Fashion Week--3M

We have been continuing our practice with adjective agreement, the articles and the clothing vocabulary.  This week our third and fourth graders did a desfile de moda (fashion show) for us.  While we normally have some great-looking uniforms, it does tend to limit the variety for a fashion show.  Today several of our kids were wearing the Jump Rope for Heart styles.  I think they are all an incredibly cute group of kids!

                   

 

Hear It, See It, Say It, Wear It

When you were a baby, you learned the meaning of words in several ways: you heard the word "shoes" as your parents helped you get dressed.  You saw the shoes, your parents helped you put them on your feet.  Soon you were able to put concepts together: the brown shoes, the blue jacket, the green shirt.

Our process in Spanish has been similar.  Last semester, our third and fourth graders learned the colors and how to make nouns and adjectives plural.  This semester we have been learning the four definite articles and the rules of gender and number agreement, along with clothing vocabulary.

In our class that looks like a lot of hearing the words, seeing the words, saying the words and, in this case, wearing them.  We sing a song at the beginning of class with all of the clothing words, and sometimes another song to help us remember the colors.  We write charts of all the definite articles, and which endings for the Spanish words match each ones.

Today, I called out complete sentences in Spanish and the children drew pictures to illustrate them. If I said, "La blusa es morada," they would draw a purple blouse.  If I called out, "Los calcetines son amarillos," they would color a pair of yellow socks.  Although we haven't formally covered changing the endings of color words to match the noun for gender and number, several of them noticed that I was doing that and were able to figure out the reason why! (And by the way, these kids must rock at Pictionary, because they had the clothing drawn and colored before I could even repeat the sentence).

Of course, no unit on clothing is complete without some wild races to see who can put on the item of clothing first.  Do you have any idea how loud the giggles get when you have twenty students laughing their heads off?  It's a beautiful sound in any language.  :)

Work and Play-8th Graders

The first few days after we came back from our Christmas break were gray and dismal, weather-wise.   Class-wise, we were starting to feel the doldrums, too.  We had worked hard on some tough grammar concepts, slogging through rules and worksheets, and though the students put great effort into it and didn't complain, the spark wasn't quite there.

I had just finished grading some leyendas misteriosas that our eighth grade class had written to contrast the preterite and imperfect and I was amazed at their competence and creativity.  On the spur of the moment, we switched up the lesson plan and decided to have them write and perform a mini-play for the Spanish kindergarten class.

We had learned the Apostles' Creed in Spanish last semester and discussed the differences in Spanish and English.  In Spanish, it reads that Jesus, "fue concebido por obra y gracias del Espíritu Santo" (was conceived by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit).  We had talked about differences in the words trabajo and obra in Spanish, and that the word obra could mean many things, from a deed or action to a work of art or a play.  

It takes much, much more effort to produce language than to merely understand it.  Reading Spanish is comparatively easy.  Writing it isn't, especially when you are talking about a five minute play completely in Spanish.  But the students embraced the challenge and poured themselves into it.  They formed small groups, wrote their own stories and scripts, and designed their own costumes and props.   As we revised the scripts, we reviewed ser vs estar, the preterite vs imperfect, direct vs indirect object pronouns, vocabulary and more, all in a context that mattered because they wrote it.  Next week, we will be performing for the little ones.

As you can see, their stories are full of princesses, peril and picos (beaks)!   If we have even half as much fun performing them as we have had preparing them, it will be a treat indeed.  It is a good class when work and play mean the same thing.

Back in the Groove

The Christmas break was a wonderful time to relax and enjoy ourselves.  Now we are back in the groove of classes and new material.

Our third, fourth and fifth graders have been going over our vocab from the first semester and identifying the masculine and feminine nouns.  They learned the rules for plural forms last semester.  This week we have been putting it all together with the definite and indefinite articles.

Our sixth grade students have been working on the possessive adjectives and the comparatives.  Tomorrow they are going to pair up with our second grade buddies to help them memorize the blessing  before meals in Spanish.  We are all looking forward to celebrating with an (appropriately blessed) ice cream party once they all have it down!

Our seventh grade students have been going over travel vocab and the reflexive verbs.  Today we combined those with the direct object pronouns.  Students closed their eyes, fished around in the suitcase, chose an item and then identified in Spanish, and told what they use it for using the reflexive verbs.

The eighth grade class has been using the preterite and imperfect to create their own leyendas.  It has been so much fun reading their stories that I think we might need to have a play so that the entire class can enjoy their creative tales! 

One of the sentences in the homework with the comparative forms had the students choose whether work was more fun than play or less fun than play.  Your children make sure that for me the answer is always that work is fun!

Oral Exams

For some people, the fear of public speaking is worse than death.  Imagine having a spoken exam in  another language!  That is exactly what our 3rd through 8th graders have been doing this week, and they passed with flying colors.

Every semester I have college students tell me that they studied Spanish in high school, but that they couldn't actually speak it if their lives depended on it.  That is such a tragic waste of time!  Many universities and colleges are moving to oral proficiency exams, with good reason.  Most of the time when you use Spanish outside of the classroom, you will be speaking it.

