you want to see in the world!
I created these VOKIS with my 7th graders today. My students are just incredible. I show them the basics of the website and they are such digital natives that they can create an awesome Voki in 5 minutes or less! So fun! Click the play button to hear my talking avatar.
So it is said A LOT at staff meetings, professional development sessions, workshops and conference galore that teachers are the WORST students…well, after school today from 3:30 to 4:30 in my classroom I witnessed the exact opposite!
I taught a one hour TPRS Spanish lesson to about ten of my colleagues. Yes, after a long school day, TEN of my fellow teachers agreed to come and learn Spanish with me! That is amazing in itself! We will have class each Wednesday from 3:30 to 4:30 until the end of the school year. One of my colleagues even stated before we began class, “You know Lauren, teachers are the worst students!” Well not today! I am sooooo accustomed to teaching children each day. I teach them vocabulary, we learn it in context with some physical responses and then tell stories, read and play games. It is a routine that every single one of my students is so accustomed to because they meet me when they are five and leave me when they are fourteen. Learning Spanish through this crazy TPRS method is just what we do. It is their normal. It is Spanish class. They know no different. My students are engaged, they are learning, they are fun and it is very enjoyable for me and usually for them too (I think.) I enjoy myself each day as I teach Kindergarten – 8th grade, but today teaching adults was a completely different sense of enjoyment!
These teachers I taught today were THE BEST students in my opinion! I had so much fun! I gave everyone a TPRS reading and acitivity book called Cuéntame más from TPRS Publishing Inc. I explained a bit about how TPRS works and then I taught them the first vocabulary set. What a difference it makes when “your students” really want to be there and be learning what they are learning. What a difference when you’ve chosen to be learning what you’re learning. They were asking such insightful questions. They were asking about verb forms, how to conjugate things and the origin of the words. They were so interested in getting the words just right and writing down any extra words I threw into our story. Oh my gosh! What a great experience! By the end of class, my ten students had listened and understood two mini-stories in Spanish, they read a story and completed a true/false activity ALL in Spanish. I am so grateful for this opportunity to teach a group of adults something that I can so easily and so enjoyably share with them.
I can’t wait for our next class! I learned today that the statement, “teachers are the worst students” is so not true! And the idea of getting my real students interested and engaged in the learning we are doing was definitely reinforced. It is essential.
I am going to film our classes from now on so that people can see how great our classes are and then maybe others can learn along with us if I post the videos here.
Every Tuesday I begin my teaching day with my Kindergarten class. I love Tuesdays! I wish I had video of my class with them today! They are learning Spanish through TPRS. Today and every day with them is such a learning experience! I must preface this whole post by saying that I only get to teach my darling Kindergarten class one time a week for 30 minutes. Today we were recycling some words we had learned last week: the fish, the cat, big, and small. So I used a technique called directed draw. I told them some little mini-stories and then they drew what I said. Simple. We used small dry erase boards and markers. THEY WERE SO EXCITED to be able to use the dry erase boards and markers! They were even more PUMPED when I told them they were going to get to sit at the big kid tables. (We usually sit together on the floor in a big carpet because the tables in my room are more suited for middle school kids).
It was perfect because they are learning the words big and small so as they each walked to sit at their tables, they were all saying, “Ooooooooooooo, grande.” And then talking about how pequeño they were (because I asked them if it was okay and if they could handle sitting at the mesas grandes, even though they were muy pequeños.) Oh my gosh, they were all so happy to be sitting at the tables! Oh I wish I had video! Next time! They were beaming, feeling so proud of themselves at the tables. It was such a little thing that meant so much to them. They are a constant reminder to always find joy in the little things. Honestly, if I can try each day to take a moment to notice just the simple things in life that make me so happy (like sitting at the big kid tables) maybe I can achieve that sweet, innocent, innate happiness like my kindergarteners have. It is such a simple lesson, but such an important one. It gets so much more difficult for many of us as we age and experience certain changes in life, but being around kids (of all ages) each day truly reminds me how simple life can be. How happy I can choose to be… They teach me just as much, if not more, than I teach them! Here are two quick adorable videos of them singing to brighten you day!
I am stealing this blog post title from @gcouros The Principal of Change.
