10 Tips for Communicating With Students' Families

Teaching is my second career. I didn't go to school to become a teacher and spent 4 years in the corporate world working with large accounts doing contract management and customer service. I also spent several years in high school waitressing. Those experiences helped me when I came to teaching. And subsequently, I have had very few bad interactions with parents or families of my students. Here are some tips that have helped me create meaningful partnerships with my students and their families. 

✅Address the problem with the student before you call home. 

I always try to have a conversation with the student, brainstorm some ideas of how I can support them going forward or strategies they can use in class to stay on task. I also let the student know that I'll be contacting home about what we discussed. This means that YOU (and the student) are taking steps to solve the problem. You are not blaming the parent or asking them to fix anything for you. 

✅Do your research.

Read the contact log if there is one. Talk to their other teachers and see if they have talked to the parents. Sometimes colleagues will have a better idea of who to call to get results or if there are special circumstances you should know (ie. Dad is more responsive or they don't speak English so it's better to text rather than call.) And don't forget to update the log for your own contacts!

Asynchronous Elementary Spanish Lessons

 Well this is a year we'll never forget. It's hard to collaborate and share ideas right now because it seems like everyone is doing something differently - live, on-demand, hybrid, from home, from school, on a cart. 

My schedule is completely asynchronous. I post a lesson each day for one grade level and then field emails, comments, and Dojo messages that afternoon as kids and families complete the lesson. I am by no means an expert (and I don't really trust anyone who says they are right now!) but here is what is working for me.

Challenges in the spring - We had very low participation partly because of the following reasons: All the Special Area classes were in different places so it was confusing and overwhelming for families to know where to look each day. I just threw up links on Google Classroom with little direction on which ones they should do. There was no way for me to know if they had completed an activity or not (at least not how I set them up.)

Solutions for this fall:

How to post and organize each lesson - Special Area now has its own Google Classroom for each grade. Check out this post to see how we set it up so that it is easy to find that day's activities. It also is super helpful that we went from some kids having technology in the spring to being fully 1:1 with Chromebooks.

How students know what to do during the lesson -  My school does not have a paid subscription to Pear Deck or Nearpod but if you have access to one of these programs I highly recommend them. The free versions are great for synchronous teaching but you have to pay for the student-paced versions (you're paying for the reporting that comes with it.) Check out this video to see a demonstration I did back in the spring for KWLA. 

I like the Nearpod architecture and especially how it guides students through a lesson with - and this is super important - all of the links, videos, and activities in the same place. This part of these programs is just a slide deck, which is easy to replicate in powerpoint or Google slides.

Because we use Google Classroom all of my lessons are in Google Slides. The first slide has the essential questions and learning targets along with a short video from me explaining and modeling the day's activities. I've written about before how I start the year in English so that students understand the expectations and procedures in Spanish class. These videos are in English now but just if we were in school they will become increasingly in the target language as students get used to how to navigate the online lessons.

Then students click to the next slide which has our daily agenda (something I do regularly in the classroom so it's familiar.) Next, they click through to slides that have Youtube videos to watch and links to click to take them to sites like Quizlet.

 

For K & 1st I included audio files (and modeled how to use the buttons) for those kiddos who can't read yet. This way parents can get them started but then walk away and let the students work independently.

How to know if students completed the lesson and formative assessments - My final challenge has been setting things up so that there is some accountability and I know that the students have actually completed the lessons. I also need to get some formative assessment so I know how to plan for the next lesson. 

For the older students this is fairly simple. The last slide of their lesson is a link to an exit slip in Google Forms that they fill out. 

For grades 1-3 I have one slide where they have to drag pictures of animals or food depending on the grade under columns labeled Me gusta or No me gusta. I also included a video on the last slide that shows how to turn in an assignment on Google Classroom. This is especially important for Kindergarten because they can't produce any language yet. I just want them to turn it in so it is marked done and I can get an idea of how many students are actually watching the lessons. 

So that's currently what I'm doing. How are you structuring your asynchronous lessons? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang!

¡Sí, se puede!

