Halloween: Incorporating one theme across three proficiency levels

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Every year my students look forward to spending a few days on communicative activities related to the theme of Halloween. This is what I have planned for them this year:

French 1

Day 1: I’ll introduce some vocabulary associated with Halloween by showing them this video. As we are watching, I’ll pause and ask questions—mostly about colors since their vocabulary is so limited at this point. After the video, I’ll pass out this vocabulary handout that the students will use as a resource throughout the mini-unit. Next, I pass out a baggie of picture cards to each student for a Bingo game. I created these cards by printing the 30 copies of this document on tagboard and then cutting the squares apart. I strongly recommend using as many different colors as possible—This really helps when you find that one spare card on the floor! Once each student has a baggie of cards, I’ll instruct them to choose 25 of the cards and organize them on their desks in 5 columns of 5 rows. (There are 30 cards, so 5 won’t be used). I then call one word at a time, and the students turn over that card if they have it. The first student who turns over 5 cards in a row is the winner and must say the words s/he used for the bingo before receiving a prize. Although this game only practices vocabulary in isolation, it does allow the students to hear the pronunciation several times and begin to create meaning between the picture and sound of the word. After several rounds of Bingo, I’ll have the students play “Go Fish” with a partner using their combined sets of cards (I make sure that each partner has a different color so that the sets can be separated at the end of the game.) At the end of the period, I’ll play this video as a closing activity.

Day 2: I’ll begin this lesson with this song and then review the vocabulary by asking questions about these slides. (C’est une sorcière ou un vampire? La sorcière a un balai ou un os? La sorcière porte un chapeau pointu ou un masque ?) After a couple of quick rounds of Bingo and a quick introduction to prepositions using this video the students are ready to begin communicating with the new words in this matching activity. For this activity, students are paired up and one is given a Partner A paper, while the other is given a Partner B paper. Both papers have the same pictures but in a different order. The students take turns describing a picture to their partner who will tell them the number/letter of the corresponding picture on their own papers. Both partners will then write their partner’s letter/number on the corresponding picture on their paper. I like to follow up these matching activities with a short formative assessment in which I describe a picture orally, and the students write the number/letter of the picture I’m describing.

Day 3: I’ll start this lesson by reviewing the vocabulary using these slides of Halloween scenes. I ask questions about the first few slides and then have the students describe the next few. (I give them a minute to describe a slide to their partner, and then choose one student to describe the picture to the class as a formative assessment). Next, the students will complete this Same/Different pair activity. As a final activity for this lesson, I’ll project one of the Halloween slides and have the students describe it in writing.

Day 4 – 8: Now that the students have practiced the vocabulary for a few days, I’ll divide them into groups for these learning stations, each of which will take one class period.

Speaking: The students will complete this matching activity (following the same directions as the Day 2 activity) and then a “Sticker Game.” For this activity, each student has the same set of stickers and a simple numbered grid. Students face each other, with a notebook between them so that they can’t see each other’s grid. Partner A places her pictures on the grid, and then describes each sticker to Partner B, who places her corresponding picture on the same square on her grid. After Partner A has described all of her stickers, the students remove the notebook so that they can see whether their grids match. Then the students repeat the activity, switching roles. Here’s what it looks like:

Reading: The students will complete comprehension guides for three Halloween-themed stories. Two of the books, Le Couloir and Le Chapeau can be downloaded for a reasonable fee (which includes the additional books in each series) from this site: https://www.envolee.com/en/du_plaisir_a_lire . L’Halloween de Maria is found here: https://www.readinga-z.com/book.php?id=827 . A video of the story being read aloud is also available.

Writing: The students will describe a series of Halloween stickers (or pictures) that are found at their station.

Computer : The students will watch a video and answer comprehension questions.

French 2

I’ll begin this unit with the same vocabulary-building activities that I use with the French 1 students. Because two-thirds of my French 2 students took French 1 at the middle school, they may not have been exposed to this vocabulary in the past. Since most of these activities are games and pair activities, even those students that I taught last year don’t mind repeating them. Here’s what the unit looks like for these students:

Day 1-3: Same as French 1.

