Minute by Minute Spanish – Page 2

The Best Way to Start Spanish Class Each Day

July 21, 2018 By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

Musical Bell Ringer Activities Give You Grace to Take Care of Administrative Issues

As we head back to our classrooms, it is time to decide the best way to start our language class.

It really depends on our schedule because the year we teach the same class three times a day in the same room without having to share it with another teacher is very different from the year we are moving room to room or switching subjects/languages that we teach.

With the former, I play the “day of the week” song so that as students walk in they are switching to their target language and commenting on their reaction to it being Friday or Tuesday using the words in the song to express themselves.

I have it and my lesson in a daily slide show and all songs play as soon as I click to the next slide. I use a remote presentation device for this – I can be out in the hall doing this and the slide will change!

This remote will change lives! — This remote will free you to walk around the room and stand strategically behind challenging students. It changes lives!

When I am ready to start class, I use my remote clicker to play the count down song and students enjoy counting down as everyone must be seated before it ends.

I click into the class greetings slides with the daily calendar video and taking attendance routine video. And we are off! This routine works so well that teachers in six other languages have adapted them and are also available – see below.

But when I float or am switching gears from teaching a different subject and need a few extra minutes, then my students know to take out their weekly “bellringer” sheets, or open to them on their Google Drives.

I have six kinds of “bellringer” and they all involve music. Students are listening to a native speaker while I take care of administrative tasks.

Encourage upper level thinking about analyzing pictures from Spanish-speaking countries while playing the “Lo veo, lo pienso, me pregunto” video. (Spanish 1 second semester, Spanish 2, Spanish 3, Spanish 4)
Encourage the reading of question words in the five prompts as they look at the lush picture and answer the questions in the target language while playing the Question Song. (Spanish 2)
Help Spanish One students to learn 50 chunks of survival vocabulary sung by a native speaker. (Spanish 1)
Expand students’ writing skills with transition video. (Second semester Spanish 1, Spanish 2, Spanish 3, Spanish 4)
Expand students’ oral fluidity by learning rejoinders. (all levels)
Expand students’ greetings repertoire.

_1_Instructional Video – Lo veo – Paper from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Spanish Two Pre-Class Bellringers with level1 Questions 10 weeks low prep from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Students feel safe when they know what to do but are curious as to which picture will be used today. It is the right blend of routine and innovation. Give yourself a bit of grace starting each class with one of these and not stress about taking care of your administrative tasks while the students are engaged.

Spanish Rejoinders Replicas Musical Video from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Spanish AP Upper Level Writing Transition Words from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

4-saludos-y-hola2 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

These videos are available in other languages.

Click here for English Videos

Click here for French Videos

Click here for German videos

Click here for Italian videos.

Click here for Mandarin videos

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Where is the Middle Ground between CI Comprehensible Input and Traditional Instruction for World Language Teachers?

June 30, 2018 By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

Is there a middle ground between traditional instruction and comprehensible input?

Over 100 people responded within a few hours to a teacher’s plea on FB that there must be a middle ground between CI and Traditional Instruction. So much of the debate revolves around the definition of each that many people focused on three points:

to teach grammar or not to teach grammar
to start with a vocab list or to create vocab lists based on students’ interest
to confuse TPRS as CI when TPRS is one method under the CI umbrella

Many teachers have the freedom to craft their curriculum as they work in a supportive environment for such creativity. But for many of us, our students must pass district wide traditional assessments and will be forwarded the following year to traditional teachers who will complain to our superiors that our students are ill-prepared for their traditional teaching. Some of these traditional teachers have deep-rooted social skills and connections and their criticism could jeopardize the previous teacher’s job or at least create a hostile environment as they tarnish their colleague’s reputation.

How your department supports diversity in delivery instruction is important.

Some teachers have administrators who expect to see the students producing the spoken language immediately, while other teachers have the freedom to sustain an input-only environment. Some middle school teachers need to focus on students from very diverse elementary schools working well with everyone in the class as part of building social skills while some high school teachers never even consider this. Some teachers teach upper levels, some only the first entry level.

So what is the middle ground? For me, as a Spanish One teacher, I teach all of the vocabulary words and grammar points that ‘must be covered’ and teach my students how to use the text and conjugation charts to survive the teachers they will have the following year. (One year I never showed the conjugating box, although my students could tell you which verb sounds right with the different subject pronouns. My former students came back to me in tears that they were belittled as their current teachers hand out a year-long packet of blank conjugation boxes to be filled in. Oops!)

If you pass your students on to verb chart proponents, your students must learn how to navigate them.

This is my protection armor so that there is harmony in my department and my students aren’t belittled for having had me.

