World Language Classroom | Teaching Ideas, Activities and Strategies

#152
This is episode 1 in my 2024 summer headspace series. This is a chance to revisit episodes from the previous school year during the summer months when you may have a little extra time. Beginning August 26th, you will see new episodes with exciting new topics every Monday.  For today we take a look back at my episodes about the book Honing Our Craft.  In episode 111 I talked about Comprehension-Based Communicative Language Teaching, in episode 112 I talked about Standards-Based Grading and in episode 113 I spoke with the editors of Honing Our Craft.  

Episodes: 

• Comprehension-Based Communicative Language Teaching  (111)
• Standards-Based Grading (112)
• Honing Our Craft with Dr. Florencia Henshaw and Dr. Kim Potowski (113)

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#151
Now that the school year is over hopefully you have a little less on your mind and have a little extra time. This is the perfect time to get into your summer headspace.  What do I mean by that?  You’ll soon understand.  Let’s jump in.

• time to reflect without other pressing priorities and issues
• opportunity to revisit themes and episodes with a fresh lens
• catch something new.
• finish an episode that you started
• listen to an episode for the first time

I’ll group episodes by theme so that you can listen to them together with a 5 minute recap to pull the themes together. The links to episodes will be in the show notes.

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#150
How often do we stop to reflect on our teaching?  Hopefully we take the time and opportunity to do it regularly so that we are teaching our students as effectively as possible.  In this episode I’m going to talk about reflective practice and how we can use this as language teachers.  I’ll also include a discussion of success criteria and how this can work into our reflective practice.  I know, this all sounds way up there in the theory world.  I promise you it’s not and that it’s fairly simple.

Topics in this Episode:

• Reflection can help you to be more creative and try new things. It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut and it can be helpful to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. This can help to spark new ideas and ways of thinking.
• Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice, Moon, J. (1999)
• Reflective Practice for Language Teachers:
  1. Teach
  2. Assess the effect your teaching has on learning
  3. Consider what can improve the quality of teaching and learning
  4. Try the new ideas
  5. Reflect on effectiveness
  6. Repeat
• The Success Criteria Playbook John T. Almarode, Douglas Fisher, Kateri Thunder, Nancy Frey (2021)
• Tim Eagan on Episode 60: Leading a Proficiency Focused Language Department
• Success Criteria:
  • What will be learned?
  • Why is it going to be learned?
  • How will I know that it has been learned?
  • What will I do with what I learned?

 Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#149
As teachers, and proficient second language speakers,  we have figured out ways to communicate words that we don’t know. We can teach this skill to students early on so that they can begin doing it right away. Circumlocution is a strategy for describing or defining a concept instead of saying or writing the specific words (when we don’t know it). We can teach students how to do this and give them tools to help in the process. In this episode I give suggestions to teach students how to cicumlocute along with games  for practicing this skill.

Blog Post on Circumlocution.

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#148
What is your understanding of the word proficiency? This is a concept that we use all the time in our language classrooms. How about the word performance? This concept is also becoming more commonplace in our teaching vernacular. When we say that we are proficiency-oriented or teach toward proficiency, are we also able to assess proficiency in our language classrooms, or should we focus on performance, and what does that even mean?  Well, that’s our topic for this episode….defining exactly what we mean by proficiency and performance, how they relate to each other and which one we should focus on and assess in our classrooms.

Topics in this Episode:

• Blog Post on Performance and Proficiency
• Proficiency: This term refers to a learner’s ability to use the language across various situations, regardless of familiarity with topics or contexts.  It’s about what one can do with the language, no matter where, when, or how it was learned.
• Performance: On the other hand, performance is more about using the language within structured settings like classrooms.  It involves applying “learned” language skills within familiar contexts and content areas.
• Do we assess Proficiency or Performance in the classroom?
•  Preparing students for performance with high leverage teaching practices:
  • grammar as concept
  • backwards planning
  • appropriate feedback
  • authentic resources
  • use target language for teaching
  • communicative activities

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#147
Throughout the school year I published Leveling Up Coaching episodes with language teachers who are taking on a challenge area in their teaching or simply wanted to improve in a particular area. As part of this collaborative relationship we talk through some possibilities and come up with an action plan. After some time implementing I check back in to see how things are going.  On today’s episode you will be a part of that follow-up.

Leveling Up Coaching Episodes & Action Plans:

• Tamica, Streamline Lesson Planning (109)
• Jenn, Teaching and Assessing Writing (114)
• Lisa,What If Common Assessments Are Not Proficiency-Based (118)
• Judy IPAs and World Language Standards (122)
• Victoria Addressing Disruptions Constructively, Effectively and Equitably (130)
• Stephanie, Engaging Speaking Activities for Language Growth (134)
• Liz, From Unit Plans to Daily Lessons (138):
• Stephanie, Keep Up Your Own Target Language Proficiency and Confidence (143)

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast. 
__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#146
When it comes to providing comprehensible input, is it possible to use authentic resources? In this episode, we explore how to use authentic listening resources as a form of comprehensible input with Steven Lopez, a Spanish teacher in New York. Steven shares his process for preparing and scaffolding listening tasks so that students are able to confidently understand the target language in authentic contexts.  You will walk away with lots of ideas to use in your classroom.

