Year End Review

The end of the year has finally come and I am soooooooooo (maybe a few more o's...) glad it is summer!  I was really blessed this year to have such great students and will miss my 8th graders tremendously next year!  With the end of the year came some great (yet stressful) news!  My principle let me know that I will be offered some English courses next year and this will bring me up to full time!  I am super excited to be full time but also nervous about teaching English classes next year.  I student taught in an English class but have not stayed current on the methodology or the testing that is used in the English classroom...

So this summer I will be researching and working on English materials AS WELL AS perfecting and getting creative with my French materials!

So here is summary of what I really enjoyed about my first year as a French teacher:

1.  The competition versus me and the students to see who could speak more French (I loved the cards they all had to write to me about how great I am because they lost the competition)

2.  TPRS story-telling with the students

3.  BINGO homework (the students hated it, but it really did produce some of their greatest work!)

4.  Oral Proficiency Interviews (mini-OPI's) - Again not a student favorite, but it was great to have an opportunity to just sit and have a conversation with each student in French.

5.  PBL - project based learning - my favorite project had to be the wanted poster project that worked with adjectives, preferences and the verb avoir!  I got some great posters for this project!

6.  Free Writes- giving students 10 minutes to write a story all in French and see the growth in my students!

7.  Freeze Frame - although I only used it once, I LOVED this activity and it really got the students speaking!

8.  End of the year movie trailer project - KIDS LOVED THIS!

9.  Sharing French popular music and having kids tell me they bought French songs on iTunes!

10.  My small class size (won't be small next year....)

11.  Stations - loved having games and differentiation available to my students with station days

With so many great activities and memories from my first year, I also see many places where I need to grow.

1.  I need to focus on quality rather than quantity.  I wanted to try so many new ideas this last year that I often didn't give students enough time to actually benefit from each activity.  Next year I need to whittle down what I do each day and give the students more time to complete activities.

2.  I need to be harder.  I have high expectations for students but I let them get away with too much.  Next year I need to start off harder and stick to my guns so that by the end of the year I don't have so much of a problem.

3.  I need to stick with my classroom management procedures.  I started the year with certain ideas on how I would run my class and then changed those ideas several times when my procedures weren't working out.  Next year I will have my knowledge of my faults and preferences for my classroom procedures and I will need to stick them!

4.  Grading... this year I often got behind and did not keep a regular schedule for grading papers.  I really need to get a system into place and stick with it!

5.  More listening activities!

6.  More culture brought into the lessons.  I don't know that I want to do "themed" units, but I would like to bring in more history and culture into my class with authentic resources!

7.  Give a daily objective to students and do more exit tickets/pop-quizzes to enforce the importance of those daily objectives.

8.  USE MORE TECHNOLOGY!  All students will have iPads next year and I am pumped to find as many ways to utilize these great resources in the classroom!

So here is my goal for the summer.  Each week I would like to blog about one of these goals and how I am progressing in researching and planning for next year.  I will do my best to stay on track and hopefully have a weekly blog!  I also joined a great Google group that will be doing some fantastic sessions this summer and I plan to blog my reflections for each session I attend!  So here's to a summer of blogging and planning (and hopefully house buying!)

 

