Episode 32: "This Summer I'm Blowing Up My Whole Curriculum"
Curriculum reinvention sounds productive in July — in this episode of Comprehend THIS!, we get into why rebuilding your whole language curriculum from scratch usually backfires. Learn how to tell a curriculum that's genuinely broken from one you're just bored of teaching, and what to do instead.
Every summer the well-rested teacher brain decides this is the year everything changes. Pamela and I have both been there, and we've both lived through the aftermath. Pamela worked as a professional translator before becoming a world language teacher, so she's got a sharp sense for when something's actually broken versus when you've just run out of patience with it. We talk through the reinvention itch, the demolition hangover when a big overhaul flops, and how a surgical fix beats blowing up a year of comprehensible input materials. By the end we land on the single most useful question for summer planning: if you could only change one thing about your teaching next year, what earns the spot?
Not sure where your own CI practice stands right now? Take the CI Proficiency Quiz and find out: https://imim.us/ciquiz
And if you want a full year of done-for-you comprehensible input lessons, stories, and assessments so you're not rebuilding from scratch, the CI Survival Kit has you covered: https://imim.us/kit
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Transcript
Hello everybody and
Speaker:welcome to episode 32.
Speaker:It's almost July.
Speaker:You're rested, you're caffeinated and
Speaker:your brain has just
Speaker:produced a beautiful fully
Speaker:formed plan to rebuild your entire
Speaker:curriculum from scratch.
Speaker:New units, new
Speaker:assessments, a whole new system.
Speaker:This is the year everything changes.
Speaker:It is not the year everything changes.
Speaker:It never is.
Speaker:But we keep falling for it anyway.
Speaker:Every single summer like
Speaker:we've never met ourselves.
Speaker:This week, Pamela and I get
Speaker:into the reinvention itch.
Speaker:That very specific brand of summer
Speaker:ambition that has us ready
Speaker:to torch a year of working
Speaker:materials over a feeling.
Speaker:Pamela spent years as a professional
Speaker:translator before she
Speaker:landed in a language classroom
Speaker:so she knows the difference between a
Speaker:thing that's genuinely
Speaker:broken and a thing you're
Speaker:just tired of looking at.
Speaker:We'll talk about both, plus the morning
Speaker:after of a big
Speaker:overhaul that flops and how
Speaker:to tell which kind of change you're
Speaker:actually making
Speaker:before you like the match.
Speaker:If your July brain is currently drafting
Speaker:a manifesto, maybe
Speaker:listen to this one first.
Speaker:And we'll be right back
Speaker:after these short messages.
Speaker:If they'll start.
Speaker:Pop quiz.
Speaker:Are your assessments aligned with what
Speaker:you're actually teaching?
Speaker:No?
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Let's fix that.
Speaker:The Assessment Academy is 10 pre-recorded
Speaker:lessons that help you ditch the scantrons
Speaker:and actually assess what matters.
Speaker:Like proficiency, performance, and
Speaker:whether your students are
Speaker:still breathing by Friday.
Speaker:Watch on your time, as many times as you
Speaker:want, for a whole year.
Speaker:And no, there's not a single lesson about
Speaker:bubble sheets or
Speaker:grading 72 essays at 11 p.m.
Speaker:You're welcome.
Speaker:Head over to mm.us slash academy and
Speaker:start assessing like
Speaker:you actually mean it.
Speaker:Welcome to Comprehend This, Real Talk for
Speaker:Real Language Teachers.
Speaker:No drills, no dry theory, just honest
Speaker:stories, practical ideas, a
Speaker:reminder you're not alone.
Speaker:See I trenches.
Speaker:Let's dive in.
Speaker:Hey, good morning, Pamela.
Speaker:How are we doing today?
Speaker:Good morning, Scott.
Speaker:I'm so happy to be here
Speaker:because guilty as charged.
Speaker:I am always chasing the shiny new thing.
Speaker:I am always like, oh,
Speaker:I got this great idea.
Speaker:It's 4 a.m. in the morning.
Speaker:I'm going to completely
Speaker:write this up and do it.
Speaker:And it's going to be great.
Speaker:And so this episode is
Speaker:going to be really good for me.
Speaker:I'm right there with you.
Speaker:I have a list actually on my to do list.
Speaker:I'm looking at it.
Speaker:I have a section on my to do list.
Speaker:Let me say right here,
Speaker:it says next school year.
Speaker:And it's got ideas on there, the things
Speaker:to implement and changes I want to make.
Speaker:For me, it's really
Speaker:hard for me to change.
Speaker:Like, even I know this is a really good
Speaker:idea to do it mid year for me.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe it's my autistic like brain that I
Speaker:got to start at a fresh starting point.
Speaker:Like it's got to be right after January
Speaker:1st or it's got to be
Speaker:the new school year.
Speaker:It can't be like in the middle of October
Speaker:for whatever reason.
Speaker:So my brain's always thinking I'm writing
Speaker:down these ideas
Speaker:throughout the school year.
Speaker:And looking, can I implement this next
Speaker:semester or do I need to wait till the
Speaker:summer time to implement?
Speaker:And then I do a whole bunch of rewriting
Speaker:and sometimes the things stick and
Speaker:sometimes they don't.
Speaker:Because they sound sometimes they sound
Speaker:really good in my head or on someone
Speaker:else's video that I've watched.
Speaker:They go, oh, that sounds really good.
Speaker:And then it doesn't really work in my
Speaker:classroom or things that used to work in
Speaker:my classroom don't when my kids change.
Speaker:That's my issue right now.
Speaker:Now you're changing
Speaker:schools entirely, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm changing school.
Speaker:So I've got to recreate a lot of stuff
Speaker:anyway because new
Speaker:curriculum, new kids, new demographics.
Speaker:It's a little bit more of an upper class.
Speaker:I mean, it's still middle class and it's
Speaker:just probably just north of
Speaker:the middle of the middle class.
Speaker:But the parents are a little bit more
Speaker:involved than they
Speaker:were in my last school.
Speaker:We don't have as many socially,
Speaker:economically disadvantaged kids.
Speaker:So it's also a little bit more on the
Speaker:right side of politics, a little more
Speaker:conservative along the way.
Speaker:So I've got to make a lot of adjustments
Speaker:to coordinate with all of that.
Speaker:Do you have a
Speaker:textbook you have to follow?
Speaker:Loosely, it's Vothis, which is an online.
Speaker:And I'm telling you,
Speaker:I'm going through it.
Speaker:And the way it's organized is really,
Speaker:really, really weird.
Speaker:They are never organized well.
Speaker:I mean, not even the chapters just to
Speaker:find the things because it's all online.
Speaker:And my old book was
Speaker:half online, half books.
Speaker:You could buy the books and
Speaker:buy the teacher's edition.
Speaker:So you could completely use the books or
Speaker:you can completely use the
Speaker:online or you can do a hybrid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I did the whenever I had to
Speaker:use the book, I used the online.
Speaker:I didn't get the books.
Speaker:I was in a different location.
Speaker:I was not going to transport 40 textbooks
Speaker:in my car from the library over to that
Speaker:was just not going to happen.
Speaker:So I just brought the
Speaker:teacher edition over.
Speaker:But here it's weird
Speaker:because it's all online.
Speaker:They if the school, the school could buy
Speaker:kids editions, but there's the teacher's
Speaker:manual is only online.
Speaker:There is no physical teachers.
Speaker:And sometimes it was quicker when I was
Speaker:referring to it in my old textbook just
Speaker:to get the manual out so much quicker.
Speaker:I mean, even if you know the keywords to
Speaker:search for it, somehow books, we are
Speaker:brains organize the
Speaker:information better in books.
Speaker:And this is why I tell my students, yeah,
Speaker:we're not sitting
Speaker:behind the screen all day.
Speaker:You know, there are a couple of things
Speaker:we'll do behind the screen, like Luke, it
Speaker:way ground Minecraft education.
Speaker:But other than that, computers are away
Speaker:in this class because
Speaker:we're talking to each other.
Speaker:You're going to read
Speaker:the book in your hands.
Speaker:That'll help you
Speaker:remember the I'm I freezing?
Speaker:I think my my Internet is bad today.
Speaker:Just you slow down a minute,
Speaker:but it was we still heard you.
Speaker:OK, perfect.
Speaker:As long as you can hear my my run on
Speaker:voice, I guess that's OK.
Speaker:Yeah, so yes, I do
Speaker:like this out of my voice.
Speaker:Don't we all right?
Speaker:Yes, so this organization
Speaker:is trying to find things.
Speaker:It's not really organized.
Speaker:It's almost it's almost set up like a
Speaker:home project like it was not done by a
Speaker:professional publishing company.
Speaker:Oh, so and I love teachers discovery.
Speaker:I've been using teachers discovery before
Speaker:I was even a teacher,
Speaker:because when I was in high school,
Speaker:when I was in high school,
Speaker:I had a love for languages.
Speaker:I took French, German,
Speaker:Spanish in high school.
Speaker:And a lot of my Christmas stuff was on
Speaker:the teachers discovery catalog and
Speaker:teachers discovery was based in my
Speaker:hometown in Michigan.
Speaker:So, you know, they were I connect.
Speaker:And one time I made a stupid mistake.
Speaker:I thought, oh, it must be like a store.
Speaker:So I drove up to it and went in there and
Speaker:they're like, why are you here for my I
Speaker:like to shop around?
