I CANs that promote proficiency

My district has implemented these 5x5 walk-throughs which means my principal pops in from time to time for 5 minutes and one of the things on her checklist is whether or not I have learning objectives posted and if they are rigorous.  I can statements and me have a stormy past. I learned in my university classes that I should be using them but I've written bad ones, forgot to post or refer to them, made them too vague etc. Every year though I get a little better at doing them.

Recently we did a training on Proficiency Based Instructional Outcomes in my district. Here are some thoughts we shared and asked ourselves to reflect on...

Most of the examples are learning objectives I have actually used in the past. 

1. Are they are at the right level? This means you have to know what level you are targeting. If I'm targeting novice mid I shouldn't have I cans that are asking for intermediate or advanced tasks. So "I can talk about what I did this weekend" (advanced) is out for my elementary kiddos but "I can tell you what the weather is today in Lexington, KY and at another famous landmark" (novice) is in.

2. Are they measurable? I used to be really vague. "I can identify colors." It's not horrible but admins are notorious for asking how I will measure it they made it or not. How many colors do they need to identify? Is one enough? 5? 6? "I can identify 4 colors in a Joan Miro painting" is a double whammy because it tells them exactly how many colors they need to identify and brings in the target culture. "I can make a Joan Miro inspired artwork and describe my piece" actually has my kinders doing something with the language.

3.Do they reflect what students can do in a real world context?  Part of the power of learning objectives/instructional outcomes is that students understand what and why they are working towards. If they don't understand the outcome then you lose that power. So "I can use the verb necesitar correctly" is out. "I can list items I need for school" is in. Or if they don't necessarily reflect a real world task like "I can list the days of the week" then they should be a stepping stone to something that is. My first graders start by listing the days of the week so that later they "...can read a weather forecast for the week."

4. Do you refer to them? How? Soooo...I've had several people who've told me to post them in English, point to them, and say them aloud in the target language. That sounds great for middle and high but it's problematic in elementary school for a big reason - a lot of my students are preliterate. They can't read the I can statements so I usually take less than a minute and say them in English. Or sometimes in upper grades I ask a student to read them in English. Referring to them is my biggest weakness although I am getting better.

5. Logistics - I see up to 10 classes a day. I don't have the board space to post the outcomes. And because I like it to be specific to that day not just the end of the unit I have a LOT of outcomes. I like to keep a Google Slides presentation that has a slide for each grade level. Each slide has a graphic with vocab that students can refer to, a bellringer activity for 3rd'5th to start the class, the essential questions for the unit, and the I cans for the unit.

This year I decided to put ALL of them for the unit on the slide and just bold and highlight the ones for the day. That way students can see where they have been, where we are going, and maybe most importantly I don't have to keep editing the slides EVERY single day. Below are some examples from first and fourth grade.

First Grade:

Fourth Grade:

How do I incorporate intercultural competence? With ACTFL's new Can Do statements I am still wrapping my head around this one. The main tenets are Investigate and Interact.

My fourth graders are learning clothing vocabulary. For investigate, we started with I can list 3 clothing items in a school uniform but then moved on to I can compare and contrast what I wear at school to what students in Spain wear. Although according to ACTFL they can't really compare and contrast until the intermediate level, but I think with guidance and scaffolding this definitely possible at a novice level.

For interact, they will get on the El Corte Ingles site and shop for a school uniform from a school dress code I found online (yay for authentic resources!) They will also design and describe a school uniform based on what they have learned. I threw in "I can compliment a friend on their clothing" because it makes a good entry activity and it gets them thinking about what they and their friends are wearing. This is my first time teaching this unit so I'm still making tweaks to both the activities and the instructional outcomes.


Resources:

ACTFL Can Do Statements  - New Can Do statements document
Musicuentos post on new Can Do statements - A run down of the new Can Do document that is really useful
NNELL Archived Webinars - Several of these webinars address Can Do statements. They are free for current NNELL members (only $30!)


So those are my reflections after our training on learning objectives. How do you write and post your learning objectives? How do you share them with your students? How do you incorporate interculturality?  Please share in the comments below!