La maison et la mort TPRS Story telling

So last week I had one of those days that I left school unable to stop smiling!  I was just so proud of my FRN 1 students!  We are learning rooms of the house and I was at a loss for how to present the new vocabulary.  My first idea was to show a dream floor plan of my "dream" house and then comment on it with the students, but I really wanted to find a way to get the TPRS technique into this presentation.  We haven't had a story in a few weeks and the students have been asking when we would spin a story again.  So I changed up my plan.  I created a Prezi that focused on a "haunted house" and found creepy pictures of all the rooms I was focusing on.  I then put a small jpeg of a goofy/cute little ghost in all the rooms.  So I started out telling the class that we were going to visit/explore a haunted house.  I showed them a picture of the house and had them describe the house (we just finished adjectives).  From there I showed them the first room and the ghost in the room. Of course I hammed it up and pretended that it was really scary and I had one student go along with my acting.  (of course I rewarded this acting with a euro) and when the class saw that I would reward a gasping and scary look on their faces I had the entire class going along with it (so much fun!!!)  Anyways, it was their job to explain what happened in that room to the person (who is now a ghost).  They loved this!  One of their favorite parts of spinning a story is always the ending (deciding if it is a happy, sad, or weird ending).  Our main characters normally meet weird/funny endings.  So coming up with all endings of characters was right up their alley.  Both classes did a good job with this, but one class rocked it out!  They talked completely in French for the entire 50 minute class and the vocabulary they used during the story was amazing!  We ended up spinning the story for the majority of the class instead of doing the other activities I had planned.  Although it wasn't the TPRS method exactly, the students used so much French and their level of engagement was remarkable!  I really enjoyed the class and didn't want it to end!  The students did not focus completely on the rooms but when I went through the rooms and checked for comprehension, the students knew the rooms and could pronounce them and identify them.  They went home with homework of reading two "petites annonces" and using the new vocabulary to decipher what each house had in them.  I LOVED the ghost stories and so did the students!  Although we didn't get the repetition of the target words that we normally get in spinning a story, the students really connected with the stories and the "ghosts" and remembered the vocabulary!  I hope to have more days like this, as they make it all worth it!

Teacher vs Students and Bingo Homework

So one of my goals recently has been to get the students to speak completely in French and for myself to speak completely in French everyday.  This is hard for me and the students, but I know we can do it!  So, I started a little competition between myself and the students.  We have one "police officer" in each hour that is responsible for the point giving.  The students get one point if I speak in English and I get a point when they speak in English.  It is really helping me stay in the target language (which is great for comprehensible input) but the students are now just not saying anything....  Yesterday (as we don't have school again today...) I told them that if I ask a question and no one in the class responds then I get a point.  This seemed to make an improvement, but I am not sure if I will keep the competition going.  Any ideas or advice would be welcome!

I like that I am speaking in French the entire class period, but I was hoping this would get the students to speak more French in the classroom.  I am getting into the grammar portions of the class now and I feel as if they are speaking less and less... Hmmm... I am getting frustrated.  Some of my students are accomplishing things I didn't believe a first year student could do, but others are really struggling to keep up.  I am trying my best to keep both sets of students involved and working but I am having difficulty with this.


One way I tried to balance out the levels in my students was to do BINGO homework.  (Download a copy here.)  I made a bingo sheet of homework assignments that focused on the content we are covering at this time.  Each column has a different focus
B - vocabulary practice
I - Reading
N - writing
G - speaking
O - random

The students must do one assignment from each column and the must have a bingo line when finished (loss of 1 point for every assignment outside the bingo line).

I LOVE this assignment because it produces some of the best work out of my students and the assignments are (for the most part) real world situations. The problem I am having with it is that my lower students are not doing the work so they fall farther behind...

I have assigned this 2 ways.
1) I have a due date for each column and check off each column as they turn them in (liked it because I knew students were doing homework and keeping up in the class, but I didn't like it because it took time out of class and required fast grading)
2) I have a due date for the entire bingo sheet and they turn every thing in at one time. (Liked this because it was easier to keep track of all the assignments, but I didn't like it because students left it to the last minute and didn't have any other homework for about a week and a half.)

I want to improve on the assignment, but I'm not really sure how.  Maybe make the bingo sheet smaller or do like a tic tac toe board instead....  Hmmm....

Anyways, things are going well in the classroom.  We are really getting behind though due to all these snow days!  We had a total of 2 days this week!  Crazy huh!? I keep trying to improve my methods and delivery but there are just some days that I feel like I am not going down the right road.  Mais c'est la vie d'un professeur non? :)

Le jeu de la bouteille (Spin the bottle)

Spin the Bottle in Class?  What?!

Photo from http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/30092.gif

So for my formal observation I had this last week I decided to go for two riskier activities.  This first being Freeze Frame (read about here) and the second being a simple review game that the kids love.  Of course the first time you play the kids are a little weirded out by the fact that you are going to play spin the bottle in class.  You can assure them there will be no kissing or making out in class today though!  