Speaker:Like, well, we have these things here.
Speaker:You can this little we're getting rid of
Speaker:close out stuff you can look at.
Speaker:And that was all because
Speaker:it wasn't really a a stop.
Speaker:Yeah, interesting.
Speaker:I love teachers discovery and I love the
Speaker:stuff that they do and the stuff they've
Speaker:been able to do all these years are the
Speaker:only one who's been consistent, you know,
Speaker:putting out language stuff for everybody
Speaker:and multiple language ideas.
Speaker:And but I think I don't know how many
Speaker:years both this has been out.
Speaker:It's been out for a few, I
Speaker:think at least five or six.
Speaker:Yeah, I've seen it around.
Speaker:I've seen some samples.
Speaker:But I just think the organization of it
Speaker:needs to be a little better.
Speaker:And it's not glossy and pretty either.
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:Yeah, it's it really looks like it was
Speaker:homegrown and then, you
Speaker:know, published that way.
Speaker:And I can't say
Speaker:anything about the content.
Speaker:The content may be awesome.
Speaker:It's just maybe the presentation of it.
Speaker:But I can't really speak to the content
Speaker:yet since I haven't really used it.
Speaker:And like we said before, I am not going
Speaker:to be doing, you know, I'm still in the
Speaker:middle of my summer here, so I am not
Speaker:going to be doing schoolwork just yet.
Speaker:Yeah, you've got your projects going on.
Speaker:Yeah, I've got my projects going on.
Speaker:Yes, I got to get this office done.
Speaker:It's driving me crazy.
Speaker:Well, my classroom is a mess, too,
Speaker:because I have to work in the summer
Speaker:because I was asked.
Speaker:So these last two years, they crammed
Speaker:thirty nine students in each of my
Speaker:classes so that I could bring on English
Speaker:language arts eleven.
Speaker:And this year they said, oh, well, we're
Speaker:going to switch you to English language
Speaker:arts nine, which means got to read To
Speaker:Kill a Walking Bird again.
Speaker:I got to read Romeo and Juliet again.
Speaker:I got to get ready for this.
Speaker:I all my colleagues are saying, oh, don't
Speaker:worry, just be five
Speaker:minutes ahead of the students.
Speaker:Oh, my God, I cannot do that.
Speaker:That will drive me insane.
Speaker:I will never sleep at night
Speaker:if I'm only five minutes ahead.
Speaker:I want to have a plan.
Speaker:So I have to if I'm going
Speaker:to be a good English teacher.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And I've got to, too.
Speaker:I got to start pilot.
Speaker:We talked before about two weeks.
Speaker:I'll have to do about three weeks in.
Speaker:So I got about the week
Speaker:of, you know, Fourth of July.
Speaker:And then I better start working on
Speaker:because I've got a whole new curriculum
Speaker:I've got to work with.
Speaker:So I've got to have I can't just walk in
Speaker:cold turkey or use what I just used last
Speaker:year or do fall back
Speaker:at any of those things.
Speaker:I've really got to go through, which
Speaker:allows me to also be able to implement
Speaker:some of the things that I wanted to
Speaker:implement on my next year's school
Speaker:anyway. And it's just a good clean.
Speaker:It's one of those my my autistic like
Speaker:brain can it's a clean break.
Speaker:So it says it's a perfect time to
Speaker:implement some of those
Speaker:things and some changes.
Speaker:And one of the things
Speaker:I want to change is.
Speaker:I want to look at.
Speaker:The best optimized way to deliver a C.I.
Speaker:lesson, I know what I've been doing in
Speaker:the previous years and I've developed my
Speaker:what my pattern that I do, my my kind of
Speaker:my blank template that I follow
Speaker:for each lesson.
Speaker:But I want to add some
Speaker:research materials into
Speaker:chat.
Speaker:CPT about TPRS and about C.I.
Speaker:and put those in there and then tell it
Speaker:what I'm doing right now and what
Speaker:activities it thinks that I should
Speaker:probably drop, which ones I should still
Speaker:continue and put more
Speaker:effort into and which ones.
Speaker:Maybe the order of the things that I
Speaker:should change because I'm also going to
Speaker:be uploading without names, but data.
Speaker:So I've got lots of data from my students
Speaker:in my formative dot com so I can upload
Speaker:grading data so we can see, you know,
Speaker:when we do all this reading, is it
Speaker:actually showing fruition when it comes
Speaker:to the reading grades in there?
Speaker:Or I have reflections from
Speaker:kids which are so valuable.
Speaker:I collect those on a weekly basis and I
Speaker:have them all have all
Speaker:their answers in there.
Speaker:So I export that to a text file and I can
Speaker:upload that because.
Speaker:You know, you may think that, well,
Speaker:they're only kids. What do
Speaker:they know about education?
Speaker:But they know a lot about how they learn
Speaker:and what works for them and
Speaker:what doesn't work for them.
Speaker:And so does it mean I give that, you
Speaker:know, a hundred percent
Speaker:faith in what they're saying?
Speaker:Because I know something's like, oh, we
Speaker:hate this, but I know
Speaker:that it really helps them.
Speaker:So those kinds of things.
Speaker:But it will give me some other data also
Speaker:to put in there to see which activities
Speaker:are gelling with my
Speaker:students, which ones aren't so much.
Speaker:And seeing if going against their grain
Speaker:is really educational.
Speaker:Good practice or not.
Speaker:And so what the reflection piece, I
Speaker:think, is really crucial.
Speaker:And that was something that was a
Speaker:summertime idea I had.
Speaker:And I was like, next year, I'm going to
Speaker:go big into the
Speaker:reflections and the metacognition.
Speaker:And I'm really glad I did
Speaker:that. Yeah, because I mean,
Speaker:yeah, you say the students don't really
Speaker:understand education.
Speaker:And but but the more you can teach them
Speaker:about this is how your brain works.
Speaker:This is why we're doing this thing.
Speaker:Did this thing help you?
Speaker:And then just having that information
Speaker:makes them a stronger student.
Speaker:Yeah. So yeah, I definitely
Speaker:think that's a good way to go.
Speaker:And one of the reflections.
Speaker:Chat GPT has enough data.
Speaker:I mean, I like that you're adding the
Speaker:data to give a chat GPT.
Speaker:But is there enough comprehensible input
Speaker:out there on the interwebs that chat GPT
Speaker:can scrape it well enough to give you an
Speaker:answer that you don't already know?
Speaker:I think it does because you can add stuff
Speaker:in there, but you can also have it search
Speaker:through and find things.
Speaker:And then you can go,
Speaker:OK, that's not valuable.
Speaker:Take that one away.
Speaker:Or I already know this.
Speaker:Take that in there.
Speaker:So it does. It does really good.
Speaker:It does research really, really well.
Speaker:And it used to be like a
Speaker:couple of years behind.
Speaker:But now with the new
Speaker:models, they've all caught up.
Speaker:So it works. It works
Speaker:really, really well.
Speaker:And one of the things with reflections
Speaker:like you were talking about,
Speaker:one of the reflections I do at
Speaker:the end of the school year is.
Speaker:What's one activity
Speaker:that you hated the most?
Speaker:What's one activity you loved the most?
Speaker:And what's one activity
Speaker:that helped you learn the most?
Speaker:And what I found over the
Speaker:years, it's not always consistent.
Speaker:But what if I look at the trend hated the
Speaker:most for quick rights?
Speaker:And we do them every week.
Speaker:But what helped you learn the most?
Speaker:Quick rights, right?
Speaker:So it was a really so I go, that's a
Speaker:valuable thing, you know, it's going
Speaker:against their particular grain.
Speaker:And I used to look all online and do
Speaker:research about good reflection questions.
Speaker:And there aren't that
Speaker:many good language ones.
Speaker:When I go on the line, I search for
Speaker:reflection questions.
Speaker:So I used to just go find like a list of
Speaker:100 of them and pick out,
Speaker:you know, because we have about 40 weeks
Speaker:in the school and pick out 40 40 of them.
Speaker:But it got boring.
Speaker:But what I did with chat cheapy tea and I
Speaker:don't actually use chat cheapy.
Speaker:That's like the
Speaker:Kleenex of facial tissues.
Speaker:I use I actually use Claude Claude is
Speaker:really, really good lately.
Speaker:And it's gotten
Speaker:really, really, really good.
Speaker:I use Claude and Claude.
Speaker:I tell it I need reflection questions and
Speaker:I go and I need them
Speaker:sometimes time based.
Speaker:So I'll say I need them like, you know,
Speaker:these are the at the beginning.
Speaker:The first few ones are going to be the
Speaker:beginning of the school year.
Speaker:Then we got the
Speaker:middle of the school year.
Speaker:Then we've got the
Speaker:end of the school year.
Speaker:This is right after midterms.
Speaker:This is right out, you
Speaker:know, right before finals.
Speaker:I put all that stuff in there and I tell
Speaker:them what day school starts and what day
Speaker:school ends.
Speaker:And I say, OK, I need you now to plot me
Speaker:40 reflection questions for every Friday.
Speaker:Give me a date and exclude the holidays,
Speaker:you know, and breaks and stuff like that.
Speaker:And it gives me a calendar
Speaker:with all those questions in there.
Speaker:So I like that and I can just put them
Speaker:into my formative so they are there.
