Minute by Minute Spanish

Spanish Lessons

Spanish 1 Grade Recovery for Marking Period 1 – Giving Grace, Opportunities for Redemption, and Hope

By

Grade Recovery Grace from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Let’s give them grace.

How do you help students who flunked the first marking period to recover their grades when secured testing is elusive and there isn’t enough time to go through all of your full lessons?

I teach 160 minutes a week of virtual direct instruction and reduced my weekly lessons to one dense half-hour of essential information in an asynchronous lesson in Google Slides.

It helps them to do the lessons at their own pace without adult supervision.

When they finish they will know what most “D’ students know and be able to continue on to the next marking period, not dragging their flunking grade with them.

If our administrators give us the authority to change grades and offer redemption for genuine effort, we should embrace grace recovery during the Pandemic.

Click below for more information on the lessons.

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Top 5 Engagement Strategies for Virtual Synchronous Spanish Class

By

As a “Baby Boomer GC Zoomer” Spanish One teacher, I keep my virtual students engaged for eighty-minute periods by adapting five of my tried-and-true comprehensible input activities to our online environment.

  1. Virtual Spanish Transition Videos

  2. Use pre-recorded audios and videos

  3. Use Zoom’s private chat to engage students

  4. Use warm-ups with engaging visuals

  5. Use Choice Boards and Mote for Asynchronous Wednesdays

1. VIRTUAL SPANISH TRANSITION VIDEOS

First, I am a big believer of staying in the target language by using musical transition videos.

Music seems to keep the endorphins flowing and to enter their subconscious.

They hear the first few notes and know what to do without using English, because the cartoon videos with students their age show them what to do.

Our Venezuelans made a dozen new videos to match my virtual transitions including:
Buenos días, m’ijos
Abran el chat Escriban en el chat
Reactivan la cámara
Entren en gupitos

Cump_91 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

2. USE PRERECORDED AUDIOS

Second, as a comprehensible input teacher, I want to drench my students with reading and listening activities.  In the past I created many 30 second audios for students in order to preserve my voice.  Now these 30 second breaks from my speaking enable me to build community and create bonds with my students.  I carry on many personal conversations with students in the private Zoom chat.  They tell me all kinds of things from their internet being laggy to it being their birthday this weekend.  Students struggling or with questions ask in the chat and I can answer without disrupting learning. Who knew that back in the 70’s when my super strict teacher insisted we learn to type without looking at the keyboard that one day I would be staring into a computer camera and typing words of encouragement to students I can’t even see!

3. USE ZOOM’S PRIVATE CHAT TO ENGAGE STUDENTS

Third, I use the chat to engage students. I replaced asking the class questions and their responding in unison or on a white board with their answering in the Zoom private chat.  Every day I ask them ¿Cómo están ustedes? I read some of the answers as they fly in with a commentary.  “Cansado, bien, regular, cansada, lo mismo de siempre, cansado cansada cansada, wow es lunes. ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy?” and I comment on the number writing it in numerals correctly.

In the chat I ask them to predict how many of the listening sentences they will get right and then have them report back to me their actual score. I ask them many of the storytelling yes or no questions or ask them about their preference and they answer the chat in a flurry. I respond to their answers.  I always save the chat and am amazed by the high number of responses from my 30 students.

How to Engage Students in Distance Learning Escriban en el chat
How to Engage Students in Distance Learning Lo Veo Lo pienso ¿Me pregunto?

4. USE WARM-UPS WITH ENGAGING VISUALS WHILE CHECKING IN STUDENTS

Fourth, it takes me at least five minutes to check in each student individually, to keep us safe from Zoom bombers.   During daily warm-ups, students look at an intriguing image and write what they see, what they think and what they wonder.  We always go over the answers the next class period and they enjoy exploring images of money, landscapes, and other cultural items that pique their curiosity and keep them engaged. I ask them in the chat if they would want to visit this place when it is safe to do so, offering them hope and a vision of better times.

How to Engage Students in Distance Learning Choice Board

5. USE ASYNCHRONOUS TIME FOR CULTURAL CHOICE BOARDS

On Wednesdays, the students work asynchronously for forty minutes.  In class, they are drenched in comprehensible input.  I debated using this time for them to practice on Quizizz or some other input program. I decided that when they aren’t with me, they have the chance to pursue their interests and fall in love with the culture, increasing their engagement.  Families report it has been a great decision.