Day 4: I’ll read the story, “Histoire Terrifiante” (p. 1, p.2,p. 21/2 p.3, p.4) aloud to the students, who then complete the comprehension questions in their packet. Next, the students will work in small groups on this manipulative activity, in which they put sentences about the story in order. (I print the document on tagboard and cut apart each sentence.) The students will then complete a series of activities in the packet designed to introduce them to the use of direct object pronouns. Although I do little direct grammar instruction, I have found that this particular structure is not easily acquired so I like to have the students work with it enough that they can recognize these pronouns when they see them.

Day 5: The students will practice summarizing the “Histoire Terrifiante” story using only pictures. I’ll then choose a few students to present for a formative assessment. They will then finish the direct object pronoun activities and complete this pair activity to reinforce these structures.

Day 6-9: Learning Stations (Stations)

Listening: Students will watch a series of Halloween-themed videos and answer comprehension questions. (I’ve included the questions here, but have created multiple-choice “quizzes” on Canvas that I will use with my students.

Reading: Students will read a story called “Six Petites Citrouilles” (p. 1, p. 2, p. 3, p. 4, p. 5, p. 6, p. 7, p.8 )from a book called “L’Halloween de Napoleon.” Some of the students read books about Napoleon (a dragon) as young children, so they love reading this story! Because the print is hard to read on some of the pages, due to the background color, I typed the story in this document, which I will also pass out to students.

Writing: Students write a note to a French penpal explaining how Halloween is celebrated in the U.S.

Speaking: Students complete the same Matching and Sticker activities as the French 1 students, but also two additional activities (#1-a, #1-b, #2-a, #2-b) in which they discuss pictures in order to find the differences.

French 3

Because each of these students was in my French 2 class last year, they are familiar with the Halloween vocabulary. Therefore, they’ll only need a quick review before beginning their learning stations.

Day 1: Students review vocabulary with a partner crossword activity. For this activity each partner receives a crossword puzzle (A, B) in which half of the answers are filled in. The students must use circumlocution to help their partner fill in his/her missing words. When finished the read this article about Halloween and complete a comprehension guide.

Learning Stations

Reading Students read a story about a witch named Grasseboudine (p. 1, p. 2, p. 3, p. 4 ) and/an article about bats (p. 1 p.2) .

Speaking: The students complete three different activities in which they discuss pictures in order to find the differences. Here are files to the pictures: (#1-a, #1-b, #2a, #2b, #3a, #3b)

Listening: Students will watch a series of Halloween-themed videos and answer comprehension questions. (As with the French 2 students, I’ve included the questions here, but have created multiple-choice “quizzes” on Canvas that I will use with my students.

If you decide to try any of these activities, I hope your students enjoy them as much as mine do!

Picture Credit: http://magiedelumiere.centerblog.net/2784634-joyeuse-fete-d-halloween

The Refugee Crisis: A mini-unit using political cartoons to address a Global Challenge

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Although I hadn’t planned on addressing the “Défis Mondiaux” theme with my AP students until later in the year, I just felt this topic couldn’t wait. Here’s a quick mini-unit I created to introduce the plight of the Syrian refugees to my French 4/5 students.

Day 1: In order to ensure that my students had adequate background knowledge on the basic facts regarding this crisis, I began the lesson by showing these two videos: 1) http://1jour1actu.com/info-animee/migrant-2/ 2) http://1jour1actu.com/info-animee/pourquoi-les-syriens-fuient-ils-leur-pays/ . We watched them as a class, and I paused the videos frequently in order to ask questions to ensure comprehension. Following the video/discussion, I assigned this comprehension guide over this article to provide further information on the refugee crisis.

