you are like me, you find yourself getting into a rut with the same old activities, and you want to add some novelty to your classroom. A danger exists, however, in doing this, because we can easily get caught up in activities and not in acquisition itself. We look for the next "fun" activity to add to our arsenal. We so want to engage our students that we actually end up just entertaining them instead, and as a result, in blindly throwing activities at students, sequencing and scaffolding can become disjointed, and little/no language acquisition actually occurs.

Now do not get me wrong: I am not opposed to activities. I like a good game of vocabulary BINGO, because it is a nice break for students (and for me), and I definitely enjoy using Kahoot with students every once in awhile. At the same time, I do not want to rely on these as primary activities.

If I am going to be implementing Comprehensible Input in my classroom, regarding activities, the basic questions which I must ask are this: is this activity promoting language acquisition through the delivery of and interaction with understandable messages? Where does this activity fit in the acquisition process, i.e., if it is output related, has enough input preceded it that output is a natural overflow? These two questions serve as my litmus test.

But let me also say that teaching using CI is a process and definitely takes time to learn. By no means do I ever want to turn off someone from using a CI activity regardless of his/her familiarity with CI. I will be the first to say that I am still learning how to implement CI in my classroom!   

If you have never attended a Blaine Ray workshop or attended NTPRS, I highly recommend that you do, because you will get the chance to experience language learning first hand like one of your students. I feel like I have learned so much about sequencing CI activities just from attending Betsy Paskvan's Japanese sessions at these past two NTPRS conferences (and yes, in many cases, i have taken her Japanese lessons and Latinized them!). Apparently, Betsy's sequencing of activities has worked, because I can still retell her "Yoda, Darth Vader, and Oprah" story in Japanese, and that was almost two years ago!