Each week we highlight a different country in our choice board that lays out everything they need.  They choose one activity:

  1. Review the artist’s work and recreate American Gothic in the artist’s style – submit the picture.
  2. Read about a sports figure and answer questions.
  3. Make one of the recipes and submit a picture.
  4. Try a dance and answer the questions.
  5. Create a craft and submit a picture.
  6. Record saying the tongue twister.
  7. Listen to the song and answer the questions.
  8. Complete a sudoku with this week’s vocabulary.

Choiceboard _1 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Many parents have told me how they all review the choice board when it drops into their Google Classroom and decide together – building engagement with the families and Shragervilla, as I call my community.

USE MOTE TO RESPOND

When I review and grade their choice boards, I use MOTE to respond.  It is a chrome extension that allows me to answer using my voice in the private messages so that students feel like we are talking. I comment on what they made or with whom they practiced the dance.

“You danced with your new puppy? What’s his name? What kind of a dog?  I want a picture of this!”
“Wow that tres leches cake makes me hungry – how long did it take to make and who helped you?”

The unintended consequence is that I easily have 50 emails a day from students and families, but it is a small price to pay for the level of engagement they represent.

This is the hardest teaching I have done since I started over thirty years ago.  Many students do not turn on their cameras and we don’t use the audio because I average 30 students per class.  I miss our little interactions that I never appreciated before.  But, by using these five steps to engagement, we are building a sense of community. It keeps students engaged even when their cameras and microphones are off, they are texting me in the chat with their answers, observations, and feedback to the different activities I create.

It is one of my core values that no education is ever wasted.

While virtual teaching is far from ideal, our students need us now more than ever to validate the importance of their learning by investing our time in engaging them.

All net proceeds help three Venezuelan families – meet them in this video as they open three boxes I sent to them.

 

 

If you want to read more about class structure and transition videos, read my blog here.

Virtual Transition Videos from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Virtual Spanish Class Online Review of Numbers, Days and Dates.

By

At some point, Gimkit, Quizizz, Quizlet and other online games become mundane to my virtual learners. That’s when it’s time to have them rapidly provide answers that create pieces of the flag puzzle.

Spanish Online Review Numbers Days and Dates from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

If they put in the wrong answer, it doesn’t turn color so they can instantly try another answer. 
For example on telling time Son las siete y cuarto finally sunk in as typing 7:04 just didn’t work!!!! 

These are created by my Venezuelan friends, who provide food for their families by selling them in our TpT shop – my charity work as all net proceeds go to them.  See video of them below.

Click on images for more information.

 

For more ways to engage your online and hybrid students, read my blog here.

All net proceeds help three Venezuelan families – meet them in this video as they open three boxes I sent to them.

 

 

If you want to read more about class structure and transition videos, read my blog here.

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Spanish Class – Clean Desks to End Coronavirus Musical Video Routine Makes Cleaning Fun

By

Two new musical videos for the 2020 school year: wash your hands and clean your desk.

Scroll below to have the free handwashing song sent to you.

Our latest musical video has the students wearing masks and cleaning their desks to kill the coronavirus.  Add it to your daily slide show to make this task more enjoyable and empowering to students.

Vamos a limpiar trim from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

 

 

Llegó la hora

de limpiar.

Vamos a limpiar.

Vamos a limpiar nuestros muebles.

Vamos a acabar.

Vamos a acabar el coronavirus.

Vamos a acabar el coronavirus

limpiando nuestros muebles.

 

 

 

Everyone needs to wash their hands, so we might as well do it in Spanish.

Moja y moja con agua no olvides de cerrar el grifo mientras enjabonas tus manos

Frótate con el jabón hasta que haga espuma y restriega bien las manos mientras termina esta canción.  

Y luego enjuágate con agua hasta que saques el jabón.

Luego sécate, porque aunque las manos se vean limpias, ¡pueden tener microbios asquerosos!

Repitamos para una limpieza mayor.

Download complete song without avatar below.

This song was made by the three Venezuelan families I support with all of the net proceeds from my store.

Here is a video of their opening boxes of used clothing that my friends donated.  We are hoping that you download this song and like it enough to check out our songs.

 

 

 

 

en shrager on Vimeo.

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Spanish DL Block and Modified Block Survival Kit

By

starting the new school year 2020

Summer 2020 found me emotionally ping-ponging between anxiety about keeping my husband safe and grieving setting aside 30 years of carefully crafted lessons using 90% target language from day one.  As we await the final decision, we suspect the winner of the big reveal will be modified block scheduling.

UPDATE:

The winner is definitely modified block – with-a-yet-to-be-confirmed configuration. 

I am so grateful that my admin takes the time to explore wise tweaks to the schedule, but meanwhile I am planning my 90 minute synchronous lessons and my Wednesday asynchronous lessons.