For our speaking tests, the students came out in the hall one by one, and I asked them a series of questions in Spanish.  They did not know in advance what questions I would be asking, and there was no paper to look at.  They were graded on their comprehension of the question, grammar and pronunciation. Although it was brief, it was excellent practice with "real life" Spanish.

It is fascinating to see how different learning styles shine with different forms of assessment.  Some of the students who struggle more with the written exams excelled at speaking Spanish.   I love seeing our students developing communicative competence!

National Spanish Exam ~ 7th and 8th Grade

I am so excited to announce that for the first time ever, All Saints students will be taking the National Spanish Exam!  The NSE is the most widely used set of Spanish proficiency tests in the US, with more than 150,000 middle school and high school students participating in 2014 alone.

The test measures listening comprehension skills, reading comprehension skills, vocabulary and grammar according to national standards for Spanish language learners.  There are several different categories for each level, so that students who have more exposure to Spanish (for example, if Spanish is spoken at home) are ranked against their peers instead of with those who are learning it in a typical school setting.  Because students at All Saints have so much Spanish in elementary grades, the exam will classify them as OE (having outside experience).

I am preparing a study guide for the students who will be taking the exam that will include much of the vocabulary and brief explanations of the grammar that will be covered.  To give you an idea of how rigorous the exam is, I still have two-thirds of the grammar standards left to cover and I am already at 29 pages and nearly 3,000 words!

I won't lie--the exam is hard.  Most of the students who are taking it are in high school (there are plenty of sophomores and juniors taking the level 1).  Additionally, many schools only allow their top students to take it (often an A average is required for eligibility).  Finally, our students will be competing in the same group as those who have Spanish spoken at home.  An "average" score on this exam is actually far higher than an average Spanish student would be capable of achieving.  But having worked with the students at All Saints this last semester, I am convinced that they will excel.

The exam will be taken in the spring, probably in late March.  Once our time grows closer, I will be looking for some parents to help proctor the exam.  In the meantime, if you would like to practice with previous exams or use some games and links to help practice, they are available here: http://www.nationalspanishexam.org/index.php/exam-preparation/online-practice-exercises  The link offers many types of practice, including listening comprehension and reading comprehension exercises.

I am excited about all that our students have learned, and look forward to seeing that reflected in this exam.

A Million Ways to Learn

Having taught for fifteen years in a variety of settings has confirmed what any parent already knows: children don't always learn things the same way, and what works for some may not be effective for others.

St. Paul wrote, " I have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some."  As a teacher, my challenge is to teach in all possible ways so that I might reach my students.  It will always be an area of growth, but here are some of the many ways we learned this week:

Listening:
As part of our Advent, we have been listening to different Spanish versions of "O Come, Emmanuel" each day.  We have heard renditions from several different countries and noted the differences in musical instruments and translations from each region.  One of our favorites was from South America, recorded for the Católicos de hoy program (Catholics Today).

Every week we practice with the ¡Avancemos! audio CDs, and I encourage students to use the links in the right side bar of the blog, as well.  This gives students exposure to a variety of accents and speakers using the vocabulary and grammar structures we are covering in class.

I conduct about 25% of the class in Spanish.  While I never want to frustrate the students, I do want to give them exposure to the sounds, rhythms and intonation patterns of a native speaker.  Usually I will say things in Spanish first, and then repeat it in English.  You can see their confidence grow as they understand what I say the first time.

The elementary classes are practicing with a dictado (dictation) this week, and it is exciting to see their competence and confidence increase!

Seeing: 
Besides reading, we love to use the Promethean board to find images of topics we are studying.

Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl

 Our 8th graders have been learning about Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl, and we found several images of those mountains that illustrate the legends associated with them.  This morning we looked at some of the chocolate in Oaxaca, and how it is mixed with spices and nuts.

Oaxacan chocolate ready to be ground

Each chapter in our ¡Avancemos! textbooks includes several DVD clips with vocabulary, cultural info and story-lines that provide a fun way to reinforce what we are learning.

Movement:
Whether it is dancing along to a song in Spanish or playing games, we try to find plenty of opportunities to move around in class.  One of our favorite things to do is to play a game of catch with a couple of very soft and fuzzy balls.  The student who catches the squooshy has to conjugate a verb or give the correct Spanish response before throwing it to someone else.  Since you never know who will get it next, it keeps us on our toes!

Señor Suave and Señor Scushi

Taste: 

Although we don't get to do this one quite as often, every one of my classes agrees that when it comes to learning about the foods and drinks of different Spanish-speaking countries, it isn't enough to read and talk about them.  We have to actually try them.  During our Country-in-a-Bag presentations, the students tried authentic tamales, tostones, papas, limonadas, and many other recipes for each of the countries that we presented.  After learning about the chocolate in Oaxaca, we all had a cup of real Mexican chocolate.  