I have been looking for a way to monitor my students' participation and progress in class but have never found anything that hasn't completely overwhelmed me (even when I was just trying to focus on 4th & 5th grade - who get letter grades in Specials classes.)  Last spring at SCOLT, I met Nadine Jacobsen-McLean, former elementary school Spanish teacher and current president of NNELL - National Network of Early Language Learners.  She explained how she gave grades to ALL 600+ kindergarteners-5th graders every 9 weeks by using ¡Sí, se puede! bubbles. The beauty of the system is that it can be tailored a hundred different ways depending on your needs. 

I use this picture as my binder cover. 

So how does it work?

I have a binder with class lists with 10 bubbles by each kid's name. When I hear them using Spanish relating to our I can statements or I call on them in class I tell them Si se puede and they go up to the front of the room and color in a bubble by their name. I LOVE it for several reasons.

1. THEY are the ones doing the record keeping for me. I don't have to stop, find their name, or write anything.



2. They love getting up in front of everyone and coloring in their bubble. Kids who used to never raise their hands are now straining to be called on. And the few who aren't are getting used to be called on anyway because...

3. No one falls through the crack because I can quickly scan the sheet to see who hasn't talked in awhile and I make to sure to call on them.  

A screenshot of my Si, se puede sheets. I keep them in a binder at the front of the class.

Right now I'm just using it for participation and they can use any color they want but you can have them use specific colors for different things (Si se puede con verde for meets expectations, con azul for exceeding expectations, and con amarillo for not quite there but trying.) Or you could use colors to distinguish I cans (con amarillo for I can introduce myself, con verde for I can talk about my feelings, etc.) 

I've told the students that they will get a small treat when they reach their 10 bubbles, which will be a Hershey kiss so that I don't break the bank. I have started the year with just 3rd-5th to see how it would go but it's been so easy for both me and the students that I am going to add the rest of the grades very soon (although I'm hoping the littler ones won't need the treat as a bribe and the bubbles will be enough of a reward.)


Get a free bubble template here!

How do you keep track of your students' participation and progress? Share in the comments below or on Twitter with the hashtag #earlylang!



UPDATE! I've moved to tracking students performance levels in class. Yellow means Novice Low. Green is Novice Mid. And blue is Novice High. I tell students they should have a few yellow, lots of green, and a few blues since Novice Mid is our target. I've had students tell me they wanted to get blue and ask how they can get there. Other students are encouraged that even though they are making mistakes or need help they can still get a yellow bubble for trying.

That's how I roll - Fast Finshers

It's the beginning of November and I'm still pulling pieces of my room together. Recently I added a Fast Finisher menu to my book nook area. Students who are done writing in their dictionaries or with the activity for the day can wander over, see what their options are, and get to work.


I've tried to create options that allow them to use what we've been studying and other options that push them out of their comfort zone and into some new vocabulary. If there is a particular activity that I don't want as an option, say for example I don't always want them getting on the computer, then I simply turn it around. (The two not showing in the picture are Play a Spanish game on the computer and Complete and Activity Pack.) Sometimes I don't want kids getting out their folders so I turn around the different "worksheet" options. As we finish games and different activities in class I will add extras to the fast finisher folders so students can repeat activities that they liked or need more practice on.
 
So far it's working great and the students enjoy getting out of their seats and sitting in the book nook. When I was on the cart I didn't have to worry about the menu so much but I ALWAYS kept a file folder of fast finisher activities like word searches, color by numbers, and other activities that kids could do quietly. Having fast finisher activities is essential to my classroom management. It saves my sanity by not having to answer the question "now what?" over and over again.

What are your students' favorite fast finisher activities? I'm always looking for ideas so share in the comments below!

KWLA wrap-up

KWLA conference as usual was fantastic. It's always nice to hang out with other World Language teachers to share ideas and re-inspire each other. Here's my wrap-up for 2014's conference!

I presented my own session first thing this year on Classroom Management in the Target Language (click the link to view the prezi.) It was so crowded we had to ask for extra chairs and there was still people standing.

