Reading

March 31st, 2015

Today, we worked on a few more instruments. We started with the instruments that they already know, and then I added the four instruments of the taínos--relating to our unit on Puerto Rico. We also listened to a traditional song of the taínos, and it included three out of the four instruments. 

Then, I gave the students an introductory reading on Bomba y Plena. I was shocked at how many of the students said they never did reading in Spanish I, and some students really struggled. This tells me that I need to do more interpretive tasks and utilize more authentic texts in class. 

I had a few extra minutes with each class, so we listened to the song "Piragua," (snow cones in Puerto Rico), and I had the students identify the instruments that they heard in the song. We then discussed the two principal instruments. These students are really lacking a music program. 

La vieja has been seriously cracking me up lately. She is totally loca, but so supportive and challenging. What a team!

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Gone TOO Long!

Sorry everyone.  I have been neglecting this.  The past few weeks have been very hectic with the March Madness and other workshops.  I was probably the only one who attended 7 of them,  Yes I went to one of them twice.  I felt I needed to support the other professionals in our PLN.  I learned something at each one of them and feel much more excited about my Evaluation Portfolio.  I definitely have a different perspective on it.  I am going to approach it as the story of my year from the viewpoint of my Professional Goal and my Student  Learning goal.

I have really enjoyed working these past few weeks with el joven. He is very creative and supports me a great deal (don't let that go to your head joven).  One of the highlights of the past week was our #MHSslashesstereotypes activity which we did in SAP on Friday.  The students really enjoyed it and the tweets that they wrote were ideal.  I love doing these activities with el joven.  His involvement has made SAP (with seniors)  really enjoyable.  Looking forward to developing even more great SAP activities as we move forward.

Another great thing that is coming from our department is our discussion of assessments.  It is really amazing that we are coming to consensus - working individually  - on the rating of presentational speaking assessments.  This is very important because I strongly believe that we have to have inter-rater reliability.  Looking forward to the development of even stronger assessments.

Perhaps the best part of today was the island discussion.  It will be one of those memorable moments of our first semester of Spanish!

La Vieja - going to visit her little island!

Las presentaciones

March 30th, 2015

Today, the students presented their dialogues, and it was one of the most amazing days I have had as a teacher. The students went above and beyond to create costumes, and the dialogues were phenomenal. 

I also had to improvise an end to the class, so the students and I formed a circle, and each person had to introduce him/herself, state the instrument that he/she plays (even if they don't), include an action to go along with the instrument, and ask the person to his/her right to play with him/her. 

After school, I attended the scheduling committee meeting. It seems like we will someday get rid of the block scheduling. Woohoo!

Cambio y corto,

El joven 

Energy

March 23rd, 2015

Today, I was so exhausted because of a lack of sleep, so I took a 5-hour energy drink before school. I was so hyped and nuts. Definitely never doing that again!!

MCAS is a bit--and by that, I mean extremely--irritating. I cannot do any teaching this week because of testing. I think I will just have my students create dialogues with partners to practice old verbs, interrogatives and invitations. 

Today, I had students write a letter inviting their best friend to a location of their choosing. Then, I had the students interview each other and invite wax other places. They had the choice of responding affirmatively or negatively. Then, we got together and shared. 

I am exhausted. Time for some serious sleep. 

Zzzzzz

el joven

Las invitaciones ugh

Today, la viejita saved the day. She let me use a few of her activities on invitations because I had ideas that were all over the place as to what to review today. 

The first activity I did was a round robin as an opening activity. Then, I took the students into the hall and we formed two circles: one inside the other. One student had to make an invitation based on the picture, and the next student had to either accept or deny it based on the picture. The students rotated clockwise so they had a new partner for each square. They did a really great job, and there was very little side talk. 

Then, I took them into the lab and they worked with partners forming invitations based on pictures from past vocabulary lessons, accept or deny them, and state what day and time. Gracias, vieja, Por las activdades. 

-el joven

Las invitaciones

March 19th, 2015

Today, the students had their speaking exam on Puerto Rico! They seemed to have done an awesome job, and I can tell that they worked hard. I am proud of them. 

After the quiz, I taught the students invitations, affirmative responses and negative responses. The students had me dying from laughter today! They began to make their own sentences and making them into MUCH stronger sentences than the ones I was asking for. Instead of simply saying, "thank you, but j can't," many of them were adding reasons! It was great. I had them do a round robin with them, and tomorrow I think I will do two circles to keep them all engaged. 

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Puerto Rico

March 18th, 2015

Today, the students and I began the day with a writing about Puerto Rico. They were given pictures and had to explain, name and describe the pictures while making connections between them. They really seemed to do well from what I saw. 

Then, we created group points which I will use as an incentive for positive behaviors and good work. We also added some materials to their portfolios. 

After, we went into the lab to practice for the quiz tomorrow. They are really going above and beyond. I'm so happy!

Cambio y corto,

El joven

March 17th, 2015

Today, I had the students do their first writing assignment.  I had originally though about doing it as a homework assignment through Google Docs, but then la vieja brought up the fact that, if they do it in class, then I can see exactly what they know--not what their notebooks or the Internet say.  I haven't read them yet, but as I was walking around the room, I was seeing some great stuff!