Day 2: I began the second day of this mini-unit by showing this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rS6lCoTTk ), which depicts the conditions aboard one of the boats used to transport refugees from Turkey to Greece. Again, I used the video as a springboard to class discussion, rather than as a formal listening assessment. It’s a powerful video and the students remained engaged throughout the viewing. They used the remaining class time to finish the reading activity they began on Day 1.

Day 3-4: Now that my students have some basic information about the causes of the crisis, the challenges faced by the refugees, and how some European countries are reacting to the situation, I wanted to create an opportunity for my students to engage in some interpersonal communication related to the topic. Because I have a Syrian immigrant in one of my AP classes, I wanted to avoid any type of role play or debate that may have (even inadvertently) resulted in insensitive comments. Furthermore, due to the limited time I had for this unit, I did not want to assign a significant amount of reading, which would no doubt be somewhat laborious based on the topic. So, instead of assigning additional reading to provide stimulus for a discussion, I curated a series of political cartoons that the students will first discuss and then present orally to the class. Here are the steps to this part of the mini-unit:

For homework on Day 2, I asked the students to look at this Google Presentation (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZjUdk-a9TqJTKv5rzRDROJ630F4i3S2MpNRsCe-Q29M/edit?usp=sharing ) containing 20 political cartoons related to the refugee crisis and to select the one they would be most interested in discussing. They then typed their name next to the corresponding slide number on a separate Google Doc I created to serve as a sign-up sheet. Note: I wrote my own name next to #1 and #2, as I will use them to the model the activities.
On Day 3 (tomorrow), I will project the first cartoon and guide the students in a discussion, using the same questions included in the comprehension guide . Next, I will project the 2^nd cartoon and have the students fill out a copy of the comprehension guide , which we will then discuss as a class. After this preparation, I will either pass out Ipads or a photocopy of his/her selected cartoon to each student. The students will then orally discuss their cartoons with a partner (first one partner’s, and then the other’s) as they each complete the comprehension guide for both of the cartoons in their dyad. For homework, the students will practice presenting their cartoon to the class, giving the information they filled in on the comprehension guide.
On Day 4, each student will present his/her cartoon (which I will project) to the class, who will fill in a note-taking guide with the types of information included in the comprehension guide. Students will earn a presentational speaking grade for this activity.

Day 5: On day 5, students will begin a short assessment over this topic. For the Interpretive reading, they will read this article (p. 1, p. 2, p. 3, p. 4) and complete this interpretive reading assessment . In order to replicate the format of the AP test, the questions are multiple choice and require both literal and inferential comprehension. The students will also complete this listening assessment (Note: the URL for the first video is incorrect. Here’s the correct URL: https://www.1jour1actu.com/info-animee/comment-les-refugies-sont-ils-repartis-dans-les-differents-pays-europeens/ ) over two additional 1jour1actu videos. Although these videos are quite simple, the results on my first IPA demonstrated that my new level 4 students aren’t yet proficient enough to interpret specific details from more complex recordings. I may add a short writing assessment, in which the students would present an unfamiliar political cartoon in writing, based on a prompt which includes the types of information included in the comprehension guide.

Although this topic isn’t “fun,” the interest my students have shown in the videos and their enthusiasm in choosing their cartoons lead me to believe that they will be engaged by this brief unit on an important current event.

Ce que j’aime – A unit and IPA for Novice Mid French Students

Reflections on Interpersonal Writing

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This week was a particularly exciting one on #langchat. The topic of Interpersonal Communication had everyone so engaged that I couldn’t keep up with the rapid-fire pace of the Tweets, especially given the free-for-all format. In fact, Thursday evening’s chat left me wanting more—more insight, more opportunities to reflect, and more time with the amazing professionals that contribute each week to this amazing resource. As a result, I logged on for Saturday morning’s session, too. The question/answer format of this session was a little easier for me to follow and also gave us an opportunity to begin a discussion on Interpersonal Writing—a topic which never came up on Thursday’s chat. While some contributors pondered whether written communication allows for the negotiation of meaning which takes place in face-to-face conversaton, the ACTFL description of the Interpersonal communicative mode clearly includes writing. In fact, as some users noted, #langchat is an excellent example of a forum in which there is an “active negotiation of meaning,” in which “Participants observe and monitor one another…” and “Adjustments and clarifications are made.”