My first session other than my own was the "NNELL session: New JCPS Elem WL Curriculum" with Jacque Van Houten and other presenters. They went over how they put together the curriculum and how they envision it in use. What I really liked was how they specifically addressed the question of students coming in and out of your program. And while it is designed with 90 minutes of instruction in mind (key to making proficiency gains) there are easy ways to adjust it for schools that get less than that (which is nearly all of us!) They recycle the same units each year but go deeper each time. AND they also incorporate the new interculturality standards that are now a part of the Kentucky WL standards. If you haven't checked these documents out definitely do so!

I finished Friday out with "Teach Really Well land Still Have Time for a Life." This session was full of great ideas for using technology in the class but a lot of them were geared towards high school or schools that have BYOD. I did decide during this session that my upcoming 90% And More Challenge between classes in 3rd-5th grade could be tracked using ClassDojo.

I ended Friday at the Wine and Cheese reception and then dinner with my northern KY peeps at Shakespeare & Co.

Saturday I was up early and had to decide between "Integration of Arts & Humanities & WL" with Alfonso De Torres or "Student Projects in the Target Language." After a game of janken, Japanese teacher and friend Eric and I ended in Student Projects. (Also I had already seen Alfonso's presentation this summer during my week of flamenco PD with the Kentucky Center.) Most of their ideas were also high school centric (the woes of being an elementary teacher!) but a lot of them could be adapted. I remembered my idea to do something with post cards this year.

Next up was "Teach Bell to Bell not Yell to Yell" with @TNSpanish aka Meredith White. It was another classroom management session and just like mine it was packed. Clearly management is an issue for us all. She had great ideas on organization and classroom set up. For example, put all of your supplies in the BACK of the class so you aren't having students constantly up front with you interrupting your instruction. She also advised us to think about our "hot spots" or what makes us crazy and then figure out a solution and fix it. We deserve to teach peacefully and our students deserve a peaceful atmosphere in which to learn.

I finished the conference with Meredith again in "What's the Story? Creating Engaging and Reusable Strategies for Vocabulary Input." This workshop was all about how to use story telling to introduce and reinforce vocabulary. She also showed the technical side on how to find pictures, crop them, and photo shop them into power point to make engaging and personalized stories for your classes. Did I write a story for my upcoming feelings unit? Why yes, yes I did.

@tmsaue1 I think organization, engagement, & confidence are the issues and they all roll up into mgt #kwla
— Jen Ken (@Sra_Kennedy) September 20, 2014

I also love being on social media during the conference. I found a bunch of new people to follow on Twitter and even discussed sessions with people in my session and sometimes with people not present. If you aren't on Twitter I highly suggest trying it out. You can follow me @sra_kennedy and/or use #FLESchat and #langchat to find new ideas and colleagues to collaborate with.

So that's it! Another great conference. I came back on Monday ready to teach to proficiency and in the target language - and some classes have already gotten up to 100%!

Classroom Management in the Target Language

The KWLA 2014 Conference started Thursday night. I've been the last two years and always come away with great ideas. Plus, it's always refreshing to talk/brainstorm/gripe with other language teachers. The teachers I work with every day are awesome but only another language teacher can really get me sometimes!

This year I presented a session of my own (click the link to see it!) - Classroom Management in 90% Target Language.

 
I'll post a sum up of the conference later this week!

The first days of school

I know some teachers want to use the target language from day one. I understand the sentiment and I wish I could do it but I just can't in my current situation. I teach at a Title I school. A lot of my students come to me with anxiety and being thrown in a class where they have to work extra hard to understand what's going on leads to a lot of acting out and behavior issues.  My students need lots and lots of practice doing basic routines so that we can go 90%-100% TL later on. Or as they said in my APL training this summer - "Go slow to go fast."  Here is a list of things I've been modeling and practicing with kids in the first specials rotation.

How to come in quietly
How to sit on the carpet
My quiet signal
How the scoreboard works
How to go to timeout and calm yourself down
How to line up
How to stand in line
How to turn and talk to a partner (smiling, eye contact, and using school talk)
The rules of Spanish class
My signal that it's time to repeat after me
My signal that it's time to talk to your partner
My signal that it's time to switch during partner talk
My signal that they can shout out an answer vs. when they should raise their hands

Here's a video that shows how I model. I don't do it with every procedure but definitely for lining up, going to timeout, and talking with a partner.