 

All across the country parents are worried about our middle-school students being in front of a screen for so many hours. 

Many parents have confided that their students previously went to school and came home and spent hours on their screens – screen time is a major part of today’s youth’s entertainment, connection to others, and down time. 

Now parents need to flip to other activities and during a pandemic it is challenging for them.  I admire all of the parents, including my nieces and nephews, who have creatively sought out alternatives for their children.

My challenge is how to teach such a basic level without being on the screen? 

So far my solution is to make the asynchronous day a cultural choice board with a minimum of screen introduction and maximum time with off-the-screen choices.

For my second career, I started teaching in the mid 1980’s! 

Where you even born?  Out of school? 

Can you imagine someone my age, an obvious tech immigrant, adjusting to teaching with apps on a screen? 

I can, and you can, too!

(Check out my hair in my picture – those are not fashion-statements gray hairs, but ones I have earned by teaching adolescents for over 30 years.)

Our new paradigm.  (Come shift with me!)

First, this can be our most concentrated teaching – teaching the most important concepts in the limited time we have.

Second, we can embrace the true meaning of Comprehensible Input and drench our students with listening and reading and have speaking and writing take a back seat.  Yes, I know,

  • our  partner activities

  • our think-pair-share activities

  • our “den cinco” partner swapping activities

  • our  “adivina” upper level thinking activities

  • our  ‘habla, habla, cambia’ activities

bring students the most joy – and they still will, but not as frequently.  But if you really believe in CI, then let’s embrace this year as our year to focus on input.

Are you willing to try it?

Third, we need to grieve setting aside our masterful lessons for incorporating  our 90% target language with new Spanish 1 students. 

We understand that the first ten minutes of the block need to be an engaging pre-class. 

We need to accept sacrificing  our usual opening routines for  providing Higher-Level thinking skills as we teach culture in English.

We need to accept being told what to do, in spite of our previous academic freedom. 

Personally, I agree that the trauma of 2020 justifies these changes, and I want low-anxiety class openings.

Here is a list of Day 4, the other days were not block days.

 

My block scheduling tool kit includes:

1.  Attendance Activity Spanish One

2.  Attendance Activity Spanish Two

3.  Authentic Musical Timers

4.  Stretches

5. Mindful Activities

 

If it is the winner, we were told to expect to be taking careful attendance the first ten minutes during an engaging “pre-class activity.”   I wasted a morning searching for cultural videos, rejecting everything showing alcohol or skimpy clothing or any other inappropriate segments for my junior high students.

I started thinking more about what I want for these unknown students who already have stolen a piece of my heart, just because they are entering a new building without all of the usually welcoming activities that create community and a sense of safety.

I am already worried about all of their screen time and how to inspire higher level thinking skills beyond the ‘let’s Google translate” mindset of many students last spring.

 


1. Attendance Activity Spanish One

I am going to use their check-in time to learn about culture and to learn to separate what they observe from what they surmise, and to stretch and wonder about what they observe. While I hope that we will be able to return to our building after Thanksgiving, I am preparing lessons based on meeting twice a week for 40 weeks.  I now have 100 slides that I can use for this attendance activity.

lo veo preclass virtualaaaa from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

 

In general, when teaching synchronously, I average 75 slides per class.  About 20 of the slides are interactive slides for my students.  They are in the daily student “guía”

While playing the catchy “lo veo, lo pienso, me pregunto” and “preguntas” songs, student will be filling out their daily Google slide.  In the past they had a separate notebook for the slides, but I believe that this year it will just be included in their guía.

 



2. Attendance Activity for Spanish Two.

Now with Google Slides boxes.

 



3. Timers to pace out the longer class period.

As I adjust to longer class periods, I want to stay on track by using timers with culturally authentic music.

I like to use the following:

4 minutes – Música Llanera Pista

3 minutes Reggaeton Pista

3 minutes Reggaeton ¡Que Hoy No Hay Para Comer!

2 minutes Reggaeton Pista

2 minutes Reggaeton Lyrics Días Festivos

11/2 minutes Salsa Pista

1 minute Gaita Venezolana Pista

10 minutes Bachata with encouraging phrases

5 minutes Bachata with encouraging phrases

 



4.  Stretches  whether students are in front of you or at home – take a two minute stretch every 20  minutes.  Do it to music or a soothing Spanish voice for Mindful Stretches.

 

 

5. Mindful Activities

 

This song was made by the three Venezuelan families I support with all of the net proceeds from my store.

Here is a video of their opening boxes of used clothing that my friends donated. We are hoping that you download this song and like it enough to check out our songs.

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!