Then, we did a Round Robin with the vocabulary from Puerto Rico that will be on their speaking.  It put a smile on my face to watch them help each other and correct each other. My students are great.  Following the Round Robin, I took the students into the lab to practice for their oral exam on Thursday.  These students are developing some great ideas and are adding material that I never even talked about in class. It's awesome to see them make connections.

I also learned a valuable lesson today. I am going through some stuff in my personal life, and I was worried that it might show in the classroom. However, the minute those students showed up in my classroom, it was time to work.  I need to do justice to those students, and they helped me to keep a smile on my face and get work done. I really love the way teaching makes me feel at the end of the day.

Cambio y corto,

El joven

El escaleto

March 16th, 2015

Today, I used a skeleton that I got from the Professional Development day on Friday. I had the students pretend that they were tourists and they had to write a quote comment, a thought or idea, a weakness, an itinerary (timeline) for the trip. The results were beyond what I could have every expected. I was so amazingly proud of my students. 

I also gave the students two flags--Puerto Rico and the U.S., and they had to compare and contrast them. This was easy for them, which is good because that means the description of the flag has become more natural. 

Cambio y corto,

El joven

March 13th, 2015

Today, we did a lot. La vieja let me use her Quia account to get a read on how well my students would do with a quiz on ser versus estar. It was pretty good and I was able to recognize patterns of error and share the data with the students. 

We also practiced more with the vocabulary for Puerto Rico through BINGO. One students actually said, "this is actually helping a lot." That was cool to hear and it was great to see how much quicker they were in the end. 

I gave the students an illustrated dictionary for homework, and the results were off the hook! I loved them! I was a happy camper today. 

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Stations

March 10th, 2015

Today, the students and I really worked in depth with Puerto Rico. They had an opening activity that was both concrete answers and opinion answers about the history of the island. 

Then, I prepared 5 scenarios for the students, and they had to travel from station to station and answer each question. Then, I asked the groups to present one (they did not know which one). Every student was required to share something, and every class hit nearly all the points I had hoped. 

After the stations activity, the students and I played bingo--the cards were generated by la vieja. They are really smart students. They picked up on the definitions very very quickly. 

Tonight's homework is an illustrated dictionary. I gave them important vocabulary for the lesson, and they have to draw/paste pictures as definitions. I got this idea from la vieja, and I really cannot wait to see how it goes!

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Puerto Rico

March 9th, 2015

Today, the students and I took a lot of notes on Puerto Rico and looked at a lot of pictures. The students were so good, and when we sang the song about El coquí, every student participated. One student even offered to lead the group in the song a cappella! I loved it so much, and I was so proud of their ability to guess the meaning of unknown words. 

After school, I attended a PD meeting at which we discussed goal setting. I really liked the first part of the meeting during which we discussed goals throughout the year (in my case, the semester), and explicated that which was difficult and that which went smoothly. It was really nice to reflect. 

Cambio y corto,

El joven

The quiz

March 6th, 2015 

Today, the students had their quiz on the emotions and reasons for the emotions. As I have graded a few of the exams, it is obvious that a decent amount of students did not study. I had been beating myself up about it, but I told myself that I spent more time than I should have on these, and I LITERALLY gave them the quiz (I only changed the subjects the day of the quiz). So, I can't beat myself up too much, but I also need to recognize that I could have done a bit more for them as well. 

We also practiced pronunciation today because their pronunciation has been horrible. They did GREAT with this. We made up words, and I gave them words they didn't know for them to pronounce and they really impressed me. 

 

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Puerto Rico

March 5th, 2015

Today, we FINALLY got to start our unit on Puerto Rico! Woohoo! It was nice to get to teach something new. We also reviewed the emotions for their quiz tomorrow. 

We talked about the flag and the map of Puerto Rico. I activated prior knowledge by giving them a warm-up just asking for three facts they already knew. Most people only knew that the capital was San Juan and that it is a territory of the U.S.  Not bad. 

I am happy happy happy with my students. Mr. Riordan came and observed me today, too, and his review made me feel much more confident in my teaching. 

Cambio y corto,

El joven 

I Am BACK!

This has been a very busy week.  Tuesday I attended my first PD on the Evaluator Standards.  Mrs. Beaudry and Mrs. Bidus did a great job and the participants in my group really had some great conversation about Standard 1.  It is very surprising how much you can see in a Standard when you really focus word for word on the descriptors in the rubric and when you start to look at evidence to show proficiency/mastery of that standard.  The discussion was so rich.  I love working with these two colleagues on the PLN and I love my MHS colleagues also.

Wednesday was also hectic with students in and out of class for presentations during College and Career Awareness Week and field trips.  I had very few students in my Spanish V class but we did move along.  El joven had to use my room on Wednesday because his room was used for one of the presentations.  I think they decided that he could be uprooted because after all he is el joven!  HA HA!  There would have been more resistance with la vieja.  We also have been trying to get the paths in the language lab fixed now that our dead computer drive is once again working.  We tried to download the Teamviewer application which CTS was going to use to remote in, but GUESS WHAT?  It is blocked at MHS.   The story of my life.  Everything seems to be blocked here.  I love iBOSS!  NOT!  So that task was abandoned.