I had so much time to myself this week because we had a Teacher Institute Day on Monday and then only one actual FULL school day on Friday because of the Big Bad Blizzard of 2011. What a week! One full day of school? I LOVED all this time to be stuck in my house, completing house projects I’ve been meaning to complete for YEARS and so much time to learn from my PLN and all the sharing of resources and ideas that come to me via Twitter and all these amazing blogs I subscribe to now! But it made me realize something…
All (well, most…the majority) of my great “learning” moments that I like to post here to my blog come from MY STUDENTS! They are the ones that inspire me daily moment by moment, sometimes so much that I have to choose what I might write a post about. I was only around them for one half day and then one full day this week and I found that I had so much less to say. At first I thought it was sad. What happened to me? When I began this blog just recently I had so much to say…..hmmmm…..I was disappointed in myself. But then after reading @gcouros blog post I felt so differently.
Here is the message that stuck with me the most, he writes, “Here is the bottom line for me. We are all teachers. We care about ALL kids, not just our own students. Some of my best interactions this past weekend were with students from SLA. Sometimes I believe that kids do more for us as educators than we do for them; they are great to be around.
This is so meaningful for me. I believe it to be so meaningful for all of us as we all become so connected. Thank you for your post @gcouros! I had a great week of learning on my own, but the realization that being around my students and learning along with them is what seems most inspirational and feels so good to me.
One last note, I sadly still watch Greys’s Anatomy (I say sadly because it is such a silly Soap Opera with not much reality to it at all). But tonight I was impressed and happy to still be watching it. I watched last Thursday’s episode on DVR and EVEN Grey’s Anatomy promotes the IMPORTANCE and BENEFIT of Twitter as a way to connect professionally to help each other learn. It is so important to be connected to others in order to learn. I realized this being away from my students this week, and I realize it daily reading tweets and blogs. If you haven’t seen last Thursday’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, watch a bit here and see the benefits of TWITTER in action! They save a man’s life because of it! It is just a five minute clip (with advertisements beforehand of course) but explains the benefits and growth we can all experience quite well!
http://www.hulu.com/embed/MRqXbgGHSzH1Jr01Uhv6cw/1596/1951
It used to stand for: TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE STORYTELLING
NOW it stands for: TEACHING PROFICIENCY THROUGH READING AND STORYTELLING
I thought it would be important to do a quick post about TPRS because this is the way I teach, and have taught for the past nine years. I was so lucky to have an incredible cooperating teacher and some great college professors that were advocates of using the TPRS method to teaching a new language rather than the very grammar-based approach to teaching a language.
Chris Kennedy, @cultureofyes a Superintendent at a school in Vancouver wrote a blog post about sitting in on a TPRS lesson a couple days ago. He is not even a language teacher and realized the effectiveness of this method of teaching. I am writing this quick post before bed because of his blog post.
Read more here at my favorite TPRS website, it has ALL you need to understand why it works and all the resources you need to get you started or interested : TPRS
This post is inspired by the amazing Technology Director at my school, Virginia Glass. I sometimes refer to her as Mrs. Claus because she is the one who provides me with the technological toys, the knowledge and inspiration to use them. She has the ideas and then I get to put them into play. And when I say PLAY, I really mean PLAY! We recently started meeting after school some days for “play dates” so that we can figure out all these incredible 21st century tools we are fortunate enough to possess.
The video above is what I want my next Skype call to look like. Ginni told me to watch it. She said it reminded her of a quote that I have in the end of each of my emails, “We all smile in the same language.” Our world is becoming so connected in so many ways. I love it. My 6th graders talked to teacher Greta Sandler in Argentina on Skype. She was “in” our classroom. When my students are out for a day, we Skype them into our classroom so they don’t miss a thing. We can read what each other have experienced in our daily lives and connect and empathize and discuss online. I am so optimistic that I am hoping technology can bring us to a place of compassion and understanding. Once we make these connections with so many places around the world with Skype, Twitter, Face Book, Wikis, Blogs or which ever social network you are using…maybe, just maybe we can reach that place of peace that so many people have been hoping for. Maybe these connections can help us reach a place of love and non-judgment. What do you all think? I know, I am the eternal optimist. My husband thinks I am naive. 🙂 I LOVE this new world or network where “being here is being there.” Maybe this change won’t happen in my lifetime, but I can hope, right? I can hope that understanding each other’s worlds and lives can help us get there?
My 6th-8th grade students earn Spanish Euros toward class parties. Each class has a bank and they earn them daily. They have the opportunity to earn sixty per day based on the six pillars of Character Counts. They earn ten for each pillar. They need to earn 1500 to EARN a party. Today being Friday, each class (by chance) 🙂 had earned a class party. During las fiestas, my students eat lots of junk (they volunteer to bring things) and we watch DVDs in Spanish with English subtitles. They love it and I think they impress themselves with the amount of Spanish they actually do understand as they watch. Of course they do not understand all the words, but they surprise me and themselves with what they know. I am so proud of them!