No I Won't Say It In English - Motivating Students in a 90% TL Classroom

I literally just got home from another great KWLA conference. I had a great turnout Friday for my presentation - No I Won't Say It In English - Motivating Students in a 90% TL Classroom. Click on the picture below to access the Google Slides presentations. It has links to all the resources I talked about in the session.

How do you motivate your students? Share in the comments below!

¡Vamos al supermercado!

My kindergartners just "ate up" this thematic unit on the supermercado (haha...I love horrible puns!) We had so much fun that it's become one of my favorite things to teach. Who knew that an annoying weekly chore for adults could be so much for kids? The truth is that the supermarket is a gold mine for one of the big C's - Connections. You can connect it to math, literacy, and basic life skills.

Target Vocabulary:

supermercado/restaurante

comida - pan, huevos, leche, frutas, verduras, jamón, jugo, helado, chocolate, tocino

por favor

gracias

de nada

numbers 1-10

me gusta/no me gusta

Que rico/guácala

1. First things first we watched Calico Spanish's Chocolate video. This is always a hit no matter the grade and even though it's not wholly traditional, I really like the change from bate bate to a mi, me gusta chocolate at the end because it really gets students using that language chunk correctly. 

I introduced what a supermercado is. We talked about which supermarkets they knew of. Because they're in kindergarten some got confused and gave me restaurant names which led into a sorting activity. Then I introduced the foods with flashcards and students told their shoulder partners if they liked or disliked them. For an added bonus we also said que rico/delicioso or guácala (my kinders favorite thing to say each year.) 

2. To practice the food vocabulary more we looked at my picture dictionaries. I called out a food and they had to find it in the picture. Think Where's Waldo but with los huevos. It was particularly effective because as they looked for it they repeated the word and then repeated it some more with excitement when they had found it.  Next, we looked at real supermarket ads (authentic resources!) and we did the same seek and find game. This game worked a lot better than something like matamoscas because the pictures were more engaging than just flashcards and since there was no competition there were also no tears.

Get a free copy of the supermarket ads here. 

My Ks freaked out looking at these ads - they were SOOO excited. I thought it was odd until I remembered we live in a digital society now. They probably have seen very few grocery ads. Unlike me who grew up loving to look through the newspaper each week.

3. Then we read the book Peppa Pig va al supermercado. I was able to snag this book last summer when I was in Ibiza. 

4. Since our book was all about grocery shopping with a list we worked on writing our own lists. First we did it in a large group. I bought this gigantic magnet that looks like notebook paper last summer and it was perfect for writing and displaying our list. Students help me decide what to put on my list and we talked about which items we liked and disliked. We also counted how many items we had on the list.

In the next class I continued with whole group instruction. Again we wrote a class list but this time I had play food on my desk. After writing our list, I had volunteers come up and they chose something off my desk. Then I let them cross that item off of our list. As we went along we did math problems in Spanish. We subtracted one each time to get the new number of items on our list. Since adding and subtracting within 10 is a math skill in kindergarten this was a quick and natural way to integrate it into Spanish class. 

5. Finally students were ready to strike out on their own. First they did a matching worksheet where they had a list and they had to draw a line to the correct food. Then they got a chance to write their own lists based on what foods they liked. 

I printed out the grocery ads and put them next to the items. Some shopkeepers just asked for random numbers while others were very conscientious to look at the price advertised. Either way it was an easy way to make it a more text rich environment and students self-differentiated based on what they were ready for.

6. Once they had written their own lists we did a grocery role play. I had plastic food, plush food from Ikea, and laminated food I had printed off the internet. I even had plastic bags from Krogers for them to carry their bought items. This was of course pretty chaotic but they had so much fun. I even had one kiddo tell me that he was "so excited I can't sleep!"

You can get all of the worksheets, role play material, as well as links to other sites and additional videos I used in this unit in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

While I taught this unit with kindergartners I think it would work well with any age level. For older students I would give them a budget they have to keep as they shop. They could research a recipe from the target culture and shop for the items that they need. I can't take all 100 kindergartners on a field trip to the local Aguascalientes Supermercado but it would be totally doable with a Spanish club or Spanish 1 class. The possibilities are endless! How do you teach food and the supermercado? Share in the comments below!