Speaker:And so that's helped me too, because it's
Speaker:got me away from the
Speaker:same questions all the
Speaker:time.
Speaker:And I also ask it because my kids never
Speaker:know how to answer reflection questions.
Speaker:So I did this before there was Claude or
Speaker:chat GPT, but I've
Speaker:gotten better ideas from
Speaker:them is starter sentences.
Speaker:So sentence frames.
Speaker:So it gives them like three or four
Speaker:frames or ways to start
Speaker:it or ways to frame their
Speaker:ideas.
Speaker:So I'm not just getting a simple sentence
Speaker:as an answer because I
Speaker:give them about five to
Speaker:seven minutes to write and I tell them
Speaker:the answer is not what's important.
Speaker:Like if I ask you which activity do you
Speaker:like the most and why
Speaker:it's not the activity that's
Speaker:really important to me.
Speaker:It's the why.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's what I want
Speaker:you to spend the time on.
Speaker:There's no right or wrong answer, but the
Speaker:why lets me know why
Speaker:that activity is actually
Speaker:working for you or why you think it's
Speaker:working for you or why
Speaker:you think it's not working
Speaker:for you.
Speaker:So it really helps me get some insight
Speaker:because if you just tell
Speaker:me X activity is great like
Speaker:games, you tell me games.
Speaker:OK, yeah, I knew you
Speaker:were going to say that.
Speaker:But why do you think that?
Speaker:And I got some really valuable feedback
Speaker:from that where they
Speaker:would say, you know, it helps
Speaker:me learn the vocabulary because I don't
Speaker:do rote vocabulary memorization.
Speaker:I don't expect my kids to do that.
Speaker:But it helps them because I put all the
Speaker:vocabulary, even the stuff
Speaker:that we don't necessarily go
Speaker:over the fruitless, but it's in the book.
Speaker:So they got to know it,
Speaker:know it kind of thing.
Speaker:And they go because it's so high paced
Speaker:and fast paced, it
Speaker:really forces me to learn the
Speaker:length, you know, the vocabulary and get
Speaker:more familiar with it.
Speaker:So I go, that is valuable information.
Speaker:So when an administrator says, why do you
Speaker:play all these dying games?
Speaker:Because one asked me about that.
Speaker:I'm like, you're serious.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I like first of all,
Speaker:it's not just a game.
Speaker:Yeah, it looks like a game to the kids.
Speaker:But let me turn it to the teacher side.
Speaker:Do you see all this data I got?
Speaker:I got a kid ranked about which questions
Speaker:they got right, which
Speaker:ones they got wrong and the
Speaker:percentage.
Speaker:So I got that.
Speaker:And then I got this valuable information
Speaker:from the kid of why they
Speaker:think it helps them learn.
Speaker:And so a teacher here, you're
Speaker:reaching to the choir with me.
Speaker:You've got the student engagement.
Speaker:The students effective filter is lowered
Speaker:because they're not
Speaker:worried about the weird sounds
Speaker:coming out of their mouth.
Speaker:They just want to win the game.
Speaker:And it's much more authentic language
Speaker:production, I think,
Speaker:because it's coming out faster.
Speaker:They're communicating with each other.
Speaker:They're collaborating.
Speaker:They're competing games for the win.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I don't do vocabulary quizzes in the
Speaker:format, those kind of things.
Speaker:But if I were, the one I would use would
Speaker:be something from like a book.
Speaker:It I would use that results because if I
Speaker:did a book it game, it's vocabulary.
Speaker:I know they're not cheating because they
Speaker:don't have time to cheat.
Speaker:You know, it's too fast.
Speaker:It's too fast of a game.
Speaker:And I know they're going to put their.
Speaker:If you only answered five questions and
Speaker:everybody else answered 90.
Speaker:OK, you were you were going to, you know.
Speaker:Yeah, you can tell that right away.
Speaker:And and it's so low stakes for them.
Speaker:And they're so engaged
Speaker:because they want to win.
Speaker:So like a normal quiz like, I don't
Speaker:really care about what
Speaker:answers I get on this.
Speaker:But in a game they want to win.
Speaker:And so it's that effort
Speaker:is really, really there.
Speaker:And I get all that data.
Speaker:I get all that data.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So bring you back to our topic over the
Speaker:summer when my brain starts clicking on.
Speaker:It was like, oh, this
Speaker:is what I want to do.
Speaker:It's always a game.
Speaker:It's always some dumb game I'm inventing.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, I have that too, because I've been
Speaker:making those online games.
Speaker:So I have I already made a couple of
Speaker:these like I made a heads up game.
Speaker:You know, the kind where you're supposed
Speaker:to do this with your phone.
Speaker:You know what I'm talking about?
Speaker:Like headbands type thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh huh.
Speaker:Well, it's a phone that shows a word and
Speaker:then the kid has to describe the word.
Speaker:OK, so it's like 20,000 per minute or.
Speaker:Yeah, like that, like those.
Speaker:And they but they can't say the word and
Speaker:they can't say it sounds like and they
Speaker:have to try to guess the word.
Speaker:So I have a game like
Speaker:that I made on there.
Speaker:But there's a couple other games like I
Speaker:heard I watched this guy.
Speaker:He changed his name of his channel, but
Speaker:he used to be real talk with Reynolds and
Speaker:he's an English teacher, but he's avant
Speaker:garde in his English teaching.
Speaker:And he used to teach in an inner city
Speaker:school in Philadelphia.
Speaker:And now he teaches.
Speaker:He took a few years off and now he's
Speaker:teaching in New Mexico in a rural school.
Speaker:So he's got some really great ideas and
Speaker:he's corny and he's like one of the
Speaker:things I guess, watch he did.
Speaker:He goes, oh, yes, my
Speaker:classic hide the phone thing.
Speaker:If I see your cell phone, I go and hide
Speaker:it and then you've got to find it.
Speaker:And if you can't find
Speaker:it, it's gone for 24 hours.
Speaker:I give it to you next day and he'll like
Speaker:put it in an empty locker and goes, you
Speaker:get three chances to
Speaker:pick which locker it's in.
Speaker:It's like a shell game.
Speaker:Funny little things or he'll go out and
Speaker:do you know how teachers do
Speaker:high fives outside the door.
Speaker:He does he has one of
Speaker:those little tiny hands.
Speaker:He sticks out in a sleeve of his shirt.
Speaker:And he's like, high
Speaker:five, high five, high five.
Speaker:So think but he does
Speaker:a truth or dare game.
Speaker:So and it's about the truth stuff is
Speaker:about the actual content
Speaker:that they are learning.
Speaker:And so they choose to
Speaker:do a truth or a dare.
Speaker:And they're like fun dares like you have
Speaker:to go out in the hall and and sing one
Speaker:line of the star spangled banner really
Speaker:loudly or, you know, really funny things.
Speaker:And he goes, I never make my kids follow
Speaker:through with the dares because some kids
Speaker:are really shy about that.
Speaker:It's just the fun of doing them.
Speaker:And it's a fun little game.
Speaker:So I want to make
Speaker:more of a game like that.
Speaker:It's on my list.
Speaker:An escape room.
Speaker:I love escape rooms.
Speaker:Courtney Bonino gave me a lot of great
Speaker:ideas for escape rooms.
Speaker:She she does learning llama.
Speaker:Yeah, I adore escape rooms.
Speaker:They do take a little
Speaker:bit of time to set up.
Speaker:But I got to tell you, for my English
Speaker:class, they would not have engaged in the
Speaker:great Gatsby at all unless I
Speaker:did a great Gatsby escape room.
Speaker:Yeah, it was the only
Speaker:way to get that page.
Speaker:So I usually write an escape room when we
Speaker:write when we read a whole class novel.
Speaker:Like I've got I do I like Minecraft
Speaker:because I go, you know, Spanish and then
Speaker:my French class walks in and then my
Speaker:French class leaves and
Speaker:my Japanese class walks in.
Speaker:And I can't tear down everything and put
Speaker:it up for somebody else.
Speaker:So I do usually do my escape rooms on
Speaker:Minecraft and like we read a Tonton comic
Speaker:book and then the students had to escape
Speaker:from Chateau Munizar.
Speaker:You know, we read the matadargones and my
Speaker:Spanish students had to show me that they
Speaker:understood the story by escaping the
Speaker:story, by killing the dragon and and
Speaker:doing all the other stuff in the story.
Speaker:So, yeah, I really like escape rooms
Speaker:because it shows me a lot how much the
Speaker:students understood.
Speaker:But there is let me just say there is a
Speaker:great time commitment
Speaker:to make an escape room.
Speaker:So for all of our listeners, if you are
Speaker:interested and you teach Spanish, French
Speaker:or Japanese, contact me.
Speaker:I would love to make
Speaker:an escape room with you.
Speaker:Many hands make light work.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Well, I'm trying to what I want to do is
Speaker:design an app that helps me create them.
Speaker:So that's what I what I'm trying to I've
Speaker:done them on formative before.
Speaker:And they're like you said, they're really
Speaker:time consuming to work through.
Speaker:But that's that's
Speaker:another goal that I have on my.
Speaker:You know, on my list of things that I
Speaker:want to do for next year.
Speaker:As well as create a whole section because
Speaker:I got new vocabulary.
Speaker:So a new section of creating infographics
Speaker:for the new vocabulary for kids.
