Episode 27: "The Group Project That Didn’t Burn the Room Down (Somehow)"
CI group work strategies for world language teachers — in Episode 27 of Comprehend THIS!, we break down what makes collaborative activities succeed or fall apart in a comprehension-based classroom.
Most CI teachers have a group work horror story. This episode is about what to do instead of giving up entirely.
Pamela Parks — a former professional translator of movies and TV shows, now a high school world language teacher — and LaDawn Black — who just ditched the textbook entirely this year and hasn't looked back — join the show to talk honestly about when CI group work works, when it doesn't, and what the difference actually looks like in practice. LaDawn brings the perspective of a teacher still in the thick of her CI transition, with more questions than answers and a refreshingly honest take on the process. Pamela brings a language-in-context lens that most classroom teachers don't have. Together they make for a genuinely useful conversation about one of the trickier aspects of comprehension-based instruction.
If you're not sure where you land on the CI proficiency spectrum, take two minutes and find out: https://imim.us/ciquiz
Want a solid starting point for CI in your classroom? The CI Survival Kit has what you need: https://imim.us/kit
TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction 4:30 Why CI Group Work Gets Such a Bad Reputation 14:00 What Made This Group Project Actually Work 24:00 How Much Structure Is Too Much (or Not Enough) 35:00 Keeping English Out of Group Work 46:00 When to Use Group Work — and When to Skip It
CONNECT WITH US Subscribe to the podcast: https://imim.us/live CI Proficiency Quiz: https://imim.us/ciquiz CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit
#ComprehensibleInput, #CITeaching, #WorldLanguageTeacher, #LanguageAcquisition, #CIClassroom, #TPRS, #TeachingWithCI, #SpanishTeacher, #FrenchTeacher, #TeacherPodcast
Hosts:
- Scott Benedict - https://www.instagram.com/immediateimmersion
- Pamela Parks - https://imim.us/pamela
- LaDawn Black - https://www.instagram.com/@profesorablackcore
Resources & Links:
- CI Survival Kit - https://imim.us/kit
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Got thoughts or your own story? Share it in the comments or tag us @ImmediateImmersion!
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Transcript
Good morning and welcome to episode
Speaker:number 27. Can you believe it already?
Speaker:We've been doing this for almost a year.
Speaker:We started last year in July and we've
Speaker:been going strong ever since.
Speaker:So welcome, welcome, welcome everybody.
Speaker:So raise your hand if you've ever set up
Speaker:a CI group activity.
Speaker:Step back feeling pretty good about
Speaker:yourself and then watch it completely
Speaker:fall apart in real time.
Speaker:English everywhere, one kid doing all the
Speaker:work. I know that was me.
Speaker:Another kid definitely on their phone and
Speaker:you standing there wondering why you
Speaker:thought this was a good idea.
Speaker:No, just me. Just all of us. Cool, cool.
Speaker:This week on Comprehend This we're
Speaker:talking about CI group work, which for a
Speaker:lot of us falls somewhere on the spectrum
Speaker:between mild classroom anxiety
Speaker:and the reason I almost quit in March.
Speaker:Joining me is Pamela Sparks, who spent
Speaker:years translating movies and TV shows
Speaker:before coming a world language teacher
Speaker:and apparently decided
Speaker:she hadn't suffered enough.
Speaker:And we're hoping LaDon will show us show
Speaker:up today. LaDon Black, she may be having
Speaker:some technical difficulties this morning,
Speaker:but who after years of cautiously waiting
Speaker:into CI finally this year said forget it
Speaker:throughout the textbook
Speaker:and dove all the way in.
Speaker:She's got increased student engagement,
Speaker:less grading and by her own admission
Speaker:more questions than answers,
Speaker:which honestly makes her the most
Speaker:relatable human being I've
Speaker:ever put on this podcast.
Speaker:We're getting into why group work usually
Speaker:goes sideways and what one project did
Speaker:differently that somehow kept it alive.
Speaker:How to keep English from showing up
Speaker:uninvited the second you step back and
Speaker:when the right move is just to skip the
Speaker:whole thing and run a solid
Speaker:whole class lesson instead.
Speaker:Because sometimes that's the answer and
Speaker:nobody says it enough.
Speaker:We'll be right back
Speaker:after these short messages.
Speaker:Ever feel like you're clinging to the
Speaker:edge of your teacher planner just hoping
Speaker:today's lesson magically appears?
Speaker:Enter the CI Survival Kit, a monthly
Speaker:membership made for teachers who love
Speaker:comprehensible input, but also love not
Speaker:reinventing the wheel every Sunday night.
Speaker:Each month you get fresh, ready to use
Speaker:lessons, time saving tools and just
Speaker:enough structure to keep
Speaker:your teaching life together.
Speaker:No stress, no guilt, just monthly help
Speaker:from someone who gets it.
Speaker:Sign up at mm.us slash survival and let
Speaker:the Survival Kit do the
Speaker:heavy lifting for once.
Speaker:Welcome to comprehend this real talk for
Speaker:real language teachers. No drills, no dry
Speaker:theory, just honest stories, practical
Speaker:ideas and a reminder you're not alone in
Speaker:the CI trenches. Let's dive in.
Speaker:And welcome back Miss Pamela and we are
Speaker:I'm working with LaDawn. She's having
Speaker:some technical
Speaker:difficulties. She is going to be here.
Speaker:One second. I got to send
Speaker:a quick email back to her.
Speaker:While you're doing that, I'll just say
Speaker:again how much I love being here. Scott
Speaker:always puts out the invitation for other
Speaker:guests. So hop on. This is so much fun.
Speaker:This is this has been a blast. And last
Speaker:week I talked about all my failures. I
Speaker:mean last week was where I really showed
Speaker:how much I was
Speaker:struggling in the classroom.
Speaker:This week, this week I know what I'm
Speaker:doing people. I promise you. Hi LaDawn.
Speaker:Hi Pamela. How are you? Hi Scott. Hey
Speaker:welcome welcome. Glad you finally made it
Speaker:on. Got a little technical difficulties,
Speaker:but we all understand.
Speaker:No worries. No worries. Glad to be here.
Speaker:Well we'll talk to
Speaker:you in just one second.
Speaker:I want to say one thing though like
Speaker:Pamela is talking about. Yes, we're
Speaker:always looking for guests. So if you're a
Speaker:watcher you want to watch, join us. I'm
Speaker:always looking for guests to join us so
Speaker:we can have different
Speaker:conversations from different aspects.
Speaker:And I'm going to put the
Speaker:link right in if you'd like to.
Speaker:In the chat there we go.
Speaker:And put that baby right there. Okay, so
Speaker:you can go to mm.us podcast to sign up.
Speaker:Tells you the topics we're having each
Speaker:week and then you can sign up on the date
Speaker:if we have spots available.
Speaker:And that's how we got LaDawn with us and
Speaker:I found out she's about 45 minute drive
Speaker:from me so she's not too far from where I
Speaker:am. So LaDawn tell us a little bit about
Speaker:yourself before we get
Speaker:started this morning.
Speaker:Sure, sure. Thanks. I have been teaching
Speaker:for 20 years and teaching
Speaker:Spanish for about 13 years.
Speaker:About five years ago, I started dipping
Speaker:my toe into CI. I am a grammar lover. I
Speaker:am a recovering grammar hammer. And I
Speaker:discovered CI and at
Speaker:first was very resistant.
Speaker:And I was like, you know, reasoning that
Speaker:like, hey, good teachers are passionate
Speaker:about what they teach and I'm passionate
Speaker:about grammar so why shouldn't I teach it
Speaker:and and you know, the problem was I was
Speaker:seeing issues with my grades and it
Speaker:didn't seem like ability matched up with
Speaker:letter grade and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:I kept listening. I was involved in my
Speaker:local World Language Teachers Association
Speaker:were known as flash inspiration for
Speaker:language teachers all in the Sacramento
Speaker:area and above up to the Oregon border.
Speaker:And I just kept attending and kept
Speaker:getting nuggets and kept putting them to
Speaker:use and then this year for the very first
Speaker:time I ditched my textbook completely and
Speaker:went all in with CI only and have been
Speaker:trusting the process.
Speaker:And now that spring I'm seeing lots of
Speaker:wonderful results and it's been a joy.
Speaker:That's one thing that's measurably
Speaker:different from before and after is the
Speaker:amount of joy I have in my
Speaker:classroom. So I'm loving that.
Speaker:And I would like to say you don't have to
Speaker:throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Speaker:Totally. You love grammar. I mean,
Speaker:there's there's something important in
Speaker:pattern recognition, you know, and I do
Speaker:think that many different methods can
Speaker:coexist peacefully in your classroom.
Speaker:So I'm hearing that and it's interesting
Speaker:been what I've watched like the pendulum
Speaker:swing, right? Like it used to be all one
Speaker:way and now in my first total attempt,
Speaker:it's a little bit all the other way.
Speaker:But I anticipate that in the coming years
Speaker:there will be a little more equilibrium
Speaker:and and I'll find my sweet
Speaker:spot. So I'm excited about that.
Speaker:Awesome. Yeah, I was going to say I
Speaker:jumped in full fledged when it was time
Speaker:to go in. So I didn't get my first
Speaker:semester. I was the grammar and I do love
Speaker:the grammar. I'm the
Speaker:grammar person as well.
Speaker:And it just wasn't working and I dove
Speaker:right into CI. I didn't dabble my toes. I
Speaker:went 100 percent right away. My second
Speaker:semester of teaching haven't looked back.
Speaker:This is my 24th year, I
Speaker:think I've been teaching.
Speaker:So I haven't looked back. And one of the
Speaker:things I was going to say, my kids are
Speaker:loyal to me. Like in the beginning, my
Speaker:level ones didn't know any different. So
Speaker:I'm new at this school.
Speaker:It's my second year at this school. So
Speaker:last year when I started, my ones didn't
Speaker:know any different. But they liked the
Speaker:way I taught. They had fun. They were
Speaker:learning. And then they talked to some of
Speaker:their friends who had the other teachers
Speaker:who are more
Speaker:traditional in their approach.