As world language teachers, I think that it is vital that we provide our students with opportunities to engage in this same type of written interpersonal communication. After all, while some of our students may never have the opportunity to actually speak to a member of a target culture, but they can all follow native speakers on social media and comment on their Tweets, YouTube videos, Vines and Instagram photos. In fact, many of my students have begun to do so on their own, without any prompting from me. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Fortunately, the prevalence of Learning Management Systems and Google applications makes it very easy for us to develop opportunities for our students to engage in this type of communication in a way that supports our curricular goals. My own district has recently adapted Canvas and their discussion boards are easy to create and evaluate. Each student’s post and replies are grouped together in the “Speedgrader” and both a “Score” and “Comment” box are included so that I can quickly provide feedback and assess each student’s overall contribution.

Given the user-friendliness of this new system and my own reflection as a result of the #langchat discussion and this blog post, I’m planning on incorporating a lot more interpersonal writing into my curriculum this year. In fact, I’ve included the frequent use of online discussion boards in my annual professional SMART goal. Not only will these assignments provide the students with an opportunity to practice a real-world skill, they also supply an audience for the students’ writing. When I assign a presentational writing task, I am usually the only one who reads their work. By assigning contributions to a discussion board, rather than a paper/pen writing assignment, I enable the students to receive feedback on the comprehensibility and quality of their messages from their classmates’ comments and questions. An additional advantage of these discussions is that they prepare the students for oral in-class discussions. Because the students have had an opportunity to look up important vocabulary and structures, formulate their opinions, and read others’ ideas, they are more confident in oral discussions on the same or similar topics.

My first two discussion boards for the year were assigned to my upper-level students who have been watching Entre les Murs. In the first, the students discussed whether M. Marin was a good teacher. Each student had to write one post in which she gave her opinion and then reply to two classmates’ posts, as well as to comments and questions on her original post. I used this rubric (Online discussion rubric – Intermediate), which I will no doubt modify for future discussions, to assess their contributions. While I was thrilled with the quality of the students’ responses, I wish I would have avoided assigning a due date that was before the end of the film. I did so in order to be able to provide feedback before their summative writing assignment, but many students’ opinions evolved as the film progressed and they were a little frustrated that they couldn’t go back and add their new understandings on the discussion board. The second discussion board was created for the students to share their own “auto-portrait” using the questions provided by M. Marin in the film. While I had originally intended that this be a paper/pen assignment in order to protect the students’ privacy, when I gave them a choice, the students preferred to use the online forum. Their enthusiasm provides even further evidence of the value of this type of assignment!

As a result of the positive feedback I’ve received from these students, I’m planning on incorporating discussion boards with my other students, too. This week my French 2 students will be discussing what they like to do when they get together with their friends and my French 3 students will be discussing how our educational system compares to what they have learned about the French educational system. I’ve modified the rubric I created for the upper level students in consideration of the difference in proficiency and task-type. Although I will undoubtedly revise this rubric, this is my first draft: Online discussion rubric – Novice. I hope that these students will be as enthusiastic about sharing their ideas as the upper level students were!

I’d love to hear how you are incorporating interpersonal writing into your own classrooms. Please share in the Comments box!