Speaker:Because I find not only myself, because
Speaker:I've noticed I'm told everybody knows
Speaker:I've been learning my Maltese lately and
Speaker:I do the flashcards with Anki.
Speaker:And, you know, they say this.
Speaker:It's not as productive as one
Speaker:would think when we're younger.
Speaker:We always use
Speaker:flashcards and I'm doing this.
Speaker:And I started doing it from the from
Speaker:Maltese to English,
Speaker:which was really easy.
Speaker:I was going through them really quick.
Speaker:But the other way around is not as quick.
Speaker:And so I think that's more productive.
Speaker:So I took out the Maltese to English and
Speaker:only do the English to Maltese.
Speaker:But I'm realizing along the way as I'm
Speaker:doing this that there are better ways to
Speaker:present them on the cards.
Speaker:And that helps me with an infographic.
Speaker:Helps me a lot more
Speaker:memory, visual and spatial.
Speaker:So the more visual you can make it, the
Speaker:more you'll remember it.
Speaker:And I noticed also it's easier if I put
Speaker:opposites on the same card.
Speaker:So if I've got, you know, fat and skinny
Speaker:on the same card and ugly and pretty, it
Speaker:helps me see the differences.
Speaker:So I get them.
Speaker:And then I used to do all my
Speaker:verbs were individual words.
Speaker:So Maltese does not have an infinitive.
Speaker:The base form is third person past tense.
Speaker:That's the base form
Speaker:that the dictionary form.
Speaker:So and it uses we've talked about before
Speaker:the three constants for most verbs.
Speaker:There are some that only got two, but
Speaker:most all have three.
Speaker:And they stay in the same order always,
Speaker:no matter what form happens.
Speaker:And it helps me not to
Speaker:see the word individually.
Speaker:Like my card used to be
Speaker:said, how do you say they lived?
Speaker:How do you say he lived?
Speaker:And they'd all be separate ones.
Speaker:And I couldn't really get the the
Speaker:patterns that are going on there.
Speaker:I mean, I know the basic pattern.
Speaker:First person uses a prefix and second
Speaker:person uses prefix T.
Speaker:And third person uses a prefix J.
Speaker:And then the plural
Speaker:ones add a U at the end.
Speaker:So that's how the basic verb conjugations
Speaker:work in Maltese, at
Speaker:least in present tense.
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:There are some differences along the way
Speaker:and it helps me to see the patterns so I
Speaker:can see what are the three
Speaker:consonants that are actually the pattern
Speaker:that comes from what
Speaker:they call the infinitive.
Speaker:They call the mama.
Speaker:The mama is what it's called.
Speaker:So this is the key chain method of
Speaker:memorization where you put like things
Speaker:together or in the case of
Speaker:opposites, put them together
Speaker:because your brain is
Speaker:going to encode them together.
Speaker:That makes it easier to retrieve.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And there are quite a few cognates, but a
Speaker:lot of the verbs are not cognates at all.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:And so like my to put and to pull, I'm
Speaker:getting those ones mixed up all the time.
Speaker:And the Maltese has consonants that are
Speaker:put together in weird converses.
Speaker:They'll have B, D and F all in a row.
Speaker:And you got to pronounce them all.
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:So I need to see that.
Speaker:So I'm now making a conjugation card
Speaker:where I'm not really learning the
Speaker:conjugations, but just so I can see the
Speaker:patterns, because I know the basic
Speaker:conjugations so I can see that.
Speaker:So I'm learning things from that.
Speaker:And so one of the things I want to do is
Speaker:make those visuals for my kids to help
Speaker:them visualize the vocabular.
Speaker:So they're not just getting a list
Speaker:because I make my kids write like you
Speaker:said, the computer thing.
Speaker:I make my kids write down the vocabulary.
Speaker:And they're like, why
Speaker:don't you just give it to us?
Speaker:I'm like, because if I give it to you,
Speaker:you're going to look at it once, even if
Speaker:you even if you look at it at once and it
Speaker:goes in your folder,
Speaker:never to be seen again.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I make you write it and then two or
Speaker:three days later I give you the visual
Speaker:and then they're going, well, I'm not
Speaker:going to write it down because you're
Speaker:going to give us a visual.
Speaker:Go.
Speaker:Oh, no.
Speaker:In order for you to get my visual, I've
Speaker:got to see it written down.
Speaker:That's your key to getting it done
Speaker:because there's something about it, about
Speaker:writing the letters and actually getting
Speaker:the feel, especially if you have letters
Speaker:or characters that are unlike.
Speaker:What you're used to
Speaker:the Latin based alphabet.
Speaker:So like for French and Spanish, you've
Speaker:got the accents and you've got the
Speaker:different letters like you got the O and
Speaker:the E that are
Speaker:squished together in French.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you know, German has the S set, which
Speaker:is the, everybody says it looks like a
Speaker:capital B in the middle of a
Speaker:word, you know, the umlauts.
Speaker:You've got to in order to remember where
Speaker:they go, you've got to practice them.
Speaker:You've got to be writing them.
Speaker:So you've got to be able to in Maltese
Speaker:has a few of those, too.
Speaker:It has dots over some of the letters and
Speaker:then it has crosshairs
Speaker:over a couple of the H's.
Speaker:So depending on the H, there's two H's in
Speaker:Maltese and they have a has a cross looks
Speaker:like a T H all merged into one.
Speaker:Like teach at a baby.
Speaker:That's what it would be.
Speaker:So again, bring it back to our topic.
Speaker:I'm really bad at not working over the
Speaker:summer because last summer I decided I
Speaker:was going to take the deep dive into
Speaker:interactive notebooks.
Speaker:Now I'm a game based teacher and it
Speaker:seemed like interact.
Speaker:I need to force my students to write.
Speaker:They don't want to write.
Speaker:Their handwriting is awful because they
Speaker:haven't been writing.
Speaker:But it's so important.
Speaker:There's so much research out there that
Speaker:shows that handwriting is
Speaker:going to aid in memory recognition.
Speaker:So I was like, OK, I'm game based.
Speaker:Interactive notebooks seems like a pretty
Speaker:good marriage between games and
Speaker:handwriting, because now I've got to
Speaker:think of all the games that are going to
Speaker:go into the book so that they will be
Speaker:forced to write it down and everything.
Speaker:So a lot of times when I have a visual,
Speaker:I'll put the visual on the board and I'll
Speaker:say, draw this into your notebook or if
Speaker:you have a better way to draw this, you
Speaker:know, if you stick figures are fine.
Speaker:Look, I'm the woman who loves to read
Speaker:comic books, but I
Speaker:never learned how to draw.
Speaker:So it's OK, stick figures are fine, but
Speaker:draw something because that will help you
Speaker:remember and use some color.
Speaker:I've got the colored pencils on all the
Speaker:table groups and everything.
Speaker:So again, I don't know why I'm here on
Speaker:this particular podcast when I don't I
Speaker:work over the summer.
Speaker:But to me, if I'm thinking deeply about
Speaker:something, it's hopefully going to pay
Speaker:dividends in the school year.
Speaker:So I have less work in the school year.
Speaker:Fingers crossed. That's
Speaker:always the hope. Right.
Speaker:But that's that's a good thing to blow up
Speaker:my face all the darn time,
Speaker:especially this last year.
Speaker:This last year, there were things that I
Speaker:normally do that the students just
Speaker:suddenly stopped responding to.
Speaker:Typical TPRS, they were just tuning out.
Speaker:I had way too many barometer students and
Speaker:I'm like, OK, I got to change this up.
Speaker:Yeah, how am I going to change?
Speaker:Sometimes it was just a little tweak and
Speaker:sometimes it was like, OK, we've got to
Speaker:do something else comprehensible.
Speaker:We got to do a project instead of instead
Speaker:of just me telling them a story and then
Speaker:waiting for them to shout things to me.
Speaker:That'll be a later
Speaker:episode. We talk about that.
Speaker:Man, I had I've had projects, you know,
Speaker:like we we talked
Speaker:about projects a while ago,
Speaker:what, four episodes
Speaker:ago, five episodes ago.
Speaker:And yeah, back in the day, I used to say,
Speaker:let's make a newscast like I had this
Speaker:great tour de France around the school.
Speaker:It was a fake tour de France.
Speaker:I'd bring in the bicycles meant for six
Speaker:year olds because I thought it was a hoot
Speaker:to watch these football
Speaker:players pedaling around
Speaker:madly on these little
Speaker:six year old bicycles.
Speaker:And so they had to make
Speaker:their their news broadcast.
Speaker:We had news reporters, we had weather
Speaker:reporters, we had sports
Speaker:reporters, you know, everything.
Speaker:And they had to explain what was going on
Speaker:in the tour de France.
Speaker:And there was one year, oh, about four or
Speaker:five years ago, when I was previewing the
Speaker:skip, the skits before
Speaker:they filmed themselves.
Speaker:And I was rolling on the floor laughing.
Speaker:I was like, oh, my God, do not Google
Speaker:translate, because what
Speaker:they had wanted to do was say,
Speaker:I'd like to introduce the weather
Speaker:reporters, but instead they said that
Speaker:they were going to do something else to
Speaker:the weather reporters because, you know,
Speaker:machine translation.
Speaker:And that was my students ever like
Speaker:normally they understand
Speaker:I'm frozen again, aren't I?