It is amazing what a movie can make my students do! They are so focused on the movie in Spanish (minus my darling 8th graders who are just so social they can’t focus on much else but one another), my students hardly know I am tricking them. They think they are having a party, but I am really engaging them and forcing them into immersing themselves into the language I want them to produce daily. Ha! 🙂 My 6th graders watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid in Spanish with English subtitles, my first 7th grade class watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, my 8th graders watched Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian and my final 7th grade class watched Alvin and the Chipmunks. They were all so engaged as they watched. It was a great day. Junk food and movies they love…Who wouldn’t be happy? It was a great Friday.
And one last thing about movies…and this story is just to make you laugh at me. My sweet 1st graders had a substitute last week. She did not speak Spanish so she read them One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss in English. They were supposed to watch an animated video of the book in Spanish after the book. Well, they ran out of time and the substitute told them MAYBE they would watch the movie the next time. Well, they did not have Spanish class for another week and OH BOY…six and seven year old children NEVER forget if you tell them they are going to watch a MOVIE!
Well, it was a VHS tape that I never use (only substitutes ever use it) and as soon as they walked in, they all wanted to watch it! SO I put the VHS tape in. I could not get it to play. I took it out and put it back in, pressed lots of buttons…and it would not play. I had copied the VHS tape to a DVD years ago so I tried that…it was a NO GO too! Seriously, I spent about 20 minutes of the 30 minute class trying to get it to work! I finally gave the VHS tape one last try because my little ones were begging, I pressed REWIND and heard that familiar whirring sound that I was accostomed to as a child! Oh my gosh! All I had to do was rewind…AND I THINK I UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY!? Teachers at my school sometimes come to me for help and I couldn’t work a VHS tape! Sad! But the little kiddies were happy when it played (the majority of them had never seen a VHS tape before!) Movies! A winner with all age groups and learning styles!
My principal Debbie Barnes gave us all an activity to do one day at a staff meeting about 4 year ago. She gave us a piece of paper with a question, What do you remember about your best/favorite teacher? Describe your favorite/best teacher. Or something like that…
I made the list and was enamored with it, recognizing its importance, and hung it in a place where I see it each day (by my computer) so that I can be reminded that it is my job first and foremost, before I teach Spanish, I must make my students feel the way my favorite teacher made me feel. They need to feel good, safe, smart, comfortable, special and loved to name just a few.
In that same staff meeting, she gave us this quote from Haim G. Ginott
This quote has been so important in my teaching career. I cannot really express its importance in words. When I think about how much power a teacher really has, it is mind-boggling! I use this quote every day to help my students feel the same way my favorite teacher(s) (there were more than one) made me feel each day as I was around them.
If you have never read books by Susan Middleton Elya you are missing out! Her books are so great and my 2nd grade students absolutely adore them and keep asking me to read them more!
Two of their favorites are Oh no! Gotta GO! 
and Oh no! Gotta Go #2!. 
All of her books are so great! She is not a native Spanish-speaker, but writes in English with rhyming Spanish words! Both books above are about a little girl with a baño emergency. They love them! I just do not have time to read ALL of her LIBROS with my 2nd graders. I wrote her an email in hopes that she might Skype with me and my 2nd graders so that they can ask questions and express their love and adoration for her books! One of my students, who I call Guillermo was even so inspired that he decided to write his VERY OWN libro (book). Here it is! Click to open or download!
Guillermo’s Sequel to Oh No. Gotta Go!
For the past two days I’ve had two different 7th grade girls absent from my last period Spanish class because they were sick. They were so responsible that they emailed me in the morning to tell me they were sick, but wanted to know what they were missing so they could get their work done. On Monday, the one student and I were instant messaging back and forth on Skype most of the day. I asked her if she was feeling up to it, we could Skype her into class and she could participate. She was so excited (and so was I) so we called her, placed my laptop at her desk where she usually sits, talked to her as if she were really with us, brought her around the classroom as we met with different partners practicing vocabulary words and even played a fly swatter game on the dry erase board with her on the computer. She even had her own fly swatter in hand during the game, was raising her hand to ask questions, and all the while had her dog resting at her side. It was so fun!!! The students loved it and so did I.
We loved it so much that we repeated it all today with another student who had been up all night coughing so her mom had her stay home. We called her. We read in our books with her and translated a story. She worked with a partner as we completed exercises in our books, and at the end of class, we said adios and she did not miss a thing! Skype is so awesome and so are my darling students who truly WANT to BE in class with us and are sorry to miss a day! What a great place I work in! What wonderful little minds I get to sculpt in a new language five days a week!
Be the change... 