However, I teach using 90% target language and 100% comprehensible input. I script my daily lessons with over 100 slides and use transitional musical videos to stay on task and in the target language. These transitional videos structure my daily lesson while the actual activities are so varied – including movietalk, readings, native-speaker listening and matching activities, embedded readings, daily news from the BBC Mundo, stories about our Pandilla, song of the week, music, dance, brain breaks, and many other great activities that CI purists endorse.

brain break from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

The music in the Spanish transition videos create a direct and speedy path in the brain to spontaneous output.

And I include paired practice and many spontaneous speaking activities that purists believe are a waste of time as the input is from a fellow student.

Spontaneous Speech Guessing Numbers in Level One from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

I include a picture from the culture of different countries and have the students consider “lo veo, lo observo, me pregunto” as a prompt for higher-level thinking skills.

It takes them beyond the English-Spanish translation and forces them to discern what they see from what they observe. It encourages them to ask more questions and wonder rather than just make a judgment.

I also include Textivate for writing and Quizlet for practice for department tests, and do a daily two minute review of previous vocabulary using amazing visuals created by my Venezuelan graphic artist that show racial diversity.

STUDENTS NEED TO SEE THEMSELVES IN THE CLASSROOM VOCABULARY — DAILY TWO MINUTE REVIEW OF VOCABULARY WITH RACIALLY DIVERSE CLIP ART

However, everything is in the target language and with visual and audio support it is 100% comprehensible and engaging. To ensure this, the class is sprinkled with checking in with a partner for meaning.

Each reflective language teacher has the responsibility of crafting his or her own teaching voice that blends theory with what actual works for his or her students and ensures continued employment. Many of us in the middle owe a huge debt to the CI social media groups who have made us better teachers. I thank the giants for their sharing their wisdom and making me a better teacher.

Yet some of us in the middle feel a bit underrepresented and invisible. Some of us are always insulted in social media for not being “CI” enough. (I can tell you right now who will leave a negative remark after I post this on FB.) It reminds me of what I learned from the US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION – if you only follow certain social media, you have a limited viewpoint while believing otherwise. There are many of us non – purists helping students acquire language. We are busy, we are quiet, but we are here, grateful to the purists, but crafting our own teaching voices.

Videos of my lessons are here.

Videos of my first week lessons are here.

Spanish Rejoinders Réplicas Musical Video with Compelling Comprehensible Input (CI) and Posters

June 25, 2018 By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

Add this Rejoinder Video to your lessons that teach them in context and you will be impressed with your students’ usage.

Spanish Rejoinders are taught in context with different stories, readings, videos, and routines.

Spanish Rejoinder Posters around the room are helpful, but listening to rejoinders in a catchy and compelling video seems to accelerate output. It’s not that students will watch the video once and learn 70 of them. Rather, as they are used in context, with the added layer of this video, students tend to have musical lyrics flow out of their mouths with spot-on pronunciation mimicking the native singer.

It also provides a visual for those who need images to retain, and words, for those who need to see the spelling.

I am teaching a new prep this year – Honors part two and look forward to using this as a review. This video frequently sparks interest in students as they gravitate to those that have yet to be taught explicitly. It rouses curiosity and frequently students become enamored with a few phrases even before they are official taught/targeted. Teach your rejoinders in context and add this to the posters around your room.

Here is a two minute video of my experience and the resultant rejoinder video we created to help raise money for three Venezuelan families.

Spanish Rejoinders Replicas Musical Video from ellen shrager on Vimeo.;

Purchase Here

The Best Way to Group Students to Ensure a Wonderful Community – Use CI and TCI for this weekly task in many languages.

March 31, 2018 By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

I am passionate about students not being allowed to choose their partners! They have seat partners for quick activities and weekly partners for longer activities.

I believe you are abdicating your responsibility as a caring adult in charge when you let them choose their own partners.

I directly explain to them the first week using a child’s book how important it is to learn to work with everyone: we need everyone and his or her unique strengths. I tell a story from my first year teaching about a boy who stopped coming to school because he was so lonely and how when he returned he actually saved a girl’s life. I also use the book “Taky the Penguin.” All of this is outlined in my book, Teacher Dialogues. The relevant excerpt from my book is included with the musical video, Partner of the Week.

Every Monday we do random partners using cards for groups of 2, 3, and 4. Before we take the cards, we sing the ¿Quién Será? and the students watch the video and imitate it. They line up and keep the cards close to their chest until we count down and they look for their partner. It is also available in French, Italian, English, German and Mandarin. They stay on task and in the target language and hand me the cards and start the activity as the instructions are on the board for it. I make a slide show for each class with a slide for each activity and a transition slide in between activities. I use a remote presentation device or mouse so I can stand anywhere in the room while I teach.