Speaker:No, they understand about Google
Speaker:Translate because we talk about it a lot
Speaker:in a metacognition way.
Speaker:You still hear me, right?
Speaker:I'm just frozen. Yeah.
Speaker:OK, so we talk about a lot
Speaker:and don't go to translate.
Speaker:And it's easy to see when they do.
Speaker:But suddenly I had this rash of Google
Speaker:Translate or being
Speaker:translated or whatever.
Speaker:It's machine, you know, it's the Kleenex
Speaker:or whatever machine translation.
Speaker:So I was like, OK, I
Speaker:can't do this anymore.
Speaker:So I let it simmer for a while.
Speaker:And sometimes the summer is the only time
Speaker:I can really sit and think deeply,
Speaker:because during the school year, I teach
Speaker:Spanish and French and Japanese.
Speaker:And now I've got English language arts.
Speaker:And so over the summer, suddenly it's
Speaker:like, ah, there's peace and quiet.
Speaker:I can't think. And I've really missed
Speaker:talking about L'Ou Ture de France because
Speaker:it's very different.
Speaker:It's very different than football, which
Speaker:everyone wants to talk about.
Speaker:It's very different than basketball.
Speaker:It's very cultural.
Speaker:And there's a lot that I can pull out of
Speaker:it to really get into
Speaker:the French language.
Speaker:And so just suddenly last summer, I was
Speaker:like, ah, I've got it now.
Speaker:And I invested a lot of time in
Speaker:re-envisioning L'Ou Ture de France as
Speaker:instead of a fake Ture de
Speaker:France around the school,
Speaker:this was going to be a giant board game
Speaker:around my entire class.
Speaker:And I could pull in everything and I was
Speaker:so excited about it.
Speaker:And I made the board game and and I made
Speaker:all the cards that the student was kind
Speaker:of like the unlucky game.
Speaker:If you've heard of that.
Speaker:No, I've not heard about that one.
Speaker:I based it on a lot of
Speaker:different games, basically.
Speaker:And when the rubber hit the
Speaker:road during the school year.
Speaker:I have a French club that meets a couple
Speaker:of times a month because some students,
Speaker:they're done with their two years of
Speaker:French and they still
Speaker:want to take more French,
Speaker:but they can't fit it
Speaker:in because of core 24.
Speaker:There's just not enough hours in the day.
Speaker:So they'll come to French club.
Speaker:There's some students who want to take
Speaker:French, but haven't
Speaker:been able to fit it in yet.
Speaker:So they'll come to French club.
Speaker:And then there's some high flyers who
Speaker:come to French club.
Speaker:So that's a smaller group and they did
Speaker:great with the Tour de France board game.
Speaker:It was fun.
Speaker:It was fabulous.
Speaker:And then I tried it with my class of 35
Speaker:students and it was a disaster.
Speaker:And I was like, I spent so much time on
Speaker:this and I hadn't
Speaker:considered group dynamics.
Speaker:And so it really it was a
Speaker:total disaster in the large group.
Speaker:So that's something that I really need to
Speaker:think about over the summer is putting in
Speaker:work, but just enough work so that I can
Speaker:wait and see how the class is going.
Speaker:And then I can like being a teacher is
Speaker:all about being flexible, right?
Speaker:We've got a pivot.
Speaker:We've got our formative assessments.
Speaker:Oh, no, that's not working.
Speaker:I better change.
Speaker:Oh, no, that's not working.
Speaker:I better change.
Speaker:Oh, that worked really great.
Speaker:I don't need to do it anymore because
Speaker:they're perfect at it.
Speaker:And so it's I have to keep telling
Speaker:myself, OK, take a deep
Speaker:breath, do just enough so
Speaker:that you feel like you're not going to be
Speaker:getting more gray hairs during the school
Speaker:year when you bring this up to speed.
Speaker:But you don't have to totally sit down
Speaker:and plan out every
Speaker:single last dotting the I
Speaker:crossing the T right now.
Speaker:No, very true.
Speaker:And I get that.
Speaker:You said about formative.
Speaker:And I've just thought about this as you
Speaker:were talking about it.
Speaker:And I know we've talked about what
Speaker:educators, what
Speaker:administrators think formative
Speaker:assessments are, which is the everybody
Speaker:gives the exact same
Speaker:assessment on the exact same
Speaker:day about the exact same topic.
Speaker:But you know what I like?
Speaker:I want to change the word not formative
Speaker:assessment,
Speaker:informative assessment, because
Speaker:it informs us not only the kids, but also
Speaker:us on what to do next.
Speaker:It's the GPS of instruction.
Speaker:And that's what it needs to be.
Speaker:It doesn't need to be
Speaker:my formative assessment.
Speaker:It should not be the same as your
Speaker:formative assessment, even
Speaker:though we're teaching the
Speaker:exact same class because it should.
Speaker:I have two Spanish one classes.
Speaker:One of them had a fake quinceañera
Speaker:because they could do it.
Speaker:And the second one did not.
Speaker:You know, they are
Speaker:different groups of people.
Speaker:And I swear, this is the
Speaker:ill I am going to die on.
Speaker:Stop trying to force me to do the same
Speaker:formative assessments.
Speaker:Everyone else, it is no longer a
Speaker:formative assessment at that point.
Speaker:No, it's not a formative assessment.
Speaker:Call it something else.
Speaker:You can still have it if you want.
Speaker:Like it could be a benchmark or a
Speaker:checkmark to kind of
Speaker:see where the kids are.
Speaker:But it's not a formative assessment.
Speaker:And I'm the assessment guru.
Speaker:I love learning about
Speaker:assessment and best ways to do it.
Speaker:That's this.
Speaker:We know back to our
Speaker:subject of changing everything.
Speaker:That's something that I've done.
Speaker:Like my first year of teaching and what
Speaker:do you do at your first year?
Speaker:You beg, borrow and steal
Speaker:from everybody you know.
Speaker:So I took someone else's
Speaker:grading plan and it sucked.
Speaker:And it did not work because I had kids
Speaker:who got C's who couldn't
Speaker:use any language whatsoever.
Speaker:And my first year I
Speaker:only taught Spanish too.
Speaker:And so they were like, I had a girl even
Speaker:said, thank you for passing me because
Speaker:she knew she shouldn't have passed.
Speaker:But because she did homework and projects
Speaker:really well, that pulled her up because
Speaker:yeah, homework was only worth 10 points.
Speaker:And the final was worth 500 points.
Speaker:But 10 points adds up when you go.
Speaker:It adds up more than the final points.
Speaker:So homework ends up being worth more.
Speaker:So points is always bad.
Speaker:So I spent that next summer reinventing,
Speaker:reading about grading and assessment and
Speaker:findings and it works.
Speaker:And I spent almost a decade re changing
Speaker:what I was doing to get
Speaker:what I have now where.
Speaker:I can look at the kid and go, they have a
Speaker:B's worth of knowledge in the language.
Speaker:And I look at the
Speaker:grade book and it matches.
Speaker:There's no fluff in
Speaker:the grade book anymore.
Speaker:And it's really accurate about what the
Speaker:kids can actually do in the language.
Speaker:And it took me about
Speaker:10 years to get that.
Speaker:And I've refined it slightly.
Speaker:But now it's just refinements.
Speaker:It's not major changes.
Speaker:But I did lots of changes in the
Speaker:beginning because what
Speaker:was before was not working.
Speaker:And that's the impetus for why we think
Speaker:we need to make these grand changes over
Speaker:the summer because it's not working.
Speaker:And our mindset is in the right place
Speaker:because doing the same thing and
Speaker:expecting different results is insanity.
Speaker:And we do this all the time.
Speaker:We're like, oh, we're
Speaker:going to do this all this year.
Speaker:And then we start the year we do exactly
Speaker:what we did last year.
Speaker:And at the end of the year, we complain
Speaker:like we did the same last year about
Speaker:these kids don't know this
Speaker:stuff or can't do this stuff.
Speaker:But what do we we don't change how we
Speaker:instructed that how
Speaker:we expose them to that.
Speaker:And so you have to look at
Speaker:that and make those changes.
Speaker:My thing is.
Speaker:You need to put in the effort where the
Speaker:effort is going to actually come out in
Speaker:productive at the other end.
Speaker:We don't want to make this major thing
Speaker:like you do with your tour de France.
Speaker:And then all of a sudden, it doesn't
Speaker:really hit really well.
Speaker:So I look at my practice and I look at
Speaker:where my kids were weak in and then I
Speaker:look at my practice as to what did it.
Speaker:What was I doing that didn't seem to gel
Speaker:and did it not gel with all my students
Speaker:or did only gel with this subset of
Speaker:students so that can evaluate how much
Speaker:effort I need to change.
Speaker:And one of the things it
Speaker:wasn't a problem that I ever had.
Speaker:But this is what made me think along
Speaker:these lines was a French teacher tell me
Speaker:goes, how do you teach the word but
Speaker:because my kids never remember it.
Speaker:And I'm like.
Speaker:I don't know. I've
Speaker:never really thought of it.
Speaker:I just use it and that was
Speaker:the ding ding ding ding ding.
Speaker:I use it a lot and
Speaker:another teacher goes my my kids.
Speaker:How do you get your kids I'm looking at
Speaker:your quick rights and your kids are
Speaker:writing these really complex sentences
Speaker:with because is and
Speaker:therefore is and senses.