How a little bird helped me with a challenging Can-Do

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Last summer, when I decided to ditch my textbooks and develop a proficiency-oriented curriculum, I didn’t know for sure exactly what themes I would end up including. Like many of you, I teach one or more French 1, 2, 3, and 4/5/AP classes per day, so I had to be satisfied with creating one unit at a time during my first year with this new course design. At the beginning of the year, I knew only that I would be choosing a theme for each unit, and would then create learning activities around that theme that would address at least one NCSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statement for each mode of communication. While I was nervous about having enough time to curate the resources and develop the learning experiences that my students would need, I wasn’t overly concerned about “what” to teach. By planning lessons that addressed each of the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do statements, I felt I would be providing my students with what they needed to reach their proficiency goals. This allowed me to focus on choosing themes that would interest my students and for which I was able to find an adequate number of authentic written and recorded texts. Although it was a challenging year in terms of time management, it was a rewarding one as well. The majority of my students demonstrated proficiency at the expected or higher level and seemed to enjoy the class. In fact, there was a significant increase in enrollment (due, undoubtedly, to many different factors).

So, as I reflected on last year while preparing for this one, I was feeling pretty satisfied with the curricula I had developed. I was confident that the thematic units I had created had allowed my students to meet each of the Can-Do’s multiple times, so I just needed to do a quick double-check as I wrote out my outline for this year. Since they’re first in the Can-Do document, I started with Novice High Interpersonal Communication Can-Do’s when I was preparing my French 2 outline. I can exchange some personal information. Check—they’ve been doing that since French 1. I can exchange information using texts, graphs, or pictures. No problem here. Many of my lessons are organized around an infographic that the students interpret and then discuss. We also read and discuss illustrated stories and the students do lots of picture-based interpersonal activities, like “Guess Who” games, “Same/Different” activities, “Matching Pictures,” and picture sequencing activities to review stories or videos. I’ve definitely got that one covered. Next came, I can ask for and give simple directions. Piece of cake, they learn how to give directions in French 1, and the picture description activities ensure that the students maintain this skill. Only two more Interpersonal Can-Do’s and I could move on. I can make plans with others. What??? Hmmm. I must have done something last year that addressed this one. So I checked out the examples given, hoping they would jog my memory:

I can accept or reject an invitation to do something or go somewhere.
I can invite and make plans with someone to do something or go somewhere.
I can exchange information about where to go, such as to the store, the movie theatre, a concert, a restaurant, the lab, or when to meet.

Nope. I couldn’t think of a single learning activity I had created that would allow my students to meet this Can-Do. So, I prayed that no one would alert the proficiency police and then started planning how I could make sure to include this Can-Do in this year’s curriculum. (Fortunately, I’d addressed the final Novice High Interpersonal Communication Can-Do, I can interact with others in everyday situations, in a unit on grocery shopping and another on health, so I didn’t have any other unfortunate surprises.)

Unfortunately, introducing the skill of inviting and accepting or rejecting invitations proved to be more challenging than I had expected. I just couldn’t come up with an authentic resource that would give my students enough comprehensible input with the phrases that are typically used for these language functions. Fortunately, around this same time I came across this great post and as I surfed around their fabulous blog I saw several references to the use of Twitter as an authentic resource. While many of you have no doubt been using Twitter with your students for ages, I only got my own account a couple of years ago in order to stay in touch with my son. In fact, I didn’t follow anyone else until I was introduced to #langchat a few months ago. As a result of my own lack of experience with this particular social medium, I hadn’t yet explored Twitter as an authentic resource that could be used with my students. I wondered whether this medium might provide the type of comprehensible input I was looking for.

Since I wasn’t exactly sure where to begin in planning my first Twitter lesson, I simply logged into my Twitter account and typed in “Si tu veux, on peut” as I felt this would be a useful phrase for extending invitations. Lo and behold, I immediately had dozens of recent tweets to choose from, each which contained this expression used in an authentic context. I simply chose those tweets that were 1) comprehensible, 2) interesting, 3) culturally relevant, and 4) school-appropriate and then copied (using the snip tool) and pasted them into a Word document. I then did additional searches for “Ca te dit de..” and “si on allait”” so that my students would become familiar with these expressions, too. The students will read these tweets at the beginning of the lesson on invitations, and complete a simple interpretive activity. I think this activity will be engaging to students due to its authenticity and connection with their own daily lives. They may or may not notice the lack of accuracy in the language used, but if they do I will use this teachable moment to discuss the register of language used in social media.