That's a lot for only 50 minutes!  Although it helps that a lot of things haven't changed from last year so many of the kids just need a quick refresher. Those students that need extra practice get "retraining" either during a fun activity during class or lunch if I have a free period.


So no Spanish yet - other than Hola and 1, 2 adios. My sign won't switch over for another rotation or two (because we also need to get folders organized and talk about room procedures like getting out supplies and cleaning up.) But once we're ready, we'll be ready to fly and operate totally in the target language.

Do you start in the TL? Feel free to vehemently disagree with me, but if you do I'd like to know how you manage behavior in the TL from day one.

Whole Brain Teaching - Part Three

Today I'll finish up my short series on Whole Brain Teaching in my Spanish classroom. You can find earlier installments in the following links - Part 1 on my routines and Part 2 on the Class Rules.

 The Scoreboard

A big part of Whole Brain Teaching is rewarding students for following the routines quickly and quietly. That's where the scoreboard comes in. In fact, it's the biggest and most important part of the whole system. On one side of the board are smiley faces. On the other side is a sad face. Students earn smileys or sad faces based on their behavior in class. Every time they get a smiley face they get to have a mini-fiesta and say "'¡Ooooooh sí!¨ and pump their fists.

When they aren´t doing what they´re supposed to - maybe several people are forgetting rule 2, raise your hand for permission to speak or they don´t get quiet quickly after clase, clase - they earn a sad face. With each sad face they shake their heads, frown and say pitifully "Que pena."

In some classes just earning more smileys than sad faces is enough. In most classes if they have more smileys than sad faces then they get a dolphin - our school-wide system of reward points. I always post our schedule and sometimes I will put video, game or dance party at the end of class. Then we decide together how many smileys they have to earn to play the game or get their dance party. They work pretty hard to listen and follow directions if it means they get a dance party.

The trick to the score board is to to base it on how the class is doing.  You don´t want them to get discouraged so you don´t want more than a difference of 3 between the smileys and sad faces. If they get more than three smileys I start getting very picky and will give a sad face because one student isn´t doing what they are supposed to. If they have more than three sad faces I do the same thing but I give smileys for every little thing done correctly.

For individual students who don´t respond well to the group scoring I give them their own separate scoreboard on a post-it. I place it on their desk when I walk in. We have a signal so they know when to give themselves marks, although I usually walk over and give them the sad faces. They get a special reward, a sticker for the younger ones or something out of my treasure box for the older ones.  If students get more sad faces then we talk about what they need to improve next time (kindergarten) or they spend part of their recess with me (fifth grade.) This, I should mention, is my own incarnation of a separate scoreboard for "tough" students. Since I see 670+ students on only a semi-regular basis I can't handle it exactly the way Chris Biffle suggests but so far this system has worked.

There are variations to the scoreboard although I haven´t tried them yet. Since I only see my kids twice a week they haven´t tired of it yet. I do sometimes have my own scoreboard and I give myself sad faces if I forget a student´s name or left something in my office that I need for class. The kids get a kick out of the idea that the teacher could also have a sad face.

So that´s the scoreboard. It works so well that one of our teachers in the building has twins in kindergarten and she informed me recently that her daughters had implemented a scoreboard at home. If mommy doesn´t do want they want she gets get a ¡Que pena! Oops!

So those are the Whole Brain Teaching basics. It's made a world of difference in my classroom management this year. Do any of you use WBT? What are your thoughts?

Whole Brain Teaching - Part Two

In my last post about Whole Brain Teaching I talked about the routines and signals that I use. So far my students have really enjoyed it. And because we practiced the routines so thoroughly at the beginning of the year the rest of the year I've had far fewer behavior problems and I've been able to stay in the target language more often, even reaching that 90% goal. Part of the equation are the rules.

The rules: There are 5 simple rules in WBT -

1. Follow directions quickly. 
2. Raise your hand for permission to speak 
3. Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat. 
4. Make smart choices.
5. Keep your dear teacher happy.

 

¿Qué es la regla más favorita de Ms. Kennedy? ¡Regla 5!