Speaker:I can't get my kids to do that.
Speaker:And then I asked him I says well do you
Speaker:use those sentences in your classroom.
Speaker:He goes no they're not going to
Speaker:understand them I go.
Speaker:Well if you don't give them something to
Speaker:grow on they're never going to get there.
Speaker:So what you do is and these are the kinds
Speaker:of changes that you want to make is
Speaker:looking at these smaller changes that
Speaker:make bigger impacts.
Speaker:So I said you have to build your
Speaker:sentences you have to give sentences for
Speaker:your your slower processors to get so
Speaker:your simple sentences
Speaker:your there is a cat.
Speaker:The cat is fat the cat eats
Speaker:a lot three simple sentences.
Speaker:But then you need to build you've already
Speaker:given them so now you're not giving them
Speaker:any new information but you're rebuilding
Speaker:the sentences into more complex.
Speaker:There is a cat and he is fat.
Speaker:The transition period.
Speaker:He eats a lot.
Speaker:Then you can go there is a cat and he is
Speaker:fat because he eats a lot.
Speaker:So there's no new words no new
Speaker:structures they have to learn.
Speaker:We're just linking the words together but
Speaker:it's all the
Speaker:information is still the same.
Speaker:So I always say you can either build
Speaker:cognitive or complexity you can't do both
Speaker:in the same sentence so you can't try to
Speaker:teach a brand new tense with new words.
Speaker:Because that's too complex for the brain.
Speaker:That's a lot of the problems with the
Speaker:textbooks that I see is they're like oh
Speaker:this is the food unit here's all the food
Speaker:words here's all the food verbs.
Speaker:And that's exactly what you're saying.
Speaker:And it's I mean this is any of us who
Speaker:understand the AC the actual descriptors
Speaker:understand this is the spiral this is the
Speaker:difference between novice mid and novice
Speaker:high and intermediate low.
Speaker:It has you build this complexity but one
Speaker:of the things I decided to focus on this
Speaker:year which worked really well is guys
Speaker:this is how you circumlocute.
Speaker:So they've got the basic vocabulary and
Speaker:now they can start
Speaker:adding that complexity.
Speaker:What what are the
Speaker:things that I love that I do.
Speaker:I lost my train of
Speaker:thought with that the oh.
Speaker:If I'm.
Speaker:Yeah it if I'm teaching like a brand new
Speaker:tense I'm going back to the sweet sixteen
Speaker:verbs because they already know that.
Speaker:So when like when I teach subjunctive in
Speaker:Spanish three I'll start with.
Speaker:If there were.
Speaker:Because they already know that you know I
Speaker:can go to be really easily and if I had
Speaker:to be so they already know the verb they
Speaker:know the meaning so they're
Speaker:not thinking meaning plus tense.
Speaker:They're now just thinking about the tense
Speaker:you've got to simplify it like I hate
Speaker:math I'm allergic to math but you need to
Speaker:get it down to a single common
Speaker:denominator you've got to get it down.
Speaker:You can only solve for one variable you
Speaker:cannot solve something's got two
Speaker:variables in it you can't you've got to
Speaker:leave you know you've got to get rid of
Speaker:it so the same thing here I
Speaker:want to get rid of all the.
Speaker:Unknowns and get me only the one no
Speaker:unknown that we're working on for right
Speaker:now so is that vocabulary
Speaker:is that meaning cognitive.
Speaker:Or is that structure grammatical and you
Speaker:do one or the other you cannot do both
Speaker:and you're like you said a textbook goes.
Speaker:Oh we're in the food chapter we've got
Speaker:all these new verbs by the way let's do
Speaker:some stem changing verbs while we're at
Speaker:it with these new verbs
Speaker:that is cognitive overload.
Speaker:They can't do both they're not going to
Speaker:do both well humans do not multitask very
Speaker:well so these are the types of changes
Speaker:that you want to look at instead of
Speaker:making giant sweeping changes which are
Speaker:overwhelming to you
Speaker:because you're going to be.
Speaker:Spending all your summer doing it then
Speaker:when you go to start it in the fall
Speaker:you're going to be awkward at doing it
Speaker:and so it's not going to be as effective
Speaker:as you have it in your brain.
Speaker:That's a very good point that's a very
Speaker:good point so it's better to make smaller
Speaker:changes that have bigger impact over
Speaker:longer period of time and
Speaker:do them small just like.
Speaker:Comprehensible input you got to have a
Speaker:little bit more in it than what you know
Speaker:already then over the course of the year
Speaker:you made a huge change because you made
Speaker:these five or six smaller changes that
Speaker:added up to a bigger change.
Speaker:Yeah and so that's what good area where
Speaker:you know because I know there's a big
Speaker:anti AI and you can use a wrong just like
Speaker:any tool you can use wrong.
Speaker:But what helps me is because my brain a
Speaker:human brain cannot assimilate all the
Speaker:data that is out there and analyze it as
Speaker:quickly as AI can it would take me six
Speaker:months to a year just to analyze data to
Speaker:look at which practices are more
Speaker:effective which ones aren't I can put all
Speaker:that data in there and get results back
Speaker:from an analysis I can say OK
Speaker:based on my grades this year.
Speaker:Because I can put all my grades of my
Speaker:students in there and then say based on
Speaker:these grades what areas should I focus on
Speaker:more in my class so I mean I can look at
Speaker:it but looking at all that data and
Speaker:trying to analyze it I won't see all the
Speaker:nuances it would take a long time or at
Speaker:least a team of people but here it will
Speaker:analyze that and say well your kids
Speaker:grades were weak here.
Speaker:Overall and period two is weak here and
Speaker:it gives you some insight in there where
Speaker:I would not have been able to get that
Speaker:insight as easily so there are tasks
Speaker:where I think I can really help us as
Speaker:teachers if we use
Speaker:the tool in a right way.
Speaker:Not to cheat but is that assistant that always use as your teacher's assistant.
Speaker:Because I'm getting back to what you were saying about grading because you have to make sure that your grades accurately reflect and as you were saying that first year you were teaching and you know I always wonder like why don't we learn why don't we ever discuss grading in our teacher preparation programs. It's like never a class these are some theories about grading or anything and so
Speaker:I think a lot of the
Speaker:summertime thought has to be on.
Speaker:Are my grades really reflecting what the
Speaker:students can do or am I just grading I
Speaker:mean because sometimes a lot of times I
Speaker:just grade on completion because I know
Speaker:that contact with the language is crucial
Speaker:so you just need to play with the word if
Speaker:you do this quick right
Speaker:like I asked you to do.
Speaker:I'm just giving you a grade that you did
Speaker:the quick right and I'm not going to look
Speaker:at all the grammar or maybe I'm only
Speaker:targeting one thing I'm like all right we
Speaker:are working on the stem changing verb so
Speaker:I just need to make sure your stem
Speaker:changing verbs are fine.
Speaker:Oh you messed up a subjunctive tense here
Speaker:well I don't care because I'm only
Speaker:looking at stem changing verbs that's all
Speaker:I'm grading on right now.
Speaker:Oh you messed up this you you conflated
Speaker:two nouns it doesn't matter I'm only
Speaker:grading on the stem changing verb so so
Speaker:having that laser focus on what is going
Speaker:in the gradebook and why is
Speaker:it going in the gradebook.
Speaker:I think is really crucial before you
Speaker:start saying how am I
Speaker:going to tweak things.
Speaker:And another thing you could do when
Speaker:you're when you're tweaking stuff is
Speaker:maybe you've got a unit that you really
Speaker:like or you know that this unit is
Speaker:crucial and you're bored with it because.
Speaker:She's I'm one of five Spanish teachers
Speaker:now we just we just added another Spanish
Speaker:teacher so we all have to march lockstep
Speaker:we all have to use the textbook of the
Speaker:textbook is dry and boring.
Speaker:Oh we've got a food unit I don't like
Speaker:doing the food unit right out of the
Speaker:textbook so I'm going to put in some
Speaker:other pedagogical techniques so that I
Speaker:can teach that food unit I've got all the
Speaker:vocabulary there I can make my.
Speaker:TPRS stories I can make my projects based
Speaker:on that vocabulary I can make some blue
Speaker:kits based on that vocabulary.
Speaker:I can think about how I want the students
Speaker:to be talking to each other what kind of
Speaker:surveys do I want them to be giving each
Speaker:other based on that vocabulary I can find
Speaker:other short stories that have some of
Speaker:that vocabulary in it so I can make it
Speaker:the unit my own without throwing the baby
Speaker:out with the bath water.
Speaker:Absolutely and you're talking with the
Speaker:grading and I tell you my Bible.
Speaker:That I that made the impetus for my
Speaker:change way back when is how to grade for
Speaker:learning by Ken O'Connell Connor.
Speaker:I read it was an excellent book had
Speaker:nothing to do with languages but it gave
Speaker:me my principles that I was using.
Speaker:And a lot of information that really
Speaker:helped me in framing my thinking because
Speaker:I was a brand new teacher I don't know
Speaker:what I was doing and like you said they
Speaker:don't teach us this in pedagogical school
Speaker:this is so important and so this book is
Speaker:my Bible I love this book.