 Today I went with our PLN to Franklin for our Teacher Evaluation PLN Mid Term Meeting  with DESE.  I was so proud of our team.  We really have accomplished a lot.  We got to re-connect with our friends at Hopkins Academy in Hadley and the other schools who were awarded these grants. The work that all of the schools have done was shared by each team and it was so interesting all of the various tasks undertaken.    Great job to all the  PLNs.  I always have so much fun with my Monson PLN.    They are so energizing.   I got back to the school just around 2:00 and was eager to check in with el joven who was being observed today by his supervisor at Worcester State.  I got there just in time and el joven was just going over the observation with his supervisor.  It appears that el joven can consistently receive KUDOS for his lessons.  I am so glad that he has started to put the lesson goals/targeted learning goals on his board and starting to revisit them with his students.  Best Practices . . .joven!   Best Practices.

La Vieja

Las emociones

The students have a quiz on Friday on the emotions, so I utilized some resources that la vieja gave me to review the emotions--with my own changes. 

I took the input that I have the students and used that to create an activity for the students to practice emotions and reasons behind emotions. We were supposed to go into the lab today, but it was being updated so we had to improvise. 

Then a did another game with the emotions where they had two columns and two dice. The numbers they rolled corresponded to the sentence they had to make. I think this was very useful for the students. 

Then, we did an activity where the students would hear sentences from me with the verbs ser and estar and they would have to identify if it was an origin, a description, a condition, or a location. The students did well with this, and it was wonderful to see them explaining concepts to each other. 

Can't wait to start the unit on Puerto Rico tomorrow!

Cambio y corto,

El joven 

El día de frustración

March 3rd, 2015

I am so frustrated today.  I was unaware--perhaps I am culpable for this--that the freshmen would be missing half of my first class today, so the lessons I had planned were not going to work, which is sad because we were supposed to start our new unit today.  Then, I thought it would work out perfectly because I wouldn't have the sophomores tomorrow, but the freshmen did not miss the whole class period, so that did not work.

As a result, today became a day of improvisation.  I reviewed the interrogatives with my students--which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because they were still confused about them.  I started to realize that I went too in depth on the interrogatives, which I did not need to do because it confused them.  This caused for a discussion with la vieja.  She and I talked boat making the goals--no more than 2--and placing them alongside the class schedule for the day.  That way the students know what is expected of them.  I also have to reference these goals each day throughout the lesson. Not bad!

So, today we reviewed with traditional note taking and an activity where the students had a question and the answer to a question on a sheet of paper.  They had to answer a question posed by another student and then read the question that they had to pose.  I was so proud! They did much better.

We also had staff meeting today at which two visitors from DCAS came to talk about anonymous class observations to develop better teaching strategies.  An example could be student engagement; 3-4 teachers would enter the room and observe ONLY for student engagement.  The name of the teacher whom they observed would never be revealed and the data from all teachers in the school would be revealed. I think this could be really great! Hopefully this can be executed at MHS.

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Otro Retraso

March 2nd, 2015

Today, I decided to see how the students would do with frequency adjectives.  Since we had a two hour delay today, I created an activity with frequency verbs all around the room.  I then created scenarios--I am tired, I am hungry, I am nervous, etc.--and asked the students to go to the frequency adjective that they felt best described the truth of the statement for them.

Then, I asked the students to form a sentence based on where they went: "Yo rara vez estoy nervioso." I am rarely nervous. This was review, so most students remembered the meaning; it was simply a matter of the placement of the adjective, and each student picked up on it quickly. 

Cambio y corto,

El joven

Needed un Brequecito!

Well I am back after a few days of ignoring this blog.

Thursday was a pretty good day with Spanish 5 finishing up our Intro to Latinoamérica, Spanish III testing on los edificios y la ciudad and Spanish 2 finally getting through all of those idiomatics that should have been mastered in Spanish I.  Again those long periods of time between Spanish I and Spanish 2 really impact advancement on the proficiency continuum.  In talking with my viejo today, he mentioned that there never should be more than 1 semester between level 1 and level 2 of the language and if there is then the students should have to take some type of refresher. Great idea - but how can we possibly implement this?  

My Spanish 3 students are doing some authentic reading and are having difficulties.  They complain that they do not understand.  I have the interpretive tasks and improvement in these tasks as part of my goal but I think we need to look at these from level 1 on and see how we can strengthen listening and reading tasks.  I already have some interesting data from the first semester in terms of my goal and hope to improve on what I did during the first semester as we move forward.  

Thursday evening we had a parents meeting for the 8th grade  students coming up to the high school from the middle school next year.  It was exciting to see so many parents and interested students in our program.

Once again they are predicting cold and snow during the upcoming week.  I cannot wait to see spring!

La vieja