Topics In This Episode:

• interpretive listening  as a foundational skill for students in language acquisition
• how incorporating authentic listening materials enhances students' language proficiency and confidence
• examples of successful classroom activities 
• practical strategies that teachers can use to engage students in interpretive listening tasks that support the development of speaking and writing skills
• ensuring that interpretive listening activities not only serve as an entry point but also scaffold students' progression towards more complex speaking and writing tasks

Connect with Steven Lopez:

• Twitter/X : @Profelopez21

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#145
In this episode I’m taking on the question of leveling up.  We often talk about proficiency levels and the output that goes along with each level.  We’ll take a look at some concrete examples of language produced at each level and I’ll share some suggestions for how we can support students in leveling up their language.

Topics In This Episode:

• The ACTFL Proficiency Levels (Interpersonal)
• Novice Low/Mid/High: single words, chunks, chunked phrases.
• Intermediate Low/Mid/High: discrete sentences, strings of sentences, moving toward paragraphs
• Advanced Low/Mid/High: paragraphs, multiple paragraphs
• Concrete examples of the language that students produce at each level and sub level with suggestions for  what they can do to move up a level or sub level.

Links mentioned in this episode

• Blog Post with PDF download of what language output looks like at each level with suggestions for leveling up
• Episode #12 on Proficiency Levels

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#144
What do you do with the information that you learn from the assessments that you give students? Even if we are talking about end–of-unit summative assessments we should look at the overall results and see if there are any changes we should make to instruction.  This is our own consistent way of doing action research in our classrooms.  In this episode, Wyatt Crane, a Spanish teacher in New York City, joins me to talk us through how he uses data from assessments (both formative and summative) to determine what is effective and what he may need to modify in his classroom teaching.

Topics In This Episode:

• how Wyatt collects and analyzes student performance data in his language classroom
• the tools and methods Wyatt finds most effective for this process
• how student performance data influences Wyatt's instructional decisions and lesson planning
• examples of when data prompted Wyatt to adjust his teaching
• how to ensure that student performance data is used not just for assessment purposes, but also for fostering student growth and learning
• how to tailor approaches to data analysis and interpretation to meet the individual needs of students

Connect with Wyatt Crane:

• Twitter/X : @ElSenorCrane  

Connect with Joshua and the World Language Classroom Community:

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.
______________________________
Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.  

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.

#143
If you’re not a native speaker, how do you maintain your proficiency and confidence in speaking the language that you teach? Today’s episode is a Leveling Up episode, where I coach Stephanie, a middle school teacher in Maine. Maintaining and improving her personal confidence and proficiency is the area where she wants to level up.

Suggestions:

Set Realistic Expectations:

• Understand that language proficiency is a journey, and it's normal to have moments of self-doubt or insecurity, especially in the presence of other language teachers who may have varying levels of proficiency.
• Instead of striving for perfection, focus on continuous improvement and growth. Celebrate your progress and accomplishments, no matter how small they may seem.

Embrace Vulnerability and Learning Opportunities:

• Remember that vulnerability is a natural part of the language learning process. 
• Don't be afraid to make mistakes or ask questions during language teacher conferences. Embrace these moments as valuable learning opportunities.

Action Plan:

This Week:

• Spend time reflecting on past experiences and identifying specific instances where hesitancy to speak the language around other language teachers occurred.
• Set achievable goals for the week, such as committing to speak the language in at least one conversation with a language teacher during a conference or professional gathering.

The Coming Weeks:

• Gradually increase the frequency and duration of language use in professional settings, such as engaging in more conversations or discussions with language teachers.
• Challenge yourself to step out of your comfort zone by initiating conversations or participating actively in language-related activities during conferences or workshops.

Join Joshua for a Leveling Up Coaching Episode  on the podcast.
 
Let's connect!

•  wlclassrom.com
• X (aka Twitter):  @wlclassroom
• Threads: @wlclassroom
• Instagram:  @wlclassroom
• Facebook:  /wlclassroom
• WLClassroom Facebook Group

__________________________
Interested in having Joshua work directly with your department, school or district?  Look at options for collaborating in person or remotely.
______________________________
Sign up for Talking Points to get  tips, tools and resources for your language teaching.
______________________________
Join Joshua as a guest on the podcast.

Send me a text and let me know your thoughts on this episode or the podcast.