Speaker:I put a link up there on Amazon for it
Speaker:and I was so mad because our school
Speaker:district invited him to speak and they
Speaker:knew that I loved this man I loved him
Speaker:and I didn't they didn't invite me to go
Speaker:I was so I said I would have taken my own
Speaker:personal day to do it I would have paid
Speaker:to go so I was really mad.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:Here here I don't I'm not a celebrity fan
Speaker:no gets all excited but I saw him on
Speaker:Facebook and I friended him and he
Speaker:friended me back and I'm like.
Speaker:I was like a little little fan girl over
Speaker:that about it because he was so.
Speaker:Instrumental in my vision of what grading
Speaker:should look like his it
Speaker:wasn't like these are new ideas.
Speaker:But as I was reading the book I'm like
Speaker:aha that's exactly what I was thinking
Speaker:but I have the words for it.
Speaker:You know have the words for it.
Speaker:And I'm going to make everything is
Speaker:talking about was already kind of what I
Speaker:was thinking after my first year of
Speaker:teaching and unlike some of the other
Speaker:grading gurus out there
Speaker:who are very dry and very.
Speaker:Research base like not he's research base
Speaker:to and you gotta base it on research but
Speaker:they presented like it like it's a
Speaker:dissertation like it's not.
Speaker:Interesting to read he did not it was not
Speaker:heavy dense reading and he had concrete
Speaker:examples and two of the big things I
Speaker:learned from what he
Speaker:talked about was one that.
Speaker:The mean which is averaging is mean to
Speaker:students because the way it works.
Speaker:Yeah so that was one
Speaker:and the other one was.
Speaker:The bell curve was so ubiquitous when we
Speaker:went to school oh yeah I know kids always
Speaker:ask for a curve and I go you know what
Speaker:you're asking for is not a curve because
Speaker:I have to have equal A's and equal F's
Speaker:that doesn't yeah that doesn't work what
Speaker:you're asking for is for me
Speaker:to to make the highest score.
Speaker:The A and then work everything from now
Speaker:that's different but the other thing I
Speaker:learned about he gave an example which
Speaker:was really interesting.
Speaker:He said there is two teachers may try to
Speaker:this experiment with physics where one
Speaker:teacher taught every chapter in the book
Speaker:like he was supposed to have the kids do
Speaker:all the questions at the end of the
Speaker:chapters so they had they were exposed to
Speaker:every question that
Speaker:would be on the final exam.
Speaker:So they've at least worked through every
Speaker:single one the other teacher looked at
Speaker:the textbook and said.
Speaker:There are four areas that I really would
Speaker:like to delve deep into that are really
Speaker:essential to understanding physics so
Speaker:instead of going chapter by chapter.
Speaker:He taught these four major principles the
Speaker:kids did not do all the questions in the
Speaker:book he picked and choose which ones for
Speaker:them to do so they did not get.
Speaker:The examples concrete examples of every
Speaker:single question that was gonna be on the
Speaker:exam so they had not
Speaker:worked through every single one.
Speaker:And the class that did better with last
Speaker:year and the one who did was the four
Speaker:concepts because although they were not.
Speaker:They did not know how to do that they
Speaker:have not faced that particular question
Speaker:before they had the concepts
Speaker:and ideas to work through it.
Speaker:In that it had those skills fire hose
Speaker:they they knew where to
Speaker:focus their attention.
Speaker:And it like this overwhelming everything
Speaker:at once yeah it's like teaching like it's
Speaker:like parenting and not that I know
Speaker:anything about parenting but I do know
Speaker:this basic that you can't.
Speaker:Teacher kid every major decision that
Speaker:they're gonna make you can't go through
Speaker:let's go through all the decisions you're
Speaker:gonna have to make on a daily basis at
Speaker:your age and let's go through what the
Speaker:right choices and what the bad choices.
Speaker:But if you have to use
Speaker:the values and morals.
Speaker:And prioritization you teach them those
Speaker:three things then they'll learn to make
Speaker:good decisions like I had an example my
Speaker:one of my friends I work with she had.
Speaker:A young teenage kid just turning into a
Speaker:teenager he was at a party and we were at
Speaker:a TGI off event for our school we do.
Speaker:So she was there and he text her goes mom
Speaker:can you come pick me up she goes why are
Speaker:you hanging out with
Speaker:your friends he goes.
Speaker:He goes yeah but they're starting to do
Speaker:things I'm not comfortable with doing.
Speaker:Good and I go you didn't teach him that
Speaker:that that what you didn't know that
Speaker:instance was going to come up but you
Speaker:taught him enough values and morals and
Speaker:priorities that he
Speaker:made the best decision.
Speaker:And so that's the same kind of thing we
Speaker:can't teach our kids to expose to every
Speaker:single vocabulary word in
Speaker:every single grammatical nuance.
Speaker:But if we teach the big
Speaker:things the big major concepts.
Speaker:Yeah then that will help you them to be
Speaker:able to use the language they have to
Speaker:build more language.
Speaker:And that's another area where I want to
Speaker:use AI for is to go through my textbook
Speaker:and say this is all the vocab I cannot
Speaker:teach this vocab what is the vocab that
Speaker:will give me the
Speaker:biggest bang for my buck.
Speaker:And I call that the active vocabulary
Speaker:there's passable camera which I guess if
Speaker:they read it they understand that I don't
Speaker:they don't have to have a producer.
Speaker:Yeah this gets right back around to what
Speaker:you were saying at the beginning about
Speaker:how you were put making
Speaker:your onky flashcards because.
Speaker:This the pattern recognition it do you
Speaker:want to memorize every single word in the
Speaker:whole language or do you just want to
Speaker:memorize a pattern and then as you learn
Speaker:the words you can plug them in.
Speaker:The exact same thing.
Speaker:Yeah and and Maltese and
Speaker:Arabic are very very very very.
Speaker:Pattern they're very patterns they've got
Speaker:these little vocal patterns and you know
Speaker:it's interesting because
Speaker:you're talking about it.
Speaker:I found this guy online and he does the
Speaker:shorts most the time it's human 10 11.
Speaker:Because I the 10 11 is written in numbers
Speaker:because I guess that's like the predicted
Speaker:number of humans that
Speaker:have lived on the planet.
Speaker:Ever since the beginning of humanity it's
Speaker:10 to the 11th power.
Speaker:That's what it comes from but what he
Speaker:does is he is a linguist and he talks
Speaker:about all these different
Speaker:languages in the patterns and.
Speaker:Arabic and all these other little things
Speaker:it's very very interesting and I see the
Speaker:patterns we talked about Arabic and how
Speaker:it works with Maltese but
Speaker:it referred me to this other.
Speaker:Video that I saw and they were talking
Speaker:about you know Arabic is not a language
Speaker:it's a collect it's a
Speaker:family of languages because.
Speaker:Their Moroccan Arabic is not the same as
Speaker:Egyptian Arabic is not the same as you
Speaker:know Saudi Arabian Arabic they're all
Speaker:different but he was telling me some of
Speaker:the word they were saying some of the
Speaker:words for like I want.
Speaker:Well in Maltese that's near eat.
Speaker:And I heard the route that they were
Speaker:using where some of the countries use
Speaker:this route that was just like Spanish.
Speaker:I mean it's like Maltese the R and the D
Speaker:using that as a route I go I hear it and
Speaker:I understood it even though I don't speak
Speaker:Arabic at all and so those patterns are
Speaker:really can be very very helpful but they
Speaker:have to come in conjunction with meaning
Speaker:you can't just do them in isolation.
Speaker:Right absolutely that's comprehensible
Speaker:input right absolutely exactly.
Speaker:So you were talking about you were
Speaker:talking about seeing missing the
Speaker:opportunity to see Kevin O'Connell which
Speaker:you are kennel console site
Speaker:that you were really excited to.
Speaker:I'm having an opportunity like that too
Speaker:Dr Shelley Moore is going to come to my
Speaker:district in August I love Dr Shelley
Speaker:Moore Dr Shelley Moore made a light bulb
Speaker:go off over my head at a conference I was
Speaker:at a million years ago and I've been to a
Speaker:lot of conferences with her now.
Speaker:But she talks about it's differentiation
Speaker:basically it's what do what is the basis
Speaker:that you want your students to know.
Speaker:And what are the the nice to have things
Speaker:that you're not really going to grade on.
Speaker:But this is this is what they absolutely
Speaker:have to know and you were talking about
Speaker:feeding that into generative to figure
Speaker:out this is this is what's going to give
Speaker:me the most bang for my buck this is the
Speaker:base that everybody has to know this this
Speaker:should be accessible to everyone and then
Speaker:the high flyers can go for that extra
Speaker:stuff on absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah yeah.
Speaker:It's funny how we have these little
Speaker:people that we really follow and learn a
Speaker:lot from because the other
Speaker:one I learned a lot from is.
Speaker:Now I'm going to forget
Speaker:is I'm horrible with names.
Speaker:You know I think many of us linguists are
Speaker:it takes us a lot of names
Speaker:and why is it sticking out.
Speaker:What did what did the person do.
Speaker:He used to be a
Speaker:professor at Michigan State.
Speaker:He now lives in California writes novels
Speaker:as do much with languages anymore what is
Speaker:his name he's a big guy in CI.
Speaker:Is driving me crazy.
Speaker:But he is also a comedian he he wrote a
Speaker:book that I really really loved.
Speaker:I can't even think of the
Speaker:name of the book I really.