We go through the rules EVERY SINGLE CLASS PERIOD. Yes, twice a week, every time I walk in the room we go over the rules. All I have to do is ask students "¿Qué es regla 3?" and they know to sit back down and raise their hands. If they are yelling out "Recuerdan regla 2 por favor" and they know to raise their hands. They say the rules in English but because they know them so well I don't have to switch to English during class when they break the rules. That helps me maintain my 90% TL goal.

At the beginning of the year we learned our signals - quiet signal, espejo, enseña, and cambia using the rules.  Students did gestures with me for each rule, then they taught each other the rules, switched and listened to a partner teach them the rules and then they got quiet at the signal. If they were able to learn quickly they were rewarded with a short dance party at the end of class.

Here is the link to Chris Biffle's explanation of each rule and how to do the gesture.

So those are the rules. Next up, is the scoreboard.

See Part One - Routines and Part Three - the Scoreboard

Whole Brain Teaching - Part One

My second year teaching Spanish has already been exponentially better than my first. For one, the students know me better so there is slightly less limit testing than last year. Second, we switched from 55 minutes once every six days to 25 minutes twice every six days. The shorter time is easier for them to take in an immersion style class.

And just as importantly I adopted a new classroom management system - Whole Brain Teaching. I wholly suggest visiting the website wholebrainteaching.com and watching some videos on youtube. It works better if you adopt it ALL rather than just parts. Up first is a video that I found this summer that really inspired me to give Whole Brain Teaching a try. Below is a summary of the signals and routines that we use in my classes and how I introduced them to my students.

Quiet signal - I say "clase, clase" and the students respond with "sí, sí." Then they get so quiet that if someone walked in they would think we were all sleeping. (Yes, I say exactly that when I explain it to the kids.) They have to say sí, sí  however I say clase, clase. So if I draw it out really long with a dip at the end then they should too. If I whisper then they should whisper it. I usually play around with the signal to keep their attention. Sometimes I sing it. Sometimes I say it three times instead of twice or once really short. It keeps them on their toes.

Hands, hands and eyes - This is the signal when I really want their attention. I don't use it as often as I should based on the advice from wholebrainteaching.com. I tend to use it to give instructions to a game or clean up at the end of class. I say "manos manos ojos" and the students repeat it back putting their hands together and staring at me like I have a big cheeseburger on my forehead (this is particularly effective for the second and third graders who have me just before lunch.)

Mirror - On the Whole Brain Teaching website they suggest "chunking" material and having students repeat after you with gestures. The gestures help those kinesthetic learners and prepares my novice speakers to augment their communication using gestures.  I say "espejo" and the students say "espejo OK." I have pictures with the words in Spanish on the SMART board in my prezi presentation and the kids repeat after me with the gesture. That way they see, hear, and act out each word or phrase. I teach one word or phrase at a time and work up. I don't exceed 10. Once I've taught the new vocab/phrases we insert them into games, read them in authentic resources, and use them in simulations. I do usually review them briefly using Espejo at the beginning of each class so as to bring students back into what we are doing since I sometimes go several days between seeing them.

Teach - After mirroring me students need to teach and practice with their classmates to help solidify the new information in their brains. I say "enseña" and the students say "enseña OK." Then they turn to each other and practice the information we just practiced in the mirror phase. With conversations, one student asks the question and the other student answers.

Switch - To make sure that everyone gets a turn to teach we switch halfway through. Students who were teaching now listen and students who were listening now teach. OR, if we are doing a question and answer then one student asks and the other student answers and then they switch roles. I say "cambia" and the students say "cambia OK."

Now here's the important part - we practiced and practiced and practiced at the beginning of the year. Some classes we still sometimes  stop class and practice some more.  Some people claim that they can start class in 90% TL right from day one. I am NOT one of those people. I wanted my students to know exactly how my routines would work. We learned the signals by going over and over and over the rules. I mirrored them with gestures. They taught them to each other. Then they switched. I got them quiet using the quiet signal. We practiced manos, manos ojos. UNTIL THEY GOT IT. I didn't start teaching content or speaking mostly in Spanish until the third rotation or I was sure that the class knew the routines. Now that they know them I speak much more Spanish in class than I ever did before!

And speaking of rules, that's part two of my series on Whole Brain Teaching. 

See Part Two - The Rules and Part Three - The Scoreboard.