These activities are more than fun, they are the key to engaging all kind of learners.  While we do plenty of traditional pencil and paper work, too, we know that sitting still and writing is not the only way to learn.  Recognizing that each student is unique and helping to capture their imaginations is part of why I love teaching--my students make sure that I never get bored!

 

3rd and 4th Grade Excellence

"What do you call someone who speaks several languages?"
--"Multilingual."
"What do you call someone who speaks two languages?"
--"Bilingual."
"What do you call someone who only speaks one language?"
--"American."

Sadly, that joke contains an element of truth, and I think that one reason that so few people in the United States are fluent in other languages is that, in most cases, there is no serious study of other languages until high school.  Although many schools offer it in elementary and middle school, there is often an unspoken assumption that the kids can't really learn much--just numbers, colors, maybe the names of some animals or parts of the body.

After fifteen years of teaching college students and seeing first-hand how challenging it is for students who wait to learn another language as an adult, I cannot describe my joy when Mrs. Scalet described the program here at All Saints.  Our students have Spanish at least twice a week from pre-K on.   That frequency allows us to go beyond a few basic nouns.  The children here are actually speaking Spanish, with oral sections on every test from the third grade and up.  We aren't just going over isolated nouns--they are conjugating verbs and using prepositions and the correct gender of adjectives to create complete sentences.

Excellent work from Samantha, 4-B

The last couple of weeks my third and fourth graders have been learning the present indicative forms of the verb ir, the prepositional phrases al and a la, and a number of place names in Spanish.  Today they combined those elements with the days of the week and the definite articles to express where they go throughout the week.

To give you some perspective on this, most of the college Spanish programs that I know don't teach this until about the third or fourth chapter, and then we typically see students struggling to remember to use the definite article to express doing something on a certain day, or forgetting to contract a and el to make al for masculine destinations or mixing up the gender.  These third and fourth grade students sailed through it without any problems at all (and they even remembered the accent marks on miércoles and sábado--those little things that delight the hearts of Spanish teachers everywhere).

Caitlin and Austin practicing the places with a board game.

Dani, Taylor and Ariana were the fastest group to find all the words in the sentence, and JP is the fastest photo-bomber.  :)

Jake, Nick and Owen

Kids have such a great way of living up or down to the expectations and opportunities given to them! When you expect excellence and give them the chance to learn more, they rise to the occasion.   I look forward to the day when students all over the US have a chance to really learn other languages, and I am delighted that we don't have to wait for that here at All Saints.

Country in a Bag Project

One of our projects this year in collaborative work between sixth and second graders has been our Country in a Bag project.  The students picked different Spanish-speaking countries and teamed up to research their country's history, culture, typical foods, favorite sports, famous citizens and more.  They decorated their bags with images to represent their countries and filled them with puppets, items from the country, such as coffee beans, bananas, sand from the islands, baseballs or soccer balls, and all kinds of interesting things.

However, we all agreed that it is not enough to hear about another country--it is important to experience aspects of the culture, as well.  So the students studied the cuisine for their countries, selected a recipe, and then brought food from their country to share with the classes!  It was absolutely delicious, and so much fun!  

I was so impressed with all of the information that the students learned and shared about each of the countries.  We focus most of our class time on the grammar and vocabulary of Spanish, but it is important to learn about the culture, too.  The whole point of learning a language is to be able to communicate, and appreciating the cultures of the different Spanish-speaking countries allows for a much deeper level of connection and understanding.

What I Like About You

School shootings and other terrible acts of violence have focused some much needed attention on the issue of bullying.  In a recent workshop that many of us at All Saints attended, we learned several actions that teachers can take if there were ever a dangerous situation at our school.  However, the most important thing that we can do is act now instead of waiting until it is too late.  The best defense against violence in our schools is helping all of our children to know that they are valued.

Our sixth grade class has been learning how to use "a" with a noun or prepositional pronoun, the indirect object pronouns, and the verb gustar with singular and plural nouns to express things that are pleasing to us--what we like.  I am so proud of the work they have put into that.  It sounds grammar-intensive, and it is.  But what is most impressive is how they are using these expressions.

This week, the sixth graders took lists of every one of their classmates and wrote down qualities about each person that they like and admire.  We wrote several items on the board, especially phrases that were not in the textbook.  I loved seeing the depth of their responses.  Over and over, they chose character qualities like kindness, love for God, boldness, a sense of humor and other traits as the things that they admire most about their classmates.

As a precaution, I looked over all of the responses before sharing them with the recipients, but not once was there a mean-spirited remark, and every person was included.

I am not naive enough to think that all of our middle schoolers will always be kind to each other, that there will never be teasing, or that no one will ever hurt another's feelings.  However, our students are learning that bullying is never acceptable at All Saints, and that each person here is created in the image of God.  I hope that as they read all of the things that their classmates like about them that the lesson will go beyond Spanish grammar.  I want every student here to feel valued as part of our community and liked for who they are.

P. S.  To all of the parents here--thank you for raising such likable kids.  You make my job a happy one!