Speaker:And they're like, oh, I don't want to do
Speaker:that. So they begged the counselors to
Speaker:put them back with me the second time
Speaker:around. And then this year and then my
Speaker:twos last year were a little resistant
Speaker:because they had come from the
Speaker:traditional method, you know, and using
Speaker:the grammar books and all of those kinds
Speaker:of things, doing projects, which we're
Speaker:going to talk about
Speaker:today, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And then they're like a little bit
Speaker:resistant, but I won some of them over
Speaker:and some just wanted because CI is more
Speaker:work mentally for them. They just can't
Speaker:look at the grid and go, okay, I've
Speaker:already answered further questions. I
Speaker:know what the fifth one's going to be
Speaker:because Zillow and left.
Speaker:They had to think a little bit more. And
Speaker:I was expecting them not just to answer a
Speaker:question rotely, but to actually
Speaker:understand what the question was asking
Speaker:those types of things. And I asked
Speaker:questions that you didn't find in the
Speaker:textbook, like how many
Speaker:sloths fit in your bedroom?
Speaker:You know, that was you won't find that in
Speaker:any textbook. So, um, so that I found.
Speaker:And so this year, now I have kids in my
Speaker:twos that I had my one
Speaker:last year, who are like,
Speaker:we're not taking three unless you teach
Speaker:it. We're not taking three unless you
Speaker:teach it. Because they don't want to go
Speaker:back to that way, because they also know
Speaker:that they're able to understand and speak
Speaker:and write more than
Speaker:their counterparts could.
Speaker:Because we just focus it on, you know, we
Speaker:do those things and those things that
Speaker:reach into it. And I watch
Speaker:this guy. He's not a language.
Speaker:He is a not a language guy. He's a
Speaker:Russian guy living in Berlin. And he was
Speaker:just took the B2 exam for German, which
Speaker:if you don't not familiar there, they use
Speaker:the, I'm going to see for the Central
Speaker:European framework and I
Speaker:don't know if the R stands for.
Speaker:But they I like their system a little bit
Speaker:better. It's a little bit more concise
Speaker:than the actual one is. They have three
Speaker:levels A, B and C, C being advanced, B
Speaker:being intermediate and A being beginner,
Speaker:and they break those up into two.
Speaker:A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. Well, he took the
Speaker:exam and he made some really good points.
Speaker:He's a comprehensible input self learner.
Speaker:He went on because he's
Speaker:doing this all on his own.
Speaker:And he said he just took the test. He
Speaker:doesn't know how he did yet. And he said,
Speaker:couple of things I would practice more
Speaker:that I didn't. Writing. I thought because
Speaker:I knew the vocabulary, I knew the
Speaker:grammar, that I could
Speaker:write this, the email.
Speaker:I had trouble. I had trouble. I didn't
Speaker:have words and expressions that I needed
Speaker:to be able to do. He says, I would
Speaker:practice writing a little bit more. Ding,
Speaker:ding, ding. Quick writes. We do that
Speaker:every week. So they get
Speaker:that practice in there.
Speaker:He said also, this was kind of funny. He
Speaker:goes, I would have focused more on the
Speaker:listening because this is what I did. I
Speaker:did the listening practices because the
Speaker:exam gives out practices for them to
Speaker:practice with. He goes by listening in a
Speaker:quiet room with perfect headphones that
Speaker:had noise canceling.
Speaker:And in the testing situation, there are
Speaker:no headphones. They're coming out of it.
Speaker:He goes, crappy laptop speakers and there
Speaker:are people talking in the background. So
Speaker:it was hard for me to understand because
Speaker:it wasn't perfectly isolated sound.
Speaker:So he was hearing it in the real context
Speaker:kind of thing. He goes, I would focus on
Speaker:that. He said, building my vocabulary, I
Speaker:need to read more. I was not reading
Speaker:enough in German. I'm like, he's quoting.
Speaker:He's quoting. He's not a teacher. He's
Speaker:not a teacher. But he is coming up with
Speaker:the same kinds of things that we're
Speaker:talking about when we talk about CI. And
Speaker:he said, I did do well on the speaking
Speaker:only because you had to speak for 15
Speaker:minutes and part of it is introducing
Speaker:yourself in depth, not
Speaker:just hello, my name is.
Speaker:So he goes, I rehearsed that I had that
Speaker:down like this. And he goes, it was
Speaker:memorized, but it was, you know, I had
Speaker:I've been practicing it for weeks. But
Speaker:then the next part that they asked me, I
Speaker:couldn't prepare for because you really
Speaker:can't prepare for the speaking part.
Speaker:But he said, I would say, you know, it
Speaker:was just it was a really good, you know,
Speaker:thing. It was only a five minute video
Speaker:because he was talking about
Speaker:studying for this beat Tuesday.
Speaker:He goes, he goes, I also spent way too
Speaker:much time focusing on the grammar and
Speaker:German grammar is much more complicated
Speaker:than Latin based languages, grammar. And
Speaker:speaking to that as well, because you
Speaker:said your grammar, Queens, I'm learning a
Speaker:very complex language.
Speaker:It's complex in some ways and simpler
Speaker:than other. It's I call it a Frankenstein
Speaker:language. It's my native language. I
Speaker:don't speak it though. I'm learning it
Speaker:called Maltese. And its
Speaker:roots come from Arabic.
Speaker:But it has sprinklings of English,
Speaker:Italian and French in there. And if the
Speaker:words come from French or Italian, they
Speaker:have a whole different grammar system
Speaker:they use. And then if it comes from
Speaker:Arabic, it's a whole it's the Arabic
Speaker:grammar system that comes through.
Speaker:And I have a tutor every Saturday and he
Speaker:I like what he well, there's a couple
Speaker:things he does that are great and a
Speaker:couple things that he doesn't make it
Speaker:comprehensible right away. So he talks to
Speaker:me at normal speed and Maltese.
Speaker:And I'm like staring at him with deer in
Speaker:the headlights. I have no idea what he
Speaker:just said. They go, I don't understand.
Speaker:And it's directions. He's giving me
Speaker:directions on what to do for what he
Speaker:wants me to do. I'm like, those should
Speaker:definitely be in English because, you
Speaker:know, I'm trying to follow directions.
Speaker:But he's trying to do that immersive
Speaker:thing. So I'm giving him credit for that.
Speaker:And I am learning a lot from him. I'm
Speaker:giving a lot of stuff that I do. But what
Speaker:he did with grammar, especially this
Speaker:week, we learned how to do.
Speaker:They only have two tenses, present and
Speaker:past, which that instead of 14, that's a
Speaker:whole really good thing.
Speaker:Yeah, so, um, yep.
Speaker:Only present and past, which is very
Speaker:different coming from romance languages
Speaker:and Germanic
Speaker:languages. We've got 14 tenses.
Speaker:And what they, he, we went through the
Speaker:conjugations and the conjugations are you
Speaker:add something to the front and the back.
Speaker:You don't have to use a subject like
Speaker:front, like Spanish. You don't have to
Speaker:use a subject, but you have to add
Speaker:something to the front and
Speaker:to the back to make it thing.
Speaker:And he didn't tell me that. He just says,
Speaker:here are the conjugations. We did three
Speaker:verbs we practiced with. And he goes,
Speaker:what did you notice about these verbs? So
Speaker:he asked me to notice the grammar before
Speaker:he explained what it was.
Speaker:And sometimes they can make a verb by
Speaker:taking a noun and putting a, not a
Speaker:pronoun, a possessive adjective connected
Speaker:to it. So they put it as a
Speaker:suffix. So they have name.
Speaker:And then you will name my is my name is.
Speaker:Okay. Yeah.
Speaker:Just kind of, and they do that with some
Speaker:words. They do that with have, have, they
Speaker:use the preposition with me. And then
Speaker:they add the personal, the possessive
Speaker:adjectives afterwards. So it's really
Speaker:saying, um, with me is I
Speaker:have. With you is you have.
Speaker:So it's kind of, it's kind of just weird,
Speaker:but I'm fascinated by it because it's so
Speaker:different from everything that I know
Speaker:about languages. And he went to try to
Speaker:explain to me the number system.
Speaker:He was ready to spend 10 minutes with the
Speaker:number system because they do it
Speaker:backwards. They do it five and 20, three
Speaker:and 40. And I'm like, oh, you don't have
Speaker:to explain it. That's German. German does
Speaker:that way. I know. I got it.
Speaker:I got it right. I don't have to explain
Speaker:that kind of stuff. So I can see elements
Speaker:of different things in there, but it's
Speaker:just very interesting. It is very
Speaker:interesting. And they have plurals are
Speaker:weird because they have one word for one.
Speaker:And then if it's exactly two things, they
Speaker:have a different word for it. And then if
Speaker:it's more than two things up to 10, it's
Speaker:a third plural. And then they go back to
Speaker:the singular from 11 on, which is really
Speaker:very unusual. Yeah, it's just very weird.
Speaker:So but it's interesting, like, because
Speaker:we're all grammar people and we want to
Speaker:learn the grammar, but I like learning it
Speaker:the backwards way. Show them the
Speaker:comprehensible input. Let them determine
Speaker:the grammar rules because
Speaker:that's what not crashing.
Speaker:And so this is much more helpful because
Speaker:I noticed I don't know if any of you've
Speaker:noticed when we've done grammar in the past and you teach grammar, the traditional grammar way after you've done the input, it destroys the input. I find it's a mess.
Speaker:them up where sometimes they'll get the
Speaker:imperfect and preterite in Spanish and
Speaker:French, they'll get it going pretty well.
Speaker:And then I explain the rules to them. And
Speaker:now that the rules have now interfered
Speaker:with what they thought the math, the
Speaker:brain was saying the map was supposed to
Speaker:work and they mess it up. So I think the notion of the input is that it's not going to work.
Speaker:I think the noticing is a better way to
Speaker:approach that grammar if you have to
Speaker:teach grammar explicitly. I feel like it
Speaker:kind of depends on the learner too,
Speaker:because I like I have a student who we
Speaker:all have those students that are like us
Speaker:maybe and are super interested in the
Speaker:rules and oh, well, why is this that
Speaker:instead of this and, you know, and they
Speaker:notice those patterns, but
Speaker:it's also I have a current one.
Speaker:And he's also like the same one that
Speaker:really struggles when I answer his
Speaker:questions because now he's got that
Speaker:monitor inside of him and he knows this
Speaker:rule. And so he hesitates and he can't,
Speaker:you know, speak fluently, even though all
Speaker:the words are in there and he's really
Speaker:interested. And, you know, he wants to be
Speaker:speaking Spanish and he has the
Speaker:ingredients in his mind, but he's just
Speaker:constantly checking for them.