There are two ways you can do this for setup.

1.You make up the commands or questions. (Takes prep time but you are insuring the students are practicing exactly what you want)  Print them out in a large font and then cut each question/command into individual slips of paper.  Fold them up and put them in a container.

2. The students make up the commands or questions. (Takes more time but allows them to get creative and reinforces their writing skills!)  I usually have each student write 2 (but I have unusually small classes) but you could do more (probably no more than 4 though for sake of time)

How to play:

If you had students write their own commands/questions have them put them in the cup/container that goes with their group.  Sometimes I switch the cups up and no group gets their original questions/commands.  The students liked this as they get to see what their classmates wrote.  If you wrote the commands then just have the questions/commands separated equally into the containers before the activity.

Split students into groups of 5-6.  Each group gets a container with questions/commands and a bottle. (I prefer liter or 2-liter pop bottles and Perrier glass bottles)

Have a rule of who goes first.  I usually do birthday or age rules (they then have to discuss in French who has the closest birthday date or age and this reviews numbers and dates!)

Once they have figured out who goes first, that person spins the bottle.  When the bottle stops on someone the spinner takes a question or command and and asks their classmate that the bottle stopped on the question.  The other student must then answer the question in French or complete the action if it is a command.  If the student cannot answer the question or complete the command they can ask their classmates for help (in French).  Every question or command must be completed though!  The person that the bottle landed on gets to spin the bottle if they were able to answer the question or complete the command.  If not, the original spinner must spin again.  Play continues for as long as you would like it to.  I usually only play for about 15 minutes or so depending on how the students are reacting to the game.

Different Versions:

• To practice inviting people to events I had students write out 2 rejections and 1 acceptance.  They put these into the cup and instead of the spinner pulling out a question, the spinner would have to make-up an invitation for the person the bottle stopped on.  That person then pulls out on of the replies and reads it to the spinner.  If it is a rejection the spinner must spin again until they find someone who can go to their activity.  When someone accepts the invite they become the new spinner.
• Prepositions: Have certain props for each group and have students write 2 sentences about where those props could be in the room using prepositions.  The spinner reads one of the slips of paper and puts the prop where the paper is says it is at.  Then the spinner spins the bottle and asks the person where the object is at.  If the person gets it right they get to keep the slip of paper and then spin the bottle.  This is a competition to see who can win the most slips of paper by then end of the game. 
• Commands:  To practice the imperative, have students write funny commands for their classmates and play spin the bottle.  The spinner gets to read the command to the person the bottle lands on and that person must act out whatever the command is.  This could also be done as a competition and have students try to win the slip of paper as they play.
• Truth or Dare + Spin the Bottle:  To mix commands and questions for an overall review you can mix-up these two classic games into one game.  You will need two containers for each group though.  One container to hold commands (the Dare container) and the other to hold questions (The Truth container).  When a bottle lands on a person they get to choose between the two options and try to win their slip of paper.  

Well hope you like these ideas!  I will update the Different Versions section as I come up with more ways to change up this simple game.  If you have any ideas or comments or you try it in your classroom I would love to hear about it!

TPRS Troubles

So TPRS is a fantastic technique that I believe has great merits in the FL classroom.  On the other hand I have been getting bored and frustrated with this technique.  After having talked to my Spanish colleague I figured I would go out of my comfort zone and try to find or makeup activities that could extend the TPRS technique.  Here are some of the issues I was having with the method:

1. I am the one talking for the majority of the class period.  Students will get one or two word phrases for ideas for the story, but for the most part it is me that is talking (Which I know they need to hear the language as much as possible but in a 50 minute class the technique leaves little time for my students to talk after we spin a story together)

2. Students (and myself) are losing interest in the stories and the entire routine.  We have told 10 stories now and it is only half -way through the year!