_13 Quién Será Pls no posting (1) – trimmed from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

MBMF_13 Camarade Pls no posting – trimmed from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

MBMSpanish_13. Random from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

MBMI_13 Random from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

MBMM_13 Random Pls no posting – trimmed from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Since I started doing this twenty years ago, I consistently am told by substitutes and administrators observing me that I have the nicest classes and everyone gets along. I hear about the drama of who can’t work with whom in other classes but it doesn’t apply to our class, unless there is a court order or something of that magnitude. I have people tell me how lucky I am, but the reality is that I create an all-accepting environment. I was just out for a few weeks because of tonsil surgery, and the sub keeps telling me how every year that she has been in the building my classes present the least problems.

Start your year with this high expectation that everyone graciously works with everyone and one day in the spring you will look around your class and realize they have learned a valuable life skill of getting along.

Add this video to the mix and students will almost love Mondays. The video had the layout for labels to print the grouping cards, the video, and the book excerpt.

All net proceeds from the sales of these videos go to support three Venezuelan Families who make these videos for us.

You can help some starving Venezuelans — All net proceeds go to help three Venezuelan Families to survive their economic crises.

More info here for Spanish.

More info here for French.

More info here for German.

More info here for Italian.

More info here for English.

More info here for Mandarin.

#1 Reason Why Smart Parents Do Not Text Their Children at School

March 29, 2018 By Personal thoughts and beliefs of E.B.Shrager - do not represent those of any past or current employer.

Smart parents show restraint. — Misguided parents will be unhappy with the unintended consequences of their fears dictating constant communication with their children.

At a recent national conference, teachers shared their stories with me about a shift in the past two years: parents feel entitled to exchanging texts with their children all day while they are in school.

Previously parents would text info for after-school logistics that would be read at the end of the school day.

Now they micro-manage their children’s experiences – preventing their children from connecting with other adults in the school community. The African proverb about needing a village to raise a well-adjusted child has been replaced with isolation and the sole lifeline to mom and dad. This creates anxiety for the students and satisfies some need of the parents.

But the good feeling that parents experience by satisfying that need is fleeting because their child doesn’t learn to self-soothe, doesn’t learn to trust and work with other caring adults, and doesn’t learn to independently negotiate sticky situations. Some parents are smug that their children can live in their house for as long as they want. They are the lucky ones, because what these misguided parents don’t see coming on their horizon is that when their child becomes sexual, their sexual partner will replace the parents. Their child’s sexual partner will be the one who is called for every decision and the partner is not going to share with the parents. Their child is used to one lifeline, and it can’t continue to be the parents because of sexuality. These parents will be appalled at how their child is attracted to someone who isolates him or her from others. They will struggle to see that it is a natural consequence for their actions. These parents can’t believe that they were so close to this child and now they only see the child on certain holidays on certain years. One such pair of parents were horrified when the new spouse explained the Christmas visitation schedule: one year with her parents, one year with his parents and the third year just the couple and no parents.

The rise in parents unable to leave their children alone for seven and a half hours a day while they are in school coincides with another shift that recent research attributes to social media and cell phone usage: a rise in student anxiety. Many schools now have ‘quiet rooms’ for anxious students. While in the past teachers sought out anxious parents to help soothe the transition for them and their students and eliminate the anxiety, not all parents think the anxiety they have and the consequences it has on their children is a bad thing. Some parents judge the quality of their parenting by their level of anxiety. When one parent was asked if she felt better about her child going to a new school after a tour of the new building, the mother replied, “Oh, no, you have to understand, I have been the most anxious parent since kindergarten and nothing will change that!” She was proud of her anxiety as if that would win her “The Best Parent Ever “award.

Good parenting is more of a marathon than a sprint. If your goal is to raise wonderful, independent adults, help yourself and your children by not texting them all day while they are in school. Let them develop other adult resources to help them navigate through their day. Start in middle school/junior high and show restraint. Help them to negotiate social situations in advance with “what if” scenarios. Strategize with them how to approach teachers about makeups and missing grades. Equip them and then let them try it and wait until the school day is over to get your report. If they are upset and have to get through a couple of hours of being upset, it doesn’t make you a bad parent – it makes you a good parent who is developing some age-appropriate inner strength.

It just might help you to stay in better contact with them when they are adults by choosing partners who share and not isolate.

If your child takes Spanish, consider donating these videos to their Spanish teacher to play at the beginning and end of class. All net proceeds go to three desperate Venezuelan families who create them.

Stay on task and in the target language by having students put away their phones.

Purchase here to help support some desperate Venezuelans.