Speaker:So much so that it impedes his speaking.
Speaker:And so you have to be careful who you're
Speaker:answering questions for. And
Speaker:unfortunately the ones who have the
Speaker:questions and know what to ask are the
Speaker:ones that are going to kind of get, I
Speaker:don't know, dammed up a little bit by
Speaker:getting those answers. So
Speaker:that's what I found anyway.
Speaker:That is absolutely true. So because I
Speaker:really want to capitalize on this
Speaker:inductive learning that we're talking
Speaker:about, I always start the first day of
Speaker:school. I don't do the fire drill with
Speaker:them. I don't do the introductions quite
Speaker:yet. I start the first day of school with
Speaker:here's a Sudoku puzzle.
Speaker:I'm going to teach you how your brain is
Speaker:going to feel when you're doing language
Speaker:because you've got to be having that
Speaker:logical puzzle that you're puzzling it
Speaker:out. And then we can always call back to
Speaker:that. Oh, guys, we're doing Sudoku now.
Speaker:Like, this is exactly the same thing.
Speaker:Does your brain feel the same way?
Speaker:Because it is, it's inductive learning.
Speaker:And, you know, like you said, there's
Speaker:another teacher who talked to, it was
Speaker:Susie Gross who always used to say, "When
Speaker:a kid asked a question, they're ready to
Speaker:hear the answer." They aren't ready to
Speaker:hear the answer if they haven't asked the
Speaker:question. So she does this. And she goes,
Speaker:it always, they think it's kind of just
Speaker:funny. I'll explain it afterwards. She
Speaker:always says, "Okay, the rest of you,
Speaker:Johnny is a good teacher.
Speaker:And he's asking this question. You guys
Speaker:are not ready for this question yet. It
Speaker:is way too advanced. Cover your ears.
Speaker:Everybody cover your ears so I can talk
Speaker:to Johnny just for this moment." And then
Speaker:nobody covers their ears.
Speaker:They all want to hear, right?
Speaker:Because they want to hear.
Speaker:So we talked to her. She was a Swiss
Speaker:lady, spoke French, German, and English.
Speaker:She might have had Italian in there too,
Speaker:I'm not sure. But she was amazing. But
Speaker:one of the things that I wish she would
Speaker:not have done is when we were speaking,
Speaker:she would stop us right at the point we
Speaker:made a grammar
Speaker:mistake and had us refix it.
Speaker:So we never got a full sentence out. I
Speaker:never got a full sentence out. And it
Speaker:makes you not want to
Speaker:talk. Nobody wanted to talk.
Speaker:But the problem with theories is, oh no,
Speaker:you're going to get fossilized if you use
Speaker:the language wrong. And I mean, when I
Speaker:was in graduate school, that's what we
Speaker:learned. And so it took me a while before
Speaker:I stopped doing that
Speaker:with my own students.
Speaker:Because that had been such a foundational
Speaker:theory of like three methods of pedagogy,
Speaker:right? The audio-lingual I know. Let me
Speaker:think. But there's, yeah, certainly
Speaker:grammar translation.
Speaker:And you know what, mate? And I followed
Speaker:the same thing when I first started
Speaker:teaching. I mean, I heard about Crash and
Speaker:I studied the Crash and I didn't believe
Speaker:him. I'm like, what does he know?
Speaker:So I and I hadn't even heard of Van
Speaker:Patten until like 2016. So I used to
Speaker:correct my kids all the time, especially
Speaker:like, like, they would write, boy, tall.
Speaker:And I'm like, okay, guys, you got to have
Speaker:a verb in that sentence in Spanish. You
Speaker:have a sentence can only be one word, but
Speaker:it has to be a verb. You got to have a
Speaker:verb in there. And I was
Speaker:freaking out about this, right?
Speaker:Or when they go, Tieno, I was freaking
Speaker:out about them. Like, no, it's Tango.
Speaker:Come on, get this in your head. Tango,
Speaker:Tango, Tango. But then I don't have kids.
Speaker:I do kids because I take it back. I rent
Speaker:them from September to June.
Speaker:And I send them back for some. So I rent
Speaker:kids for a living. I don't have my own.
Speaker:So until my niece and I know this sounds
Speaker:bad now, I rent kids.
Speaker:My until I heard my niece and nephew
Speaker:learn English, their first language, I'm
Speaker:like, oh, that's crushing said that. Oh,
Speaker:crushing said that. Oh, crushing said
Speaker:that. I'm seeing it. And I saw that the
Speaker:verb is because it doesn't carry meaning
Speaker:falls out of the language in English.
Speaker:And in Maltese and Arabic, there is no
Speaker:verb to be. It doesn't exist. It doesn't
Speaker:exist. So if you have to use it for
Speaker:clarification, use the subject pronoun.
Speaker:That's the verb is if you have to use it.
Speaker:So use the subject pronoun so you can
Speaker:have a verbless sentence.
Speaker:That's kind of weird. But so I saw it
Speaker:drop out in my niece and nephew and then
Speaker:come back. And so I'm like, OK. And then
Speaker:when I'm speaking with native speakers,
Speaker:they go, every kid, every one of my kids
Speaker:made the TNO mistake.
Speaker:Because the brain says, OK, I haven't
Speaker:heard the detour yet. We add O to the end
Speaker:of the verb and that means I and then it
Speaker:finally learned there's a detour there
Speaker:with Tango. And so that fossilization
Speaker:doesn't really apply like we thought it
Speaker:did because native
Speaker:speakers make the exact.
Speaker:This is what I got from Bill Van Patten.
Speaker:Native speakers make the exact same
Speaker:errors that our second language
Speaker:acquisitioners do. The only difference
Speaker:between a native speaker and a second
Speaker:language speaker is how
Speaker:long they stay at each stage.
Speaker:So French speakers can learn Spanish and
Speaker:German easier because they already have
Speaker:the verb conjugations. They understand
Speaker:that pattern. They don't get stuck in
Speaker:that phase as long as Americans where we
Speaker:don't have the verb endings on ours.
Speaker:So it's really interesting.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Like, tell my students, you've got two
Speaker:concepts as long as you master these two
Speaker:concepts, you're going to be fine. Verbs
Speaker:have to conjugate to match the subject
Speaker:and adjectives describe nouns. There you
Speaker:go. You could be fluent.
Speaker:Yeah. So it's kind of really interesting
Speaker:along that way and using those things. So
Speaker:they have to make the mistakes just like
Speaker:our American kids make,
Speaker:say, goad until they can learn.
Speaker:They can learn, they learn when. And it's
Speaker:not fossilized. It's not still there. You
Speaker:know, when they get to kindergarten,
Speaker:they're not doing it
Speaker:anymore. You know, but they have.
Speaker:Yeah, I love the idea of, you know,
Speaker:viewing student mistakes as
Speaker:developmentally appropriate or
Speaker:inappropriate. And if you know it's a
Speaker:developmentally appropriate mistake,
Speaker:leave it alone. Why are you going to, you
Speaker:know, do something with that? Just like
Speaker:you said, it's a natural process.
Speaker:But, you know, when it's impeding meeting
Speaker:or when it's not a developmentally
Speaker:appropriate mistake, maybe some reminders
Speaker:are needed. But one of the things I want
Speaker:to sort of speak back to about the
Speaker:reading, it seems, I just noticed
Speaker:recently a real
Speaker:advantage to reading time.
Speaker:And here's what it was. So you guys are
Speaker:probably familiar and I hope I'm not too
Speaker:much of a cheater weeder to rely on these
Speaker:things. But I love Seniorita Spanish and
Speaker:the things you can get of hers on TPT.
Speaker:And I'm not being paid to say that in any
Speaker:way. But, you know, I'll go and get these
Speaker:readings and these great, you know, walk
Speaker:around the room and you post the little
Speaker:paragraphs all over the room and they've
Speaker:got a sheet and they're walking around
Speaker:and there's so much reading happening.
Speaker:And that's great. And I was doing that
Speaker:for a long time. But then Women's History
Speaker:Month, March, came along and I decided
Speaker:instead to do a slide version of it. So
Speaker:they had the worksheet that normally
Speaker:would be one day walking around the room.
Speaker:And instead we did one paragraph as part
Speaker:of our, you know, the slide deck that I
Speaker:do it every morning, along with the
Speaker:weather and the date and all the things
Speaker:that you just kind of go over.
Speaker:John Seifert has some wonderful things
Speaker:about like this day in history, is it a
Speaker:truth or a lie, all those kinds of
Speaker:things. So I have this routine that we go
Speaker:through and then I added
Speaker:these paragraphs to the routine.
Speaker:So we were at first I was reading to them
Speaker:and then we read Corley and then by the
Speaker:end of the month I was just like, okay,
Speaker:get out your sheets.
Speaker:And we read one paragraph each time. And
Speaker:I saw my students, honestly, their
Speaker:grammar, their understanding of word
Speaker:order, their understanding of where the
Speaker:adjective goes, their understanding of, I
Speaker:mean, it's not an understanding of
Speaker:conjugation because it hasn't been
Speaker:discreetly taught, but they're repeating
Speaker:it more correctly because now they've not
Speaker:just heard it, but
Speaker:they've seen it repeated.
Speaker:And of course these paragraphs are all
Speaker:very formulaic and so they're getting a
Speaker:lot of repetition. Everyone knows how to
Speaker:say when their birthday is and so forth.
Speaker:So I loved that little switch up from
Speaker:having lots of reading on one day to a
Speaker:little bit every day. And I
Speaker:feel like it made a difference.
Speaker:Yeah, I think so too. And as you said
Speaker:about the celebrating that their brain is
Speaker:actually working, when they make that
Speaker:mistake, tiano, their brain is working
Speaker:because they've already acquired the rule
Speaker:that the I verb ends in an O.
Speaker:So you know, they're on the right path.
Speaker:They just haven't gotten to that detour
Speaker:they need to get to just yet. So I
Speaker:celebrate that you got, you're not making
Speaker:a mistake. You are being developmentally
Speaker:appropriate because Van
Speaker:Patten says there are no mistakes.
Speaker:There are no errors. There's nothing to
Speaker:correct because they're
Speaker:just making... Go ahead.
Speaker:I love what you're saying. Celebrate it.
Speaker:I was in a workshop. We were fortunate
Speaker:enough to have Annabelle Williamson, La
Speaker:Maestra Loca come to our Flash Fall
Speaker:workshop a few years ago.