3.  I have a hard time balancing the stories with the required content.  I get behind in the curriculum content often because we spend 2 or more days on TPRS stuff.  Luckily our stories do have phrases and grammar that show up later in the textbook so it is like front-loading, but I am behind at the moment on where I should be for the my class in the curriculum.

4.  We have pre-written stories and as the class and I spin the story I hate having to direct their story to be more like the written story as this does not really feel like their story in the end.  Also, I think the students are starting to think that it doesn't matter what they suggest for the story telling as I will direct the story a certain way anyways.

With that said, here are the things I really like about the method:

1. The students get to be funny and creative using the language in context.

2. Students get to hear a lot of target language in one class period and it isn't just grammar and new vocabulary the entire class period.

3.  It gives teachers a non-traditional method to do grammar highlights instead of having the students do exercises or worksheets out of a book.

4.  Students get to learn vocabulary that is important/interesting to them by asking for certain words to add to the story.

So after looking online for the knowledge and advice of some TPRS pros I decided to try to come up with an activity that would involve story telling but not have me do any of the speaking. Here is what I came up with:

FREEZE FRAME!

The activity is played as a class (but you could do it in small groups of 5-6).  You pick a random student to be an actor and another student to be the first narrator.  These two students stand in the front of the classroom and begin a story.  The narrator starts telling the story and the actor has to listen and act out whatever the narrator is saying.  (I did a practice run through of this activity in English so that they had an idea of what it would be like in French and this seemed to really help the students understand what was expected of them)  The narrator is required to speak at least 1 full sentence before anyone is allowed to interrupt them.  Why would people interrupt them you ask?  Because as the narrator is telling the story the class is listening and trying to find a way to insert their own ideas into the story.  They do this by calling out "Freeze!" ("Congèlez" en français).  When the student calls out "Freeze" the narrator stops talking and the actor continues to do the action that they were doing last.  The student that calls freeze then comes up to the front of the room and takes the place of the narrator and continues the story adding in new actions/details and the actor must follow along.  I required that every student in the class must be the narrator at least once and that when everyone has been the narrator it is the actor that gets to decide the fate of the story.  As a side note I did offer myself up as a tag-team helper if a narrator got stuck in front of the class and ran out of things to say.  The students were warned though that if a narrator had to tag-team me into the story the entire class would have a pop quiz right after the Freeze Frame activity.  This was just a little motivation for the class to not allow one of their classmates to get stranded up front without anything to say.  If a student came up front and could not put together an entire sentence and was just standing their I would start making my ways towards them to give them the opportunity to tag me in but this usually just spurred the student to get their thoughts in order and say at least one sentence. None of my classes had to tag me in.

My first group of students did a pretty good job with this.  They focused on the vocabulary that we were learning at the time so their story was not as cohesive or as interesting as I was hoping but they did speak all in French for about 15-20 minutes without my help.  My second group of French 1 students though rocked it!  Their story was cohesive and continued smoothly.  They used a lot of other vocabulary instead of what I was aiming for, but I didn't care about that when I had 4 students not using their note cards and just improvising completely in French! (I assigned them homework of writing a few sentences down that could be added to the story on a note card and then they could use that notecard if they needed when they went up to add to the story) This group spoke completely in French for about 30 minutes and really kept the story going!  I was giddy with excitement all the way home that night as I was so proud of my students!

What I liked about the activity:

1. This gives me a chance to hear everyone speak and grade their proficiency level.

2.  Everyone is included in the story telling process.

3.  It requires students to be able to listen and comprehend the story and then think of ways to extend what they are understanding with more details.

4.  It allows some of the more advanced students to push themselves (my improvisers!) but it doesn't put too much pressure on my students with special needs.

If you have questions about this activity or you do it in your classroom I would love to hear about it! I did this activity with a French 1 group about half way through the year but this would be a great activity for more advanced students so that they could practice the different tenses (maybe have signs for the actor to use to show past, present, and future)

Thanks for reading and hope to hear some ideas/feedback/or experiences with this method!

New School + Moving + New job = CRAZINESS!!