Speaker:It's driving me crazy but I never met I
Speaker:did I never even heard of him before two
Speaker:thousand and sixteen I think it was when
Speaker:I was invited to be a co keynote speaker
Speaker:with him at the Alaska conference Alaska
Speaker:teachers conference.
Speaker:So I went out there and met him and his
Speaker:speech was the first night and.
Speaker:In Alaska there's two camps the textbook
Speaker:camp and then the CI camp and they're
Speaker:about equal in numbers.
Speaker:Yeah so and they're all at this it's a
Speaker:state conference so they're all there in
Speaker:one place and it was really funny because
Speaker:all the textbook teachers said on one
Speaker:side of the aisle and the all the CI
Speaker:teachers and the other side of the aisle.
Speaker:And so I'm sitting there and I had never
Speaker:heard of him before he's got a hyphenated
Speaker:last name is I can think of right so it's
Speaker:coming to me and Patton.
Speaker:Well then Pat.
Speaker:So I knew it come to me so his first
Speaker:thing and they were really upset because
Speaker:Bill and Patton at the time I'd never
Speaker:heard of TPRS never heard of it.
Speaker:But he would he was talking about check
Speaker:check TPRS checked all the boxes that he
Speaker:was talking about and I was taking notes
Speaker:and I'm like all these insights I'm like
Speaker:uh huh uh huh uh huh uh huh uh huh and
Speaker:then the textbook
Speaker:people said we planted him.
Speaker:That he was a plant so that they would
Speaker:talk about all the stuff that needs anti
Speaker:textbook and all that kind of stuff and
Speaker:so it was even even wrote a textbook and
Speaker:said it why it sucked because he first
Speaker:wrote it without any grammatical
Speaker:explanations in it and just using you
Speaker:know input and it didn't sell so all he
Speaker:did was put charts in the book that's all
Speaker:he changed was added charts and it
Speaker:started selling nothing else changed it.
Speaker:But that you know he's a hero of mine
Speaker:because although he didn't know anything
Speaker:about TPRS at the time he now knows but
Speaker:back then he had no clue what it was
Speaker:everything that Blaine Ray had come up
Speaker:with on his own without being a scholar
Speaker:he's not you know educated in pedagogical
Speaker:techniques at all he's just a teacher in
Speaker:the trenches and came up with
Speaker:what worked well for his kids.
Speaker:Which actually aligned with the research
Speaker:and they came together and that was so
Speaker:beautiful for me at the time because you
Speaker:know Blaine Ray and not saying isn't he's
Speaker:an unintelligent man that's not what I'm
Speaker:saying and I'm just saying he's not
Speaker:educated in linguistics and how language
Speaker:is acquired not officially trained he was
Speaker:practically trained with a whole
Speaker:different kind of experience and he was
Speaker:but the two things without
Speaker:even trying to mimic each other.
Speaker:Did because the science matches what
Speaker:happens in real life and so that was just
Speaker:really really interesting it was an aha
Speaker:moment and ever since I've now known him
Speaker:for you know for many years and followed
Speaker:him and read his books and what's good
Speaker:about his books to is he'll read
Speaker:reference the research for those who want
Speaker:the research to prove it.
Speaker:But that's not what his book is about
Speaker:when you read the books are light hearted
Speaker:there easy reads I don't like reading
Speaker:those dense books that are you know where
Speaker:you know fourteen pages of the chapter
Speaker:are graphs and research that you gotta
Speaker:look up on all the different research
Speaker:links and nobody wants to do that just
Speaker:give me some anecdotal and have a little
Speaker:quote on the bottom if you want to read
Speaker:more about the research you can go here
Speaker:if you did the research and
Speaker:you have a little link to it.
Speaker:I believe you I don't need to see the
Speaker:research to do it you know.
Speaker:So we talked a little bit about it as we
Speaker:went through the changes in my big thing
Speaker:about the changes that you're going to
Speaker:make the changes look at.
Speaker:Overall what small changes you can make
Speaker:that will make the biggest impact and the
Speaker:best way to figure that out is to go back
Speaker:and look at last year's school data see
Speaker:where your students are weakest in wet
Speaker:areas like if your kids don't know X then
Speaker:what can you do to help them learn X
Speaker:instead of trying to make a curriculum
Speaker:overhaul because I said
Speaker:before that's a lot of work.
Speaker:You said it may not hit with every
Speaker:student or every group of student and two
Speaker:even if it does you're going to be
Speaker:awkward teaching it because it's brand
Speaker:new so if you do the smaller changes then
Speaker:those are going to be melded with stuff
Speaker:that you're already comfortable in doing.
Speaker:And so the awkwardness isn't going to
Speaker:show as much as if like it's the first
Speaker:time you've ever given a speech you know
Speaker:it's going to be awkward because you've
Speaker:never given that speech before or the
Speaker:first time they say I'm going to learn a
Speaker:skateboard and you're OK at it and it's
Speaker:your first time where people are going to
Speaker:see you do it you're kind of awkward at
Speaker:it you're not as comfortable with it
Speaker:because you're a beginner so.
Speaker:Please make the changes because stagnant
Speaker:teachers are not good teachers.
Speaker:You need to be able to be flexible as you
Speaker:said you need to be able to grow you want
Speaker:your students to grow you need to grow so
Speaker:do learn those new techniques those new
Speaker:ideas but don't try to implement major
Speaker:changes all at once because they may fall
Speaker:flat and you may give up
Speaker:the baby with the bathwater.
Speaker:When there might be actual aspects in
Speaker:there that you can take that actually do
Speaker:work for you so that's my recommendation
Speaker:for I'm changing everything in the month
Speaker:of July to prepare for the fall.
Speaker:What would be your key advice my key
Speaker:advice is you don't want to like you want
Speaker:to want to go to work so if you are doing
Speaker:something and you're like wow I really
Speaker:hated that you're doing something.
Speaker:That unit.
Speaker:Don't do things you hate okay your kids
Speaker:are going to be able to see through it
Speaker:they're going to see that you're not
Speaker:invested in it find some angle that you
Speaker:like so think like what can I tweak to
Speaker:make this palatable to me how can I
Speaker:change it and don't reinvent the wheel
Speaker:but maybe experiment with a new technique
Speaker:there's a lot of
Speaker:pedagogical techniques out there.
Speaker:Experiment with something breathe some
Speaker:life into it but don't say I'm scrapping
Speaker:this entire unit and doing something
Speaker:completely different you've got the bones
Speaker:of the unit right in front of you keep
Speaker:those bones and just maybe plug in a
Speaker:couple of new things absolutely.
Speaker:So you can still enjoy your summer.
Speaker:Yeah yeah because that was what we talked
Speaker:about last time two weeks ago but you
Speaker:know you can't give up your entire summer
Speaker:you're going to be burnt out you're going
Speaker:to start the year burnt out so you've got
Speaker:to find a happy medium in there and with
Speaker:that we will close since we
Speaker:are 10 minutes over today.
Speaker:We always talk so much we do but it's
Speaker:great information and we learn from each
Speaker:other we bounce ideas off each other
Speaker:because now I'm going to start calling
Speaker:them yeah I'm going to start calling them
Speaker:informative assessments that's what I'm
Speaker:going to start calling.
Speaker:Yeah I love that I'm going to call what
Speaker:the formative assessments I'm going to
Speaker:call them benchmarks
Speaker:because they are not formative.
Speaker:That's exactly right.
Speaker:Administrators don't really understand
Speaker:all the terms of those and some teachers
Speaker:don't understand the
Speaker:terms of the difference.
Speaker:You know they still use quiz and test and
Speaker:those aren't really correct either
Speaker:terminology but the word assess and how
Speaker:much the word assess has
Speaker:changed over the years.
Speaker:Yes exactly so very much so very much.
Speaker:So that's our episode for this week. We
Speaker:will be off next week for the American
Speaker:Fourth of July that we have.
Speaker:So for those of you living
Speaker:internationally it's our Independence Day
Speaker:celebration next week.
Speaker:So we'll be off that week and we'll be
Speaker:back in two weeks and last week for all
Speaker:the fathers out there.
Speaker:Happy belated Father's Day. So that's our
Speaker:episode today so thank you for spending
Speaker:part of your Sunday with us instead of
Speaker:you know rebuilding your entire
Speaker:curriculum on a whim which statistically
Speaker:some of you are doing right now anyway.
Speaker:Pamela thank you so much. You're amazing
Speaker:to talk with each week.
Speaker:We love having you and you've talked at
Speaker:least three people out of demolishing
Speaker:something that was working and that's
Speaker:more than most PD sessions
Speaker:accomplished in a full day.
Speaker:I think that's true.
Speaker:So quick recap not every overhaul is
Speaker:progress. Bored and broken are different
Speaker:diagnoses and if you can only change one
Speaker:thing next year that one thing is trying
Speaker:to tell you something.
Speaker:Listen to it.
Speaker:Now if this one landed subscribe so you
Speaker:don't have to remember we exist. Leave a
Speaker:review if you're feeling generous and
Speaker:send it to the teacher in your department
Speaker:who announces a full
Speaker:reinvention every August.
Speaker:They need it most and
Speaker:will deny it loudest.
Speaker:Catch us live on YouTube or grab the
Speaker:replay wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Ditch the drills. Trust the process. And
Speaker:we'll see you next
Speaker:time on Comprehend This.
Speaker:Bye everybody.
Speaker:See you next time.