Speaker:And she was teaching us Chinese. She was
Speaker:doing a CI lesson in Chinese. And you
Speaker:know, I know nothing about Chinese. This
Speaker:is a brand new experience for me. Plus I
Speaker:wasn't super versed in CI yet. And so
Speaker:this was all new to me.
Speaker:And of course, I don't remember the
Speaker:Chinese that I do actually remember one
Speaker:word, but she was asking a question and I
Speaker:knew that my answer was yes. And I'm just
Speaker:part of an audience here. And she has us,
Speaker:you know, popcorn and responding. It's
Speaker:almost like church, you
Speaker:know, and I said C for yes.
Speaker:And it had nothing to do with Spanish.
Speaker:You know, we weren't speaking in Spanish.
Speaker:We weren't talking about Spanish. I was
Speaker:learning Chinese. And she stopped the
Speaker:entire thing. And she said, "What did you
Speaker:just say?" And I
Speaker:said, "Oh, I'm so sorry."
Speaker:See, I said C. And she goes, "Everybody,
Speaker:look what just happened." And she
Speaker:switched to English. And she celebrated
Speaker:that moment. She said this, and she
Speaker:didn't know me. I was just part of the
Speaker:audience, you know. And she said, "This
Speaker:learner just went into L2." She confirmed
Speaker:with me that Spanish was L2 for me. And
Speaker:then said, "Because she's learning
Speaker:another language." And that's what the
Speaker:brain does. It goes to where it knows,
Speaker:you know, how to
Speaker:acquire another language.
Speaker:And she just celebrated that. And not
Speaker:that that comes a lot up a lot in my
Speaker:classes, but what I learned from her is
Speaker:how to celebrate students and how it's
Speaker:okay to switch into English to point
Speaker:something out like that. And oh my gosh,
Speaker:did you see those wheels turning? I
Speaker:almost heard those synapses popping in
Speaker:that kid's brain right now. And to be
Speaker:able to call that out and have everyone
Speaker:go, "Oh, wow." Okay.
Speaker:And it normalizes mistakes and it
Speaker:normalizes trying, even if it's not
Speaker:perfect, it normalizes growth. And I just
Speaker:love that kind of celebration.
Speaker:Because kids are so afraid of failure
Speaker:nowadays. They are so afraid to invest in
Speaker:the try and fail cycle. Absolutely.
Speaker:And I think that's, you know, people
Speaker:always say that as you get older, it's
Speaker:harder to learn languages. I don't think
Speaker:that's true. What I think it is, is as we
Speaker:get older, we're more self-conscious
Speaker:about making mistakes. And we're little
Speaker:kids, they don't care if they may make a
Speaker:mistake. Me want cookie now. Me want
Speaker:cookie now. You know, that's
Speaker:what they're talking about.
Speaker:So true. This is when I was totally
Speaker:paralyzed. Okay. I told you, like I was
Speaker:totally paralyzed and I had to learn to
Speaker:walk again. And I had my walker and I had
Speaker:come up to the bathroom counter and I was
Speaker:trying to get the toothpaste cap off, but
Speaker:my fingers were numb and the toothpaste
Speaker:cap fell off and fell onto the floor.
Speaker:And I'm like, Jay, my husband, come get
Speaker:it. Because I couldn't bend down. I
Speaker:couldn't figure out how to bend down and
Speaker:get it. My two year old son is like
Speaker:running around me and everything. And he
Speaker:is standing up on the edge of the
Speaker:bathtub. And I'm like, Sterling, get
Speaker:down, get down. You're going to fall.
Speaker:Sterling fell flat into the bathtub and
Speaker:I'm like holding onto the walker. And I'm
Speaker:like, how am I going to get him out of
Speaker:the bathtub? Oh my gosh, he's going to be
Speaker:crying. I've got to somehow get him over
Speaker:to the rocking chair where I can hold him
Speaker:and comfort him. He jumped right back up.
Speaker:He jumped right back up and laughed. And
Speaker:I'm like, there's a lesson here for me. I
Speaker:am so afraid of falling. And here's my
Speaker:son. He falls down. He gets right back
Speaker:up. So Scott, you are absolutely 100
Speaker:million percent right about that.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So we have talked about CI. We need to
Speaker:really get back to our subject of
Speaker:projects. And I know LaDon confessed to
Speaker:me secretly that she's not a big project
Speaker:girl. And I'm going to confess to I'm no
Speaker:longer a big project guy either. But I
Speaker:know Pamela does
Speaker:projects. So that's great.
Speaker:And I'm going to tell you two things.
Speaker:This is why I don't like projects. Well,
Speaker:that's three things. Number one, I am an
Speaker:introvert. I know it's not obvious as I'm
Speaker:doing this podcast, but I am an
Speaker:introvert. I use all my extroverted stuff
Speaker:at school and it's
Speaker:completely gone after that.
Speaker:You want to you. You want me to turn off
Speaker:from your workshop or your meeting or any
Speaker:of those things. And no offense to people
Speaker:who enjoy these things. I do not. And
Speaker:introverts generally do not.
Speaker:Icebreakers can't stand them.
Speaker:You say that my my skin, the hair in the
Speaker:back of my neck goes up and I am bare. My
Speaker:anxiety is way up here. Or the other
Speaker:thing, let's take a moment of silence.
Speaker:Let's breathe in and breathe out. I am
Speaker:not that person either. And I know there
Speaker:are people who love it and enjoy it.
Speaker:I am not. I that one doesn't give me
Speaker:anxiety, but I'll just sit back there and
Speaker:just not do anything. I am just not that
Speaker:person. I can breathe naturally on my
Speaker:own. I have no trouble breathing. I don't forget how to do it.
Speaker:It works really well just the way I've
Speaker:been doing it my whole life. So I'm
Speaker:again, I know I'm offending some people.
Speaker:I don't mean to offend you. I'm just
Speaker:saying for me as an introvert, these
Speaker:things that people do. So I don't do
Speaker:icebreakers in my classroom because I
Speaker:know there are kids just like me who
Speaker:brings that anxiety. And for the kids who
Speaker:need icebreakers, I know in their other
Speaker:four other classes, they will do
Speaker:icebreakers. So they'll get them. They
Speaker:don't need them from me. So that's the
Speaker:first thing. The second thing, projects are not just for me.
Speaker:The second thing, projects or group work
Speaker:in general, I am a perfectionist as well.
Speaker:I didn't trust any of you people to do as
Speaker:good of a job as I was going to do it. So
Speaker:I did the project. I did the group work
Speaker:and I let you all copy off me because I
Speaker:knew it was going to be
Speaker:quality work that way.
Speaker:People wanted to be my science partner
Speaker:because they knew I would do the work and
Speaker:all they had to do was copy off me
Speaker:because I didn't trust anybody else
Speaker:because I'm a perfectionist. And you
Speaker:know, there's always that kid who wants
Speaker:that that I don't want to do any work.
Speaker:I'll be that partner
Speaker:just to do that work.
Speaker:But you know, in a group, there's two or
Speaker:three who might do all the work and then
Speaker:there's always two or three who don't do
Speaker:any of that work. And then group work
Speaker:again, very anxiety for me because I
Speaker:don't warm up until I
Speaker:know you one on one.
Speaker:So people tell me I'm very standoffish
Speaker:when they first meet me because I don't
Speaker:know you. So I'm very reserved. I'm very
Speaker:back. I'm because my anxiety is going up.
Speaker:I hate going to parties. I don't. That's
Speaker:just not me. And my old principal said, I
Speaker:don't care if you show up to work, but
Speaker:you will show up to my parties.
Speaker:I've never showed I'd already taught 12
Speaker:years. I've never been in a single
Speaker:Christmas party. I don't go to those
Speaker:things because it's anxiety written for
Speaker:me. It's just it brings up. So that's
Speaker:where I come from. And I have done
Speaker:projects. I do have some comments, but
Speaker:we'll let Pamela talk about how she loves
Speaker:her projects. And LaDon and I will just
Speaker:kind of pop in as we pop in.
Speaker:Actually, I do mind if I just say before
Speaker:I hear the good stuff, I don't know if
Speaker:this is for everybody's benefit. But like
Speaker:the reason I don't like projects is
Speaker:because the ones that I did when I had a
Speaker:textbook when I was teaching in English
Speaker:about Spanish and not, you know, not a
Speaker:whole lot of immersion going on, it was
Speaker:perfectly fine for this to be happening.
Speaker:And I thought it was output. But what I
Speaker:see when I'm doing my projects this year,
Speaker:I did one and swore never again. And that
Speaker:was the Spanish two, three, I teach a
Speaker:combo class doing a newscast. I apologize
Speaker:for the reflection happening. I apologize
Speaker:if that's distracting. It's certainly
Speaker:distracting me. There are things going on
Speaker:outside. I get control.
Speaker:The student so it was a newscast so so
Speaker:that they could use the proterit. And
Speaker:this is at the beginning of the school
Speaker:year. And so they're getting together and
Speaker:they're making up these fantastical news
Speaker:items. And it's a lot of fun. And then,
Speaker:you know, what happens is they use Google
Speaker:Translate to translate their thing that
Speaker:they made up that is so hilarious, you
Speaker:know, and then it's not with high
Speaker:frequency vocabulary.
Speaker:None of none of us can understand or the
Speaker:rest of the class can't understand what
Speaker:the joke is when we're hearing them
Speaker:recited, which is either being read or
Speaker:memorized. And now we have, you know, one
Speaker:entire class period where we're watching
Speaker:each other's videos and the group that is
Speaker:doing it is having a great time because
Speaker:they laughed while they were doing it and
Speaker:they understand the joke.
Speaker:The rest of us are just watching this
Speaker:thing happen and not getting anything
Speaker:from it. No, absolutely. I just I swore
Speaker:them off. I was like, no more group
Speaker:projects. It was too much English in the
Speaker:groups and too much, you know, not
Speaker:substantive language that they could keep
Speaker:and repeat for later. So that's my
Speaker:objection. How are you going to take that
Speaker:on, Pamela? Let's hear it.
Speaker:Absolutely. First of all, I'm yeah, I've
Speaker:been there, too. I've been there, too. It
Speaker:used to be filming the students and
Speaker:having the fake newscast was great. And
Speaker:then suddenly one year, it wasn't great
Speaker:anymore because of Google Translate
Speaker:because of being translated. And now I
Speaker:don't even want to go to chat GPT.