So after waiting so impatiently and having a few mental breakdowns, I passed my OPI!  I am now a certified Michigan Teacher!  AHHHHH!!!!  Now that I get to keep my job for sure I am going a little crazy and the nerves are starting to kick in.  I hardly slept last night and I am pretty sure it is because I did nothing to prepare for school.... In good news though my husband also found a job and has already started!  We are going to be way more financially stable this year than we have been in a long time!  Of course to get to the stability part we going to have to go completely broke... but oh well we will survive...I hope.  I am not excited at the fact that we are moving in with my parents for a few months to help us get stabilized... not because I don't love my parents and really appreciate them letting us crash with them for a little, but because I will have an hour commute to work everyday! YUCK!!  At least I get to drive our new car to work!

I had CLEAR training last week and am super stoked to be able to use it for oral tests/assignments.  My goal is to hopefully get a tablet by the end of the year to create more advanced lessons so that I can start looking at what"flipping" is all about.  Of course I'm thinking flipping my classroom might be a little too much my first year, but I figure as a part-timer I might actually have time to make videos, thus giving me a head-start the next year on flipping!

Research on Pinterest has been my thing lately and I have recently found a lot of information on Interactive Notebooks.  I would like to incorporate them into my classroom but I am not sure how to use them at this moment.  I think I am going to take notes on ideas for it throughout the school year and then have one figured out.  My first year students will hopefully be great guinea pigs and I can't wait to try some ideas and get creative!  With my first year and this blog I have one goal; share my best/worst parts of my week every week as a type of reflection on my teaching.

So come along with me on this crazy ride!  I will be learning about TPRS, teaching middle schoolers, and so much more!  Any comments, suggestions, or words of encouragement are welcomed!

- A CERTIFIED MICHIGAN TEACHER!!!! :)

Updated Syllabus Idea

So after having read a French blog (Chez Renée) it gave me the idea of updating my syllabus.  Although I haven't officially taught a class yet, I had my own syllabus for my class during student teaching.  My old syllabus was a standard template with all the necessary information, but to be honest it was just a syllabus.  I hated reading my syllabi in college and I know students probably don't enjoy them much either.  So why not make them look pretty and catch the eye?  So with a little help from Microsoft word and a bunch of clipart, I came up with the syllabus you see below.

New and improved 8th grade French syllabus

3rd page of new Syllabus

Here is the original:

Old and slightly boring syllabus

I am really happy with the change.  Now I just need to show it to my department head to make sure that it is okay and that all my procedures are okay as well in accordance with school rules/expectations.  What you do you think?  Stick with the original or kick it and keep the new and updated version?

TPRS'in it up!

So the school that I was hired into uses TPRS to teach the foreign languages.  Although I have heard about this technique and have wanted to learn how to use it, I do not know a whole lot about it.  I knew that you used stories to teach the target language (TL) and that you spoke in the TL as much as possible.  Other than that I was not sure on how to use it or how to teach with this technique.  So this week I have been doing some research.  Here is what I have found out:

There are 3 phases to the TPRS teaching technique
Phase 1 - Introducing the target words and ESTABLISH MEANING!
   - This is where you use signals and pictures and props to make sure students understand the words you are introducing.  I am excited about this part because it mirrors my own way of teaching the TL.  I love props and signals linked with new vocab!

Phase 2 - STORYTELLING
 - Now this phase is new to me.  You must use the students in your class to act out a story that uses the vocab you just established with the students.  You guide them and coach them through to act out the story as you are telling it.  This seems hard to me but I am excited to see it work and how students react to this.  As a student myself I hated being in front of the class doing goofy things, so I can see that this part will have to be planned well so as not to bring up a student that will not benefit from being an "actor"

Phase 3- READING
  -  Of course this part seems the hardest as I was not taught with this technique.  We read very small passages and exercises from the book, but we never read full out stories.  I didn't get to this level of TL use until I was in college.  Of course it excites me to think that young students can use the language so quickly and apply their understanding of the TL to read a passage and create their own!