After reading these tweets, the students will then write tweets of their own to the other members of their group using these invitation expressions. I will provide them with an authentic resource which includes common texting abbreviations, so that the students can incorporate these abbreviations in their own tweets. Having practiced reading and writing invitations, I will then introduce the students to expressions used in accepting and rejecting invitations with another group of tweets. After reading these tweets, they will return to the tweets that were written to them by their classmates, and either accept or reject each one.

After this introduction to the language used in invitations, the students will complete an interpersonal speaking activity in which they extend several invitations to a partner who accepts or rejects each one as they fill out an agenda for a weekend together. They will then complete a presentational writing activity in which they write a series of tweets between themselves and another student, inviting him/her to participate in the activities from the agenda.

Click here for the resource I created for this lesson: Twitter Invitation Lesson

Since developing this lesson, I’ve done several other Twitter searches for upcoming units and I’m really excited about how this authentic resource can be used with students. I’d love to hear how any of you have incorporated Twitter into your classrooms!

Les Vacances: An Integrated Performance Assessment for Intermediate Low French Students

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As promised in an earlier post, I’ve prepared an IPA for the vacation unit I developed for my French 3 students. Before administering the IPA, though, I want to make sure that my students are prepared for the types of tasks they’ll be asked to perform. Therefore, I’ve created a series of learning stations (Vacation Stations) that the students will complete during the four days preceding the IPA.

Listening Station: At this station the students will watch a series of videos related to the theme of vacation. The videos I’ve selected include both cartoons, similar to those that the students watched during the unit, and news stories like those they will hear on the IPA. I got a little over-enthusiastic while I was working on these stations, so I ended up with more comprehension activities than my students could possibly finish in a 48 minute period. I’ll probably assign a few of the videos as homework instead, as I think the more listening they do, the better! Note: If you use these listening comprehension tasks as written, you need to add additional spacing for the responses. After creating these questions, I decided to make multiple choice quizzes on Canvas for these activities, so I have not included the spaces here.

Reading Station: At this station the students will read an article from 1jour1actu (connais-tu-lhistoire-des-grandes-vacances-en-france). Because the interpretive reading activities during the unit were infographics, I wanted the students to prepare the students for the more challenging reading (also from 1jour1actu) that they will read on the IPA.

Speaking Station: Here the students will interview the other members of their station group about their summer vacations. This activity will give the students lots of practice asking and answering the questions they will need on the interpersonal task on the IPA.

Writing Station: At this station the students will write an essay about their real or imaginary vacation. It is my intention that the feedback they receive from me on this assignment will increase their success on the presentational writing task of the IPA.

After completing these stations, and receiving personalized feedback, these students should be ready for this IPA (IPA )in which they:

Read an article (Moins de vacances) about the history of summer vacation in France
Watch two news videos about summer vacation
Interview a partner about a real or imaginary summer vacation
Write a blog post about an imaginary summer vacation

My students have done a great job on the first two lessons of this unit and I’m looking forward to seeing them demonstrate their progress on this IPA!

Assessing Proficiency: A SLO Pre-Assessment for French 2 Students

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In Ohio, as in an increasing number of states, teachers are now evaluated (in part) on the extent to which their students meet the Student Learning Objectives that have been set for them. Fortunately, both the Ohio Foreign Language Association and the Ohio Department of Education have encouraged us to develop SLO’s based on student growth in proficiency. Therefore, within the first couple of weeks of school, I will be giving this pre-assessment(French 2 SLO Pre-Assessment, SLO Article p. 1, SLO Article p. 2 t) to my French 2 students. Rather than assessing their work using performance rubrics, as I do for the unit IPA’s, I will use these proficiency rubrics to assess this IPA. I will then give a post-assessment (IPA that is unrelated to a recent unit of study), to assess student growth.

How do you measure growth in your students?