Speaker:OK, so absolutely. First of all, first
Speaker:thing, let me redefine what you are
Speaker:thinking about as a project. OK, a
Speaker:project does not have to be something
Speaker:memorized, prepared, presented. All
Speaker:right. I think I'm going to start with
Speaker:the easiest project that we do.
Speaker:Maybe third week of school, I'm like, you
Speaker:guys need to know your numbers and
Speaker:colors. We are going to play a game of
Speaker:UNO. And I went to my P.T.S.A. and I had
Speaker:them help me buy UNO decks for I've got
Speaker:like 36 students per class.
Speaker:One class is 39. Don't ask.
Speaker:But I've got six table groups of six
Speaker:students of each each class. So I have I
Speaker:have I have actually seven decks of UNO
Speaker:just in case some people don't want to
Speaker:play with each other.
Speaker:So, all right. So, guys, so the first
Speaker:thing is they do need the drill and kill
Speaker:to be successful. But I feel like I feel
Speaker:like with my I'm going to come projects,
Speaker:but they're really games.
Speaker:They're always games. I feel like I get
Speaker:more authentic language production out of
Speaker:the students, which is why I turned to
Speaker:game based learning. OK, because the
Speaker:students are playing a game.
Speaker:They want to win the game. Their
Speaker:effective filter is lowered because
Speaker:they're not really like, oh, my gosh, I'm
Speaker:saying are they wrong? They're they're
Speaker:really trying to win the game.
Speaker:OK, they're so focused on that. They're
Speaker:just not listening to what's coming out
Speaker:of their mouth, which is good. OK, so
Speaker:they got to learn their numbers and
Speaker:colors. And we have to do that by rote.
Speaker:OK, that's language learning. The
Speaker:foundations are you got to learn that. So
Speaker:we've got to scaffold everything.
Speaker:You need to know that they have to take
Speaker:notes. Students think they can hold
Speaker:everything in their brain. They can't
Speaker:hold everything in their
Speaker:brain. They've got to take notes.
Speaker:We've got a lot of little mini games
Speaker:before we get to the big game. We've got
Speaker:a lot of number games. We've got, you
Speaker:know, roll the dice and add these for me.
Speaker:We've got mini whiteboard games with
Speaker:numbers and everything. We've got games
Speaker:where I get them on
Speaker:their feet and I have them.
Speaker:I have them walk around and and then I
Speaker:call out a number and they have to get to
Speaker:a group with that many people in it. Lots
Speaker:of little games to get there.
Speaker:We learn their colors. We learn a bunch
Speaker:of games. And then we start practicing.
Speaker:Hey, guys, next week we're
Speaker:going to have our Uno test.
Speaker:Here's the cards. I want you at your
Speaker:table. Just start getting into the rhythm
Speaker:of practicing every single
Speaker:time you put down a card.
Speaker:You have to say the number and the color.
Speaker:That's what your grade is. OK, we
Speaker:practice that and there's a lot of
Speaker:English the first day
Speaker:because it's just practice.
Speaker:OK, all right, guys. Second day. Now you
Speaker:practiced yesterday. I want less English
Speaker:here up on the board. I
Speaker:have some sentence frames.
Speaker:Maybe you want to say I'm all out of
Speaker:blue. OK, how do you say I have? All
Speaker:right. You already know how to say to
Speaker:Tango. OK, how do you say I don't have?
Speaker:They already OK. Joe no Tango. OK, how do
Speaker:you say blue? All right, here you go.
Speaker:Here's your sentence frame.
Speaker:And then maybe day three, I'll give them
Speaker:all the reverse skip all that. But
Speaker:remember, the test is
Speaker:just on numbers and colors.
Speaker:OK, so if they can remember how to say
Speaker:reverse, if they can remember how to say
Speaker:skip, that's icing on the cake.
Speaker:OK, so Scott and I were talking about
Speaker:cupcakes last week. Right. So I will
Speaker:always have sentence frames on the board
Speaker:and cheater questions,
Speaker:treater things on the board.
Speaker:OK, not the numbers and colors because
Speaker:they're supposed to be
Speaker:remembering those. Right.
Speaker:I make sure the students know where in
Speaker:the room to look for the scaffolding.
Speaker:Where's the word wall for
Speaker:you? Here's the Spanish class.
Speaker:I pulled down the Spanish chart. I wrote
Speaker:I had my my custodians rescue many years
Speaker:ago, the projector screens from the
Speaker:dumpsters because everyone went to like
Speaker:TVs in the class, the projector screens.
Speaker:I'm like, give me those projector screens
Speaker:on one of the projector screens. I wrote
Speaker:all the Spanish word wall that I would
Speaker:want on another one.
Speaker:I have all the French and another one. I
Speaker:have all the Japanese. So depending on
Speaker:what class, like you pull it down.
Speaker:So because real estate is hard when
Speaker:you're teaching so many different
Speaker:languages, students know where to look.
Speaker:Now, the best thing, the absolute best
Speaker:thing, OK, is as much as I can, I have to
Speaker:figure out a way for the
Speaker:students to police each other.
Speaker:That's less work for me. I'm I'm still
Speaker:nursing a broken leg. I'm
Speaker:hobbling around the classroom.
Speaker:I can't get to everyone quickly. If the
Speaker:students can keep each other from
Speaker:speaking in English, then by the time I
Speaker:get over there, everything's good. Right.
Speaker:OK, so the rule for UNO is if you hear
Speaker:someone at your table speaking English,
Speaker:you force them to take another card.
Speaker:Nobody wants to take another. OK, so
Speaker:they're all trying their best. And then,
Speaker:of course, they also know
Speaker:that they're get out of jail.
Speaker:They know that they're get out of jail.
Speaker:Free card is for Spanish. Como se dice,
Speaker:blah, blah, blah en español.
Speaker:OK, so como se dice. You're such a
Speaker:cheater en español. And I can run up to
Speaker:the board and write down mentiroso,
Speaker:mentirosa, you know, or whatever.
Speaker:So they can yell at each other because
Speaker:that's part of the fun is all these
Speaker:accidental things that they pick up in
Speaker:talking to each other.
Speaker:OK, again, the only thing I really wanted
Speaker:was numbers and colors. They get 100
Speaker:percent provided they say their numbers
Speaker:and colors and
Speaker:español, no ingles. Right.
Speaker:Or en pense, padangle, or, you know,
Speaker:whatever language I'm teaching. And
Speaker:they're so invested in the
Speaker:game. To me, that's a project.
Speaker:OK, because I've had a whole hour and 20
Speaker:minutes of them not speaking English at
Speaker:all. They're using the language and
Speaker:they're taking it to a higher level than
Speaker:if I were working out of a textbook.
Speaker:Yeah, I love this. And what's great about
Speaker:Pamela, as she's been on a podcast quite
Speaker:a few times, I've learned a
Speaker:lot about how she teaches.
Speaker:She does your sentence frames and she
Speaker:teaches them the language that they need
Speaker:to be able to communicate doing these
Speaker:games in projects that she does
Speaker:beforehand, because that's one of the
Speaker:problems is, you know, I was in a school,
Speaker:this project based learning.
Speaker:I'm like level one. They want us to do
Speaker:this big old project like in week two.
Speaker:I'm like, they don't have the language.
Speaker:They're going to do it all in English.
Speaker:So by giving these sentence frames, the
Speaker:things that you need to come up and as a
Speaker:teacher, you might not anticipate
Speaker:everything they need. So the first time
Speaker:you do this, you know, you've got some
Speaker:that you prethought of
Speaker:and you've gone there.
Speaker:But when kids ask, you now add to your
Speaker:list and you can use it for the next
Speaker:year, next time you do it. But you give
Speaker:them the sentence frames that they can
Speaker:rely on and have them up there. You're
Speaker:not assessing them on those things, but
Speaker:you're allowing them to
Speaker:stay in the target language.
Speaker:That is absolutely gold. And I love that
Speaker:she does this. And it's not just for
Speaker:projects. She does it all the time. She
Speaker:gives them the language that they need to
Speaker:stay in the target language for whatever
Speaker:activity that she's doing.
Speaker:And I think that is a real key to one of
Speaker:the objections that many of us have, that
Speaker:there's way too much English going on.
Speaker:So this took me a really long, long time
Speaker:to learn. But, you know, we have in our
Speaker:head this idea when we go through
Speaker:teaching school and everything, this is
Speaker:how to teach. We have in this idea that
Speaker:everything has to be memorized.
Speaker:Okay. And the answer is that some things
Speaker:have to be memorized. But we have a class
Speaker:of, you know, okay, I've got an embedded
Speaker:class two of French two, three and four.
Speaker:All right. Some of my French two
Speaker:students, they don't really remember what
Speaker:we did in French one. Some of my French
Speaker:two students are really in French four.
Speaker:They really they're doing all the work of
Speaker:the French four students, you know, the
Speaker:differentiation that we
Speaker:need to do in the classroom.
Speaker:My Spanish class often has some heritage
Speaker:speakers in it. Spanish one. I only teach
Speaker:Spanish one because I want to four
Speaker:Spanish teachers. Okay. And I'll have
Speaker:heritage speakers in Spanish one. Why are
Speaker:they in my class? I don't know.
Speaker:I need to differentiate. So it took me a
Speaker:long time to realize that when I give the
Speaker:sentence frames, when I give, when I say
Speaker:where is the word wall, look at the word
Speaker:wall. Hey, do you have this in your
Speaker:notes? Get out your notebook.
Speaker:It took me a long time to learn. That's
Speaker:okay for the students to look at their
Speaker:notes because the high flyers, they're
Speaker:going to take the chat mat you gave them
Speaker:and they're going to toss it aside. Okay.
Speaker:The middle of the road students, they
Speaker:just need something in their hands.
Speaker:They're just not confident. Okay. My
Speaker:notebook, it's in front of me. It's open.
Speaker:I know where to look if I need it. I know
Speaker:where the scaffolding is on the wall, but
Speaker:they forget about it. They
Speaker:don't have to look at it. Okay.
Speaker:They just kind of physically need it
Speaker:there as a crutch. Your students who are
Speaker:struggling, yes, they need the
Speaker:scaffolding. Yes, they need to look at
Speaker:the sentence frames. Yes, they need their
Speaker:vocabulary list in their book, whatever.