Some questions I have about this technique include:
1. How long does the teacher "establish meaning"?
   - This seems to take up a lot of time and I am not sure I understand how to transition from one phase to the next.

2.  Is there room for games and other activities so that students may use and practice the target vocabulary?

3.  Is there a textbook I am following?

4. How do you help students to transition into using all TL in the classroom in the beginning levels?



I am still enjoying my research into TPRS and I can't wait for my instruction on how to use it in the classroom.  At the same time I have some fears that some of my favorite activities and my creativity might get lost in the TPRS technique.  CAN'T WAIT TO GET INTO MY CLASSROOM AND GET MY HANDS ON MY  MATERIALS SO I CAN START PLANNING!

Crafty Beginnings changing to Crafty Teachin'

This past year I have been working as a Title 1 paraprofessional, and honestly I loved it!  Although I was trained to teach either French or English, math has always been a joy of mine and teaching it in the younger grades was inspiring!  But, I still have a passion and love for the French classroom.  So with that in mind I set out to find a job as a French teacher. 

I sparked my passion once again for the French language and applied to several jobs.  One job was closer to home but was only part-time so I thought I had a good shot at it.  I got the call!  After 2 interviews and a sample lesson, I got the job!  I am super excited to start my year off as a French teacher next year!

With that being said my time for craftiness might decrease and my crafts might be more education-directed.  So... I have decided to change up my blog.  I think I am going to blog about crafts AND teaching from now on.  Although I enjoy my crafting and I love to share my ideas, I have found that my teaching ideas have inspired so many others and I want to share.  With a new year as a new teacher, I will begin my blog Crafty Teachin'.  I am super excited to share how my year is going and include any new techniques and ideas I find along the way! 

Stay tuned for my summer planning period as I am going to go education crazy!!!

Classroom Management Ideas: Punch Cards

So our Kindergarten teacher has been our for the last few weeks.  The dean had been planning lessons for the substitute, but she is gone now so we are all at a lost.  I am in the Kindergarten class for an hour everyday and I have been tired of not accomplishing anything these last few weeks since our normal classroom teacher has not been there.  So today I took it upon myself to plan a centers activity.  Each student got a packet that corresponded with the centers and on the front they had an incentive chart.  They had three boxes on the front that a teacher could put a smiley face in if they did a great job.  If a student is not following directions or not listening they lost their front page.  Now the front page is super important to them because each smiley face they received was an entry into the drawing for a "Right-On Ticket".  A bonus was if they filled all three boxes they received 4 entries instead of just 3.  Of course if they lost their front page, they could earn it back, but they had to refocus and get back to work.  It seemed to work really well.  Also, students are getting much better at applauding for their classmates when they win the drawing instead of crying or getting upset if they don't win.  This is a huge step for this group!  We have been doing the drawing now for about a week and it is a real great motivator for the class.  To start this routine, I started with every student having 3 slips of paper and when I thought they deserved to be in the "bucket" I would walk by and put the bucket down in front of them.  Of course if their behavior is not "1st grade ready" I told them I would dump every name into the trash and start all over again.  I only had to do this once and the lesson set in really fast.  I had a FULL bucket and then they just lost control and focus and I waited till everyone's eyes were on me and I dumped every name in the trash.  This was upsetting of course but behavior improved dramatically afterwards.

Now me are moving on to a punch card idea.  Students will get a punch from the teacher/para/adult running each station.  If there is no adult or para to give the punch, students will be given punches based on teacher observation.  I am hoping this discourages students from trying to draw their own smiley faces on their incentive chart.  If this was my class I might make the punch card a part of the whole day.  Have one for the whole day and then make the punch cards worth "class bucks" the students can collect in order to "buy" prizes.  But I am only in the class for an hour so this isn't possible.  I like the punch card idea though a lot that I am thinking of doing something like this for my own classroom in the high school setting (when I find a job).    Except I want to make it like a time card.  Their time card would have a warm up and exit ticket place and they must have it clipped while walking in and clipped while walking out (JUST LIKE A JOB!)

I will post the punch cards and the center papers soon!  Let me know if you have any questions as well!