Les Vacances: A Unit for Intermediate Low French Students

5 Steps to Implementing Learning Stations in the Language Classroom

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My readers asked such great questions about learning stations after my recent post, that I decided to write up a quick “How To” for those who are new to learning stations. In this previous post I commented on some of the reasons why I find learning stations to such a valuable teaching tool. Today, I’ll just mention a few practical considerations. These are the steps I suggest when designing learning stations.

Step 1: Decide how many stations you’re going to have. In some cases your resources will determine the number of stations you must have. In my classroom, I have eight computers (including mine). Because I like to include a computer station, I can never have groups larger than 8. This means that if I have more than 32 students, I must have at least 5 stations.

Step 2: Determine the maximum number of students you will have in each group. (In other words, divide the number of students in the class by the number of stations.) This step is important because it will help you determine how many sets of materials you will need at each station. I usually organize my stations according to language skill, sometimes with a game or computer station thrown in. Some of my station activities are done with a partner (such as the speaking) or a small group (some of the games), so I need to have the appropriate number of manipulatives for the number of groups. For example, in the French I introductory unit, I will have about 8 students in each group. I’ve instructed them to divide into groups of 2-3 for the games, so I will need at least 3 sets of each card game that I’ve created (if there’s only one game at the station). If there is more than one game, the subgroups might be playing different games, so you might not need 3 sets of each one. However, keep in mind that if there is more than one activity at the same station, the students will not finish at the same time, so you need to have a couple of extra sets. For example, if a group of 8 is divided into 3 groups (3 + 3 + 2) to play Go Fish, Memory, and Loto, it would not be enough to have one set of each game. The Go Fish group might finish before the Memory and Loto groups, and would not have anything to do. Stations work great for engaging students, until someone doesn’t have work to do. I usually have a few enrichment activities, but students will resist starting something else when they know that they can play a game in 2-3 minutes. Three minutes is a lot of time! My students tease me for my now famous saying, “You still have 3 minutes, that’s 16% of our class period.”

Step 3: Decide the logistics. In this French I unit, I wanted to spend only 2 days on each mini-lesson and I wanted to have some time to introduce the vocabulary at the beginning of the first day as well as a formative assessment at the end of the second day. As a result, I determined that I would have 30 minutes per day to spend on stations. Therefore, I planned four 15-minute stations that would be completed over a 2-day period. At other times, I create 48-minute stations and the students will do one per day for 4 days. Note that it is vital for logistical purposes that kids stay in the same group every day and that the order of rotation is decided in advance and remains unchanged. For example, if on the first rotation Group A is Speaking, Group B is Reading, Group C is Playing, and Group D is at the computer, then on the second rotation, they each group moves one, so Group A is Reading, Group B is Playing, Group C is at the Computer and Group D is Speaking. On the third rotation, they will move in this same order. Once I have assigned each student to his/her first station, I usually just have them follow the order in the packet, with the understanding that when they get to the last station, they’ll go to the first one. Another logistical consideration is absent students. I usually tell them to join their group on their return, and schedule time for them to make up missed station work, so that I don’t end up with too many kids at one station. The problem, of course, is if they missed the Speaking Station. If I’m using the Speaking Station for formative assessment purposes, I might have an absent student move out of order if I won’t max out the number of students in a group.

Step 4: Design the station activities. Stations allow me to implement so many resources that I wouldn’t be able to use otherwise, so I try to take full advantage of the fact that I don’t need 30 copies of any materials I use. Authentic books and games, realia, teacher-created or purchased manipulatives, etc. can all be incorporated into stations. I try to create more activities than I think the students will have time to complete, in order to avoid downtime (see above.) I also suggest organizing the materials in a way that increases time on task. For the computer activities, I put all of the links on Canvas (learning management system) so the students can just click on the links. The materials for each of the other stations are in a folder labeled with the name of the station. For the Speaking and/or Game station, each set of manipulatives is in a baggie which is labeled with the name of the activity. (Hint: Make each set a different color so that if you find a card that isn’t in a baggie, you know which set it belongs to.) Keep in mind that each group will be starting with a different station, so the stations can’t be dependent on each other. In other words, you can’t have the Writing students write about something they read at the Reading station, because some students will be at Writing before Reading.