Speaker:But the way they're putting it together
Speaker:is communication and they're
Speaker:communicating to
Speaker:everyone else at the desk.
Speaker:So when your principal walks in and says,
Speaker:wow, you look at all the differentiation
Speaker:you're doing, it's really the students
Speaker:are self-selecting. So for me, it's not
Speaker:any extra work. It's the students kind of
Speaker:automatically know what level they're at.
Speaker:And they're all able to access the game
Speaker:at the same time with each other
Speaker:communicating. So another thing we do to
Speaker:learn our matching adjectives to nouns,
Speaker:because that's difficult in French and
Speaker:Spanish, is apples to apples, I think is
Speaker:the best game for that.
Speaker:So I made up a bunch of cards that I
Speaker:printed up on cardstock of things that,
Speaker:so I'm one of four Spanish teachers, so I
Speaker:have to follow the textbook because
Speaker:that's what my colleagues are doing. So I
Speaker:take what I'm supposed to be teaching and
Speaker:I turn it into a game.
Speaker:So I took everything out of the textbook.
Speaker:I took all the goofy stuff that we added
Speaker:in class. I take all the rock singers
Speaker:that they really like and I added them
Speaker:and everything. And so the students who
Speaker:are really struggling, they're just going
Speaker:to say red card S, green card.
Speaker:Red card is green card. Okay. The noun is
Speaker:the adjective. Okay. The students who are
Speaker:middle of the road, they're going to be
Speaker:able to say, my red card is more green
Speaker:than your red card. Okay.
Speaker:The students who are high flyers, they're
Speaker:yelling at each other. They're like, how
Speaker:could you choose that? That was that my
Speaker:card should have won. You know, and all
Speaker:that is the icing on the cake. That's
Speaker:what makes me happy.
Speaker:So it's just, can they sustain our
Speaker:conversation in the target language?
Speaker:That's what my projects are all about.
Speaker:And that's a great way to look at it.
Speaker:The big brain explosion that's happening
Speaker:for me is the idea that group work does
Speaker:not have to be groups getting together
Speaker:outside of class to create a product that
Speaker:gets presented in class because that's
Speaker:how I've always thought of it. And that's
Speaker:what my big fail was.
Speaker:But if you redefine group work. Yeah. And
Speaker:if, but if you redefine it as anytime
Speaker:students are working together and using
Speaker:language, then I'm, I'm gung ho. Like
Speaker:let's go. I love group work.
Speaker:And I will say there's two things that I
Speaker:have always found. I used to do those
Speaker:skits and the kids would always memorize
Speaker:the lines and that's no longer a
Speaker:proficiency assessment. That is a
Speaker:performance assessment. That's drama
Speaker:class, not language class.
Speaker:And I'll tell you right away, I remember
Speaker:from Spanish one in 10th grade, 1986,
Speaker:okay, I'm aging myself. 1986, I was in
Speaker:10th grade and I still remember my
Speaker:project. We were doing the, I mean, I'm
Speaker:really gonna date myself.
Speaker:We did a commercial with the Pepsi
Speaker:challenge. Oh no, that was a different
Speaker:one we did. This was the, the great guys,
Speaker:the little great guys were
Speaker:on, on TV in the commercials.
Speaker:Yeah. So my line was I opened my lunchbox
Speaker:and the little great guys were in there
Speaker:and go, look at what I have. Mira lo que
Speaker:tengo. Okay. That's my line. I have never
Speaker:in 24 years as a teacher.
Speaker:And since 1986, how many years it was,
Speaker:have I ever used that line exactly that
Speaker:way ever. So it really didn't help me. I
Speaker:still remember it, but I've never used it
Speaker:in real life. And the other thing are,
Speaker:I'm lucky because my I'm, I'm off campus
Speaker:so they don't know that I don't do this.
Speaker:But in my department, they spend two full
Speaker:weeks in October teaching about day of
Speaker:the day. Because most of the teachers are
Speaker:Mexican. So it's really important to
Speaker:them. And I get that. But what are they
Speaker:doing? They're creating art. They're
Speaker:making paper flowers and they're making,
Speaker:you know, the, the different designs and
Speaker:the tissue paper and
Speaker:they're doing all my,
Speaker:where is the language skills coming out
Speaker:of this? These are art projects. I do
Speaker:that. I do that. But it's in Spanish.
Speaker:Okay. You do that, but they do not. And
Speaker:up on the board and I am folding it in
Speaker:front of them. And I'm, I'm saying,
Speaker:doble, des doble, you know, corta, you
Speaker:know, and I'm, I'm showing and yeah, and
Speaker:they have to talk to each other. And I'm
Speaker:like, this is our project is, um,
Speaker:it's doing something and using the
Speaker:language. But yeah, they're not using the
Speaker:language. Yeah. They give an assignment
Speaker:like level one is making the little
Speaker:orange flowers. Then level two might be
Speaker:doing, um, they might be doing the alters
Speaker:or whatever they have the different
Speaker:things. I'm like, I always, my excuse is,
Speaker:um, I don't have the room, like they,
Speaker:they decorate the whole hallway with all
Speaker:this stuff. And I'm like, I don't have a
Speaker:hallway to decorate.
Speaker:So we do coloring pages.
Speaker:While we're doing stories, they color
Speaker:thematic, um, day of the dead pictures.
Speaker:And then I put them on the window. That's
Speaker:as close as I can get. I'm not spending
Speaker:two weeks on that losing two weeks of
Speaker:language bills. It's an art class. And
Speaker:that's great for a, like a Spanish club
Speaker:to do. Because I like that they transform
Speaker:their whole hallway into the day of the
Speaker:dead decorations. And I get that it's
Speaker:important to, um, the Mexican teachers that say, oh, I'm going to do this.
Speaker:And they want to share that with them.
Speaker:But I am, I have my background is Spanish
Speaker:from Spain. And there's another teacher
Speaker:who's British and she lived in Spain and
Speaker:she's like, okay, you're giving all this
Speaker:time. Now where is about what? Give me a
Speaker:holiday in Spain that we can do that
Speaker:with. And there isn't.
Speaker:And then what about our, our spring kids?
Speaker:There's no day of the dead and we don't
Speaker:do anything like that for them in the
Speaker:spring. So, because we have different
Speaker:kids from the fall and the spring.
Speaker:So, that's a big problem.
Speaker:It's like, that's an art project,
Speaker:because I want my
Speaker:projects to be something
Speaker:that actually leads to
Speaker:language acquisition.
Speaker:And back in the days
Speaker:when I did do the textbook,
Speaker:they were just art projects.
Speaker:They labeled everything,
Speaker:and it was a beautiful piece of artwork,
Speaker:but what was the language
Speaker:acquisition they got out of it?
Speaker:And we used to make books.
Speaker:I used to have little
Speaker:children's books they used to make,
Speaker:but they used Google Translate to come up
Speaker:with all the sentences
Speaker:and not their own.
Speaker:So, where is the language acquisition
Speaker:that's coming out of this?
Speaker:That's why I've kind of
Speaker:left it by the wayside,
Speaker:because the amount of
Speaker:time it takes to do them
Speaker:and the amount of what
Speaker:they get out of it at the end
Speaker:is this much versus the
Speaker:time that you use like this.
Speaker:And when you do those skits and that,
Speaker:the other kids aren't paying attention.
Speaker:And we do these little
Speaker:teacher tricks to kind of get them,
Speaker:like give them a closed paper
Speaker:where they've got to
Speaker:answer the questions as they go.
Speaker:And that's still not,
Speaker:they're just doing it to
Speaker:complete the worksheet.
Speaker:There's not really a life goal
Speaker:to understanding what
Speaker:they're talking about.
Speaker:Right, and that's, yeah,
Speaker:the life goal to understanding what
Speaker:they're talking about.
Speaker:So, for me, I always
Speaker:start with you, Deal.
Speaker:What do I want the
Speaker:students to do with the language?
Speaker:Okay, and I do think that the,
Speaker:you can't divorce language from culture,
Speaker:because I mean, I
Speaker:could know all the words
Speaker:of the English language,
Speaker:but if I'm talking to a
Speaker:surfer dude from California,
Speaker:I have no idea what
Speaker:they're saying, right?
Speaker:I have to understand their culture.
Speaker:So, you guys are
Speaker:California, I thought I said.
Speaker:So, for me, I do do Day of the Dead stuff
Speaker:because I can say,
Speaker:ah, I want them to
Speaker:understand this culture.
Speaker:Okay, so what do they need to understand
Speaker:about this culture?
Speaker:They need to understand, first of all,
Speaker:that it's not Halloween,
Speaker:that it's not scary, okay?
Speaker:So, I need to teach them the word miero.
Speaker:I need to teach them the
Speaker:negative no as Halloween, right?
Speaker:What do I need to, there's some legends
Speaker:that are pretty fun.
Speaker:The legend of San
Speaker:Pasuchil is kind of fun.
Speaker:So, we can do a lot
Speaker:building up to the project,
Speaker:and I do my Day of the Dead project on
Speaker:Minecraft education,
Speaker:because I teach three different languages
Speaker:throughout the day, four,
Speaker:if you count the English
Speaker:section I had to take on.
Speaker:And I can't set up an
Speaker:offrenda in my classroom
Speaker:and have it taking up precious space,
Speaker:and then take it down for this French
Speaker:class that walks in,
Speaker:and then put it back up
Speaker:for the next Spanish class,
Speaker:and then take it down
Speaker:for the Japanese class.
Speaker:I can't do that.
Speaker:So, a lot of my big building projects
Speaker:are on Minecraft education, because okay,
Speaker:this is the one time I'm letting you guys
Speaker:get out your computers.
Speaker:We're gonna do it on Minecraft.
Speaker:But if you speak English, you fail, okay?
Speaker:Because of course, it's just,
Speaker:can you talk to each
Speaker:other en español, okay?
Speaker:And they should be able to understand
Speaker:that this is a very
Speaker:important cultural event,
Speaker:and they can know the, like, you know,
Speaker:there's not that many
Speaker:words associated with it
Speaker:to be able to talk about it.
Speaker:They're using their
Speaker:verbs, they're using tango,
Speaker:they're using ser, they're using estar,
Speaker:they're using, you know,
Speaker:they're using all the basic,
Speaker:they're using the sweet 16 verbs.
Speaker:And it's not like I
Speaker:wanted you guys to go off
Speaker:outside of my view and
Speaker:prepare something and come,
Speaker:and everybody else has to watch you.
Speaker:It's everybody is
Speaker:building their giant offrenda.
Speaker:Oh, and I'm like, she
Speaker:was a famous dead person.
Speaker:So, one year the Queen
Speaker:Elizabeth had just died,
Speaker:and so it's like, okay,
Speaker:Queen Elizabeth, sure.
Speaker:And so we could talk
Speaker:about her life en español.
Speaker:And so they learned a lot of words,
Speaker:they learned the cote,
Speaker:because she liked cars,
Speaker:they learned perro,
Speaker:because she liked dogs, you know?
Speaker:They chose Dr. Seuss
Speaker:one year, which was great,
Speaker:because my English class was already
Speaker:working on Dr. Seuss.
Speaker:So I could use that
Speaker:same lecture for them,
Speaker:but, you know, they
Speaker:learned, like, basic sentences,
Speaker:and we could do our
Speaker:TPRS with the dead person
Speaker:that they chose.
Speaker:And then when it came
Speaker:time to build an offrenda,
Speaker:it was really everything
Speaker:we'd done with our TPRS,
Speaker:and they were talking to
Speaker:each other en español.
Speaker:So, again, when you think about
Speaker:what is your end result in mind,
Speaker:what do you want the students to do?
Speaker:You don't want them to
Speaker:become weather announcers, right?
Speaker:You want them to be able
Speaker:to talk about the weather.
Speaker:So maybe the weather
Speaker:report isn't the way to do that,
Speaker:but maybe there's
Speaker:another way you can have them,
Speaker:from my weather test, the student,
Speaker:I deliberately get the
Speaker:students all nervous, okay?
Speaker:I'm like, you're gonna have a
Speaker:test on the weather tomorrow.
Speaker:You're gonna have a test on
Speaker:the weather tomorrow, okay?
Speaker:I say, all right, guys, get up.
Speaker:We're going outside.
Speaker:We stand outside.
Speaker:I'm like, before you
Speaker:come back in the classroom,
Speaker:because I'm out in a portable,
Speaker:before you come back in the classroom,
Speaker:que tempo hace oi?
Speaker:And they all have to
Speaker:tell me what weather it is
Speaker:before they come back in the classroom.
Speaker:I'm like, great, go write it down now,
Speaker:as soon as you get back in the classroom,
Speaker:and that's the weather test.
Speaker:It's like, what do you
Speaker:want them to be able to do?
Speaker:I want them to be able
Speaker:to describe the weather.
Speaker:It doesn't have to be complicated.
Speaker:A project does not have
Speaker:to be really difficult.
Speaker:It's what do you want them to be able to
Speaker:do with the language?
Speaker:Keep that in mind.
Speaker:Okay, by that standard.
Speaker:Think about all the
Speaker:little steps you have to take
Speaker:before they can get there,
Speaker:all the practices they have to
Speaker:do before they can get there.
Speaker:So that's my catch. By that standard,
Speaker:maybe I do do a lot of project work.
Speaker:But to answer your
Speaker:question, Scott, about what,
Speaker:oh, fall, no, this is
Speaker:also in the fall, shoot.
Speaker:The thing that happens in Spain
Speaker:that we had a lot of fun
Speaker:with in August is tomatina.
Speaker:Tomatina, yes. There were lots of
Speaker:so many cool things we could do,
Speaker:and we wrote our self introductions
Speaker:on little red pieces of paper,
Speaker:and then bunched them up,
Speaker:and then had a ball
Speaker:fight in the classroom,
Speaker:and whatever fell to the ground,
Speaker:they had to pick it up and then read it,
Speaker:and then crumple it
Speaker:and throw it at someone.
Speaker:Lots of fun things like that.
Speaker:And then ultimately, and
Speaker:my parents came through,
Speaker:not my own parents, but my students'
Speaker:parents came through
Speaker:by bringing me all
Speaker:kinds of mushy tomatoes,
Speaker:and we ended up having a tomatina bee
Speaker:where they answered
Speaker:trivia questions in Spanish
Speaker:about tomatina, the cultural phenomenon,
Speaker:and then if they got it right,
Speaker:they got to throw a
Speaker:tomato at our principal,
Speaker:who was such a great sport about it.
Speaker:I love it, I love it, it's so much fun.
Speaker:If we're defining that as group work,
Speaker:then like I said, yes, yes.
Speaker:That's a great way.
Speaker:If you go back to the
Speaker:point where they couldn't,
Speaker:they weren't allowed to
Speaker:speak English during it,
Speaker:that's a project.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a great one.
Speaker:When you complete this
Speaker:task without English,
Speaker:that's a project,
Speaker:that's a beautiful idea,
Speaker:I'm stealing that, I'll bet my principal
Speaker:will let me do that.
Speaker:I love the idea of
Speaker:Pamela's way of doing it,
Speaker:gamifying it and doing that as a project.
Speaker:I mean, I teach culture,
Speaker:I'm not against teaching culture,
Speaker:I just teach it in a different way.
Speaker:And something Pamela was
Speaker:talking about with the altars,
Speaker:with a famous dead person,
Speaker:one of my kids made one
Speaker:of me, made an altar of me.
Speaker:Because they always
Speaker:joke about how old I am,
Speaker:and I've got one foot in the grave,
Speaker:they're always, it's a
Speaker:joke that they always have.
Speaker:They're like, I go, yes, in 1986,
Speaker:they go, don't you mean 1886?
Speaker:And they're like,
Speaker:that's what they always do.
Speaker:So one kid had fun and
Speaker:made a whole altar of me,
Speaker:and made me on there,
Speaker:you put like gray hair on my head,
Speaker:and it was just funny, it was funny.
Speaker:But yes, and I love that Tomatina idea,
Speaker:I haven't taught three
Speaker:in a couple of years,
Speaker:but Tomatina was a level three thing
Speaker:that we did with them for August.
Speaker:We also did Running of the Bulls,
Speaker:but I taught it through
Speaker:telling the story in Spanish,
Speaker:in circling and doing
Speaker:all those types of things,
Speaker:that's how I taught it, we had slides,
Speaker:we watched videos, the
Speaker:Running of the Bulls,
Speaker:I found a video and I had to make sure
Speaker:I got a parents approval,
Speaker:because not for the graphic violence,
Speaker:but there was one that was so funny,
Speaker:because I always root for the bulls,
Speaker:and this bull got this
Speaker:guy, and he threw him up,
Speaker:and he got caught, and
Speaker:his pants got caught on him,
Speaker:and the pants came off, he
Speaker:was still wearing underwear,
Speaker:but his pants came off,
Speaker:and he's trying to get up,
Speaker:but he can't, because the pants are
Speaker:rolled down his ankles,
Speaker:and I am like, go bull, go bull, go bull.
Speaker:And the kids are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker:because he lands right
Speaker:on the private spots,
Speaker:right on the horns, and they're like, ah,
Speaker:and I'm like, yes, Mr. Bull.
Speaker:Yeah, that's compelling
Speaker:content right there, right?
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:They all watch it.
Speaker:Or whenever I teach a culture,
Speaker:I always look for the
Speaker:weirdest, most different,
Speaker:most bizarre thing that a culture does,
Speaker:that will get my kids' attention,
Speaker:so Peruvians, and my
Speaker:friend who's from Peru says
Speaker:it's only in Lima,
Speaker:it's not the side area,
Speaker:it's the main cities that do this,
Speaker:they have something called frog juice,
Speaker:and they have
Speaker:aquariums full of live frogs,
Speaker:and just like you go
Speaker:to a seafood restaurant,
Speaker:and you pick out your lobster,
Speaker:you get to pick out your frog,
Speaker:they whack it up
Speaker:against the wall to kill it,
Speaker:they skin it, put it in a
Speaker:blender with some fruit juices,
Speaker:mix it all together, and they drink it,
Speaker:they think it's a health drink,
Speaker:and they've got these things,
Speaker:so I first show pictures, I go, okay,
Speaker:cover your eyes,
Speaker:because this is a picture,
Speaker:you're not gonna wanna see it,
Speaker:and my kids are like this,
Speaker:because they wanna see, right?
Speaker:And then I'm like, okay, turn around,
Speaker:because I'm about to
Speaker:show you a video of it
Speaker:that I found on YouTube,
Speaker:and they're like, so the kids are like,
Speaker:turned around, they're like looking to,
Speaker:because they're kind of building it up,
Speaker:and they watch it, and
Speaker:they're like, ew, gross,
Speaker:I'm like, oh, it's, and then I go,
Speaker:the next one is I show
Speaker:them when someone drinks it,
Speaker:and they're like, ah, it's really,
Speaker:but they never will forget that, never,
Speaker:and then there's a
Speaker:series of travel videos,
Speaker:and I don't know the name of the series,
Speaker:but they did this one on Cui,
Speaker:which is guinea pig that
Speaker:they eat in Peru and Ecuador,
Speaker:mostly, and the kids
Speaker:will never forget it,
Speaker:because they show
Speaker:about how they don't even
Speaker:take the hair off of them,
Speaker:because when you fry them,
Speaker:the hair comes right off.
Speaker:So this lady at the end,
Speaker:and she's kind of a bigger lady,
Speaker:and she's like, because
Speaker:they were talking about
Speaker:how the head is the
Speaker:delicacy, and she goes,
Speaker:she grabs the head, and
Speaker:she starts eating the head,
Speaker:and the kids are all laughing,
Speaker:and he goes, and one of the kids,
Speaker:and I know it's not
Speaker:appropriate, and I apologize,
Speaker:I don't mean it, but it was just a moment
Speaker:of a teenage kid coming out, he goes,
Speaker:I think she's eating
Speaker:a lot of those heads.
Speaker:But he never forgets it,
Speaker:they never forget that stuff,
Speaker:and so I always look for, you know,
Speaker:we have the traditional
Speaker:culture that we always teach,
Speaker:but I always look for something
Speaker:to really grab their attention.
Speaker:The hook.
Speaker:The hook, exactly, to
Speaker:get them really interested,
Speaker:to think, and things that are different
Speaker:than the way that we do it,
Speaker:and I try to teach them that,
Speaker:after a while, we say "chaosco,"
Speaker:but I go, okay, in real
Speaker:life, we don't wanna say that,
Speaker:because that could be
Speaker:offensive to their culture,
Speaker:and you can say something like,
Speaker:oh, "cayon teresante, no es para mi."