Step 5: Create your groups. Depending on your own objectives, you might choose more homogenous or heterogeneous grouping. I do try to have even-numbered groups when possible. This allows everyone to have a partner at the speaking station (unless someone is absent). Therefore, I might have a group of 8 and one of 6, rather than two groups of 7. I usually try to have students work with students other than those they are seated near during station time so that they can get to know each other. As a practical matter, I like to use the Popsicle sticks that I make with students’ names to organize them into groups before the first station day. It helps me to visualize the personalities in my groups if I have this manipulative.

I hope this post has cleared up some of the questions that people had. If not, keep those questions coming and I can address them in a future post!

Bienvenue Partie 2: Designing IPA’s for Novice Low Learners

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bienvenue2 In conversations about Integrated Performance Assessments, my fellow teachers often share their concerns about using authentic texts with beginners. There seems to be a widespread belief that true beginners cannot derive meaning from texts created by native speakers for native speakers. I hope that these assessments, which will be implemented during the unit I shared in yesterday’s post, will demonstrate that even Novice Low learners can read and listen to authentic texts when the tasks are designed to correspond to their proficiency level.

As I explained in yesterday’s post, I created two separate IPA’s for this unit. As often happens in real-life school settings, instructional decision-making is influenced by many factors. Because this unit will not yet be completed before the interim progress report grades are due, I prepared a short IPA to be administered after about three weeks of instruction. This assessment will provide information to my students and their families regarding their ability to use their brand-new language skills in an authentic context.

IPA #1 (Revised 9/14/2015)

As you can see, I did not follow the exact order (Interpretive-Interpersonal-Presentational) that is recommended in designing IPA’s. In this case I used an alternative format to better meet the context of the assessments, which was a visit to a Francophone school. Therefore, in this IPA the students will first listen to an authentic video about holidays and then read an article about France from an authentic children’s magazine (Les Pays…08082015) Next, they will respond to a note from a student in the class. Lastly, they will answer the school secretary’s questions. Although all of my previous IPA’s have incorporated student- to-student interaction for the interpersonal task, I will play the role of the school secretary in this instance, as the Novice Low ACTFL Can-Do’s reflect the students’ ability to introduce themselves at this level, but not to interview others. This is the “secretary’s” script:

Bonjour.

Comment ça va?

Tu t’appelles comment?

Comment ça s’écrit ?

Tu as quel âge ?

Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire?

Merci, Bonne journée.

Au revoir.

IPA #2 (Note: the video used for the listening assessment is no longer available, but a search on “Mes fournitures scolaires” on Youtube might provide a similar video. Edited 9/21/19: The text for my original IPA is no longer available. However, Stacy Nordquist has generously shared a similar IPA that she created using a recent school supply list: IPA List

In this summative assessment for the unit, I continued the context by explaining that the students were now preparing for their first day of school in their temporary home in Morocco. Before the first day they will 1)Read the school’s list of required supplies (Interpretive Reading), 2) Listen to a video in which a student presents her school supplies (Interpretive Listening), 3) Discuss their school supplies with a neighbor (Interpersonal Communication) and 4) Make a list of school supplies they need to buy (Presentational Writing).

French 1 Unit 1 Formatives

As shown in the tentative agenda I included in yesterday’s post, I will administer a quick formative assessment after each lesson. These quizzes are designed to assess the extent to which the students are able to identify new vocabulary words. Any student who is not successful on any of these quizes will be given an opportunity to receive additional instruction and retake the assessment. As with the first IPA, the red text is teacher script and will not appear in the student copy.

Image Credit: http://claire-mangin.eklablog.com/

Madame's Musings

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