Speaker:How interesting, it's not for me.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:And that way, you're
Speaker:acknowledging their culture,
Speaker:and you're not disparaging it,
Speaker:but you're also
Speaker:saying, I ain't taking apart,
Speaker:I am not drinking that frog
Speaker:juice, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker:not me, you know?
Speaker:But I brought in crickets,
Speaker:because on Amazon, you
Speaker:can buy flavored crickets.
Speaker:When I was talking about grisios
Speaker:and how Mexicans will eat those,
Speaker:I bought all these packages,
Speaker:and some kids were trying
Speaker:to say, you don't have to,
Speaker:but we'll pass them
Speaker:around if you wanna try it,
Speaker:and this one girl goes,
Speaker:can I get another box?
Speaker:She wanted more of them,
Speaker:and so her nickname became Gria,
Speaker:we called her Gria Cricket.
Speaker:It was funny,
Speaker:but that's the things
Speaker:that bring them in with that.
Speaker:So I love that idea of the tomatina,
Speaker:I love Pamela's idea.
Speaker:Yeah, I love that
Speaker:too, absolutely love it.
Speaker:And if my principal
Speaker:won't do it, I'll do it,
Speaker:because I used to do, if
Speaker:you earn enough points,
Speaker:I used to do whipped
Speaker:cream pies in my face,
Speaker:but then I realized that I couldn't get
Speaker:all the whipped cream
Speaker:off my face and all of my little crevices
Speaker:before the end of the school day,
Speaker:and it starts to ferment,
Speaker:and I could start starting sour milk.
Speaker:So now I use shaving cream,
Speaker:shaving cream is much better,
Speaker:because after a few hours,
Speaker:it still smells like shaving cream,
Speaker:it does not smell like rotten milk.
Speaker:So I'm like, God, I can't
Speaker:get that smell out of my nose,
Speaker:that's way embedded in there, you know?
Speaker:It's really bad.
Speaker:But I have no problem
Speaker:doing those kinds of things,
Speaker:lose your dignity at the door, as I say.
Speaker:So I love that idea about the tomatina,
Speaker:I love how Pamela is
Speaker:turning her projects into games,
Speaker:and the one thing I will
Speaker:say that is the best thing,
Speaker:not the best thing, I'm saying,
Speaker:a good thing about what
Speaker:I've learned from Pamela
Speaker:over the last few
Speaker:weeks we've been together
Speaker:is her sentence frames,
Speaker:and pre-teaching the vocabulary,
Speaker:the sentences they need to be successful
Speaker:to stay in the target language
Speaker:with whatever
Speaker:activity that they're doing,
Speaker:not necessarily a
Speaker:project, it could just be a game,
Speaker:it could be some classroom activity,
Speaker:but giving them the words for like,
Speaker:cheater, or I win, or I lost, or
Speaker:something like that,
Speaker:giving them that key vocabulary
Speaker:for them to stay in the
Speaker:target language is gold.
Speaker:It is absolutely gold.
Speaker:She is such a genius with that.
Speaker:And it's something we hear about it now,
Speaker:and you go, duh, but we
Speaker:didn't think about it.
Speaker:So that's the kind of thing.
Speaker:This was years of trial
Speaker:and error, years and years.
Speaker:But yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker:We are over our time, I
Speaker:can't believe already.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:So let's go with some closing lines.
Speaker:I kind of gave mine already,
Speaker:but give us some of your closing lines
Speaker:that you have about projects
Speaker:or something you maybe learned today,
Speaker:or that you might wanna try,
Speaker:or give some inspiration or what,
Speaker:because my thing is,
Speaker:if projects work for you
Speaker:and you're getting
Speaker:what you want out of them,
Speaker:then go for it.
Speaker:They didn't work for
Speaker:me, at least the way now.
Speaker:I might try some Pamela projects here.
Speaker:But they didn't work for me
Speaker:and didn't give me the
Speaker:results that I wanted.
Speaker:So for me, the weight of
Speaker:the amount of class time
Speaker:versus what I got out
Speaker:of it wasn't justified.
Speaker:So I let it out and guess what?
Speaker:My kids are fine.
Speaker:So it's okay if you're not
Speaker:a project person, it's okay.
Speaker:But if you want to be a project person,
Speaker:I would aspire you to be
Speaker:a Pamela project person.
Speaker:You can be a PPP, Pamela Parks projects.
Speaker:Cause she does them amazingly.
Speaker:Or we just realized little Dawn
Speaker:was a secret COVID and
Speaker:closeted project person
Speaker:with her Tolma Tina game that she did.
Speaker:For me, it's the reframe.
Speaker:The reframe of what a project is,
Speaker:this is not group work that happens
Speaker:outside the classroom
Speaker:that creates a product
Speaker:that is then presented
Speaker:inside the classroom.
Speaker:It's not that it can be lots of things,
Speaker:but anytime students
Speaker:are working in groups
Speaker:and using the class
Speaker:language, that's a project.
Speaker:Is that what I'm understanding here?
Speaker:Cause that's the brain
Speaker:explosion that I've had.
Speaker:Mind blown, absolutely.
Speaker:Recapping, think about what
Speaker:it is you want your students
Speaker:to do with the language.
Speaker:Okay, so like, you
Speaker:know, I've got my food unit
Speaker:my French students right now
Speaker:are learning how to make clips.
Speaker:Okay, so they've got to know,
Speaker:they've got to know all the ingredients.
Speaker:They've got to know the instructions
Speaker:on how to put them together.
Speaker:We've got to practice that.
Speaker:We have to practice
Speaker:that six ways from Sunday
Speaker:before the big day,
Speaker:before I take out the hot plate
Speaker:of the hot pads and go
Speaker:down to the grocery store
Speaker:and buy eggs that are $2 an egg.
Speaker:The students need to have
Speaker:practiced it a million times.
Speaker:So they need, they need the vocabulary,
Speaker:they need the sentence frames.
Speaker:They need a lot of mini games.
Speaker:Okay, the mini games might be blue kit.
Speaker:Scott and I love blue kit.
Speaker:It might be a Jenga
Speaker:where I've numbered the Jenga
Speaker:and they pull out the Jenga.
Speaker:It might be that I take
Speaker:out when they get good.
Speaker:Oh, there might be quiz quiz trade.
Speaker:Okay, Kagan technique.
Speaker:It might be some audio-lingual skits.
Speaker:I've written out little skits
Speaker:and they have two
Speaker:minutes to learn their skit
Speaker:and do the skit.
Speaker:It might be whose line is it anyway?
Speaker:You've got these
Speaker:words, put them into a skit.
Speaker:You got five minutes to
Speaker:write your four line skit
Speaker:or whatever.
Speaker:It might be that I
Speaker:take out the plastic food
Speaker:and the Play-Doh and we practice when
Speaker:they get good enough.
Speaker:And then on the big day,
Speaker:that's when I have the
Speaker:ingredients ready for them.
Speaker:And the hot pads are out
Speaker:and I've called in
Speaker:the parents to make sure
Speaker:that if any parent wants
Speaker:to come in and chaperone,
Speaker:the kids aren't burning themselves,
Speaker:but they have to stay in
Speaker:French the entire time.
Speaker:I'm walking around with a clipboard
Speaker:pretending to grade them.
Speaker:I don't care if
Speaker:they're grammatical or not.
Speaker:I don't care if they're
Speaker:speaking in short choppy sentences.
Speaker:I am counting them on,
Speaker:did you slip into English?
Speaker:Because that's when I start taking points
Speaker:off of your grade.
Speaker:The scaffolds are around the room.
Speaker:The students know
Speaker:where the scaffolds are.
Speaker:They've got their notebooks.
Speaker:They know where the
Speaker:scaffolds are in the notebooks.
Speaker:They've got everything to be successful.
Speaker:I have set the students up for success
Speaker:and we can do this project
Speaker:and they can work in their group
Speaker:speaking entirely on français en
Speaker:tierrement all the time.
Speaker:So set your students up for success
Speaker:and know what you want them to do.
Speaker:That's my two things.
Speaker:Absolutely, Pamela is genius.
Speaker:Absolutely genius with that.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:And so with that, we're going
Speaker:to go ahead and end for today.
Speaker:So thank you for sticking with us.
Speaker:13 minutes, almost 14
Speaker:minutes past our time.
Speaker:As I said, if you'd like to
Speaker:join us on a future podcast
Speaker:and be one of our guests,
Speaker:we're always looking for
Speaker:new people I'm typing as I'm talking.
Speaker:Can't do two things at once.
Speaker:You can't chew gum and walk.
Speaker:So you can go to mm.us.podcast to sign up
Speaker:if you'd like to join us.
Speaker:And I would like to
Speaker:thank our guests today,
Speaker:Pamela and LaDawn.
Speaker:So big thanks to Pamela and LaDawn
Speaker:for being willing to get
Speaker:real about what group work looks
Speaker:like in the classroom or
Speaker:what it doesn't look like
Speaker:because Pamela and I, excuse
Speaker:me, LaDawn and I came in here
Speaker:not doing projects and now we
Speaker:might have a different frame
Speaker:in our brains about that.
Speaker:So that's a really great thing.
Speaker:So if you walked away from
Speaker:this with at least one thing
Speaker:you wanna try, like that Tomatina
Speaker:activity is awesome.
Speaker:Or one thing you feel
Speaker:better about avoiding
Speaker:then we did our job.
Speaker:So we are avoiding that
Speaker:English by using what Pamela
Speaker:has talked about by giving those
Speaker:scaffolding in there.
Speaker:Then please share this with someone else.
Speaker:Share this with
Speaker:another teacher who needs it.
Speaker:Like and subscribe to
Speaker:let us know how you feel
Speaker:about this episode.
Speaker:It's really important to get
Speaker:it out there to more people.
Speaker:And with that, you can watch us live
Speaker:every Sunday on YouTube
Speaker:or catch the replay on
Speaker:your favorite podcast app
Speaker:wherever you're
Speaker:listening right now is perfect.
Speaker:So ditch the drills, trust the process
Speaker:and I'll see you next
Speaker:time on Comprehend This
Speaker:and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker:Great meeting you both.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:You're welcome.
Speaker:I'm so glad to meet you both.
Speaker:We'll talk in a minute, stay on.
Speaker:(upbeat music)
