HOMEWORK

3/27/2010

Connection with Marzano

I believe homework is very important component of language learning as Marzano says it is an instructional technique. If you do not use Spanish every day, you will lost it. More exposure to Spanish is better. That was my belief, which during this student teaching, it started to make me rethink about it.

There are a lot of intertwined considerations I have to take into account, than simply said "more exposure is better."

The amount of HW is very difficult to decide. To the motivated students, the amount I have been giving might not be enough while to non-motivated students it was absolutely too much.

To those who want to do more, upon returning I wrote the comment of "if you want to expand your SPanish more, write a diary or 3 sentences a day about anything you did, you want to do etc, and turn it in for my correction. Two students actually did this activity weekly and have been turning in to me.

On the other hand, some did not even complete or turned in. The small amount of HW was too much because they do not want to do at all. Even for those who think it is OK if managable amount, too much HW could shut them down. creating not wanting to do at all.

Then I read on Marzano's book, "the purpose of HW should be identified and articulated. Yes, this is it! I should tell them why this HW is important, and after this HW, what they are able to do. I thought this could motivate them to do and turn it in.

Wrong.

My students are tougher than I expected. Some of them are absolutely non-motivated to begin with. They are in this class because they need to be in order to graduate, (not with their own will). I asked Ms. Ross how she is handling. It was very simple. Her HW is usually project based which requires more thoughts putting into it or online research, and my type of activities from Workbook and textbook are done during the class time period and turned in at the end. (thus most of students turn in.)

I started to do the same which improve the turn-in rate. But where is the 50 minutes instruction? Because they are allowed to help each other (cooperative learning), some students are just copying the answers from the able student. I don't think they are learning in this way.

Back to the my way of HW assignment. I give instruction and practice during the class, and they do HW activity (very small amount) outside of the class.

Of course, in the HW return, I write many feedbacks related to the learning progress and correction, as well as classroom participation level, the room for improvement, personal comment, encouragement etc. Amazingly I started to receive more participation from the students who used do other class's assignments during my Spanish class (because that has been OK to do so.)

It might be a little late, but I established my way of HW expectation. To those who missed the class, check Ed-line. (My weekly lesson plans as well as HW is listed on there.). Each HW is due next day and has 10 points to turn-in plus 0-100 points depending upon the correct answer rate. I not only gave them this rule in writing, but have them read aloud in class.

Sure they hate the authority, and I think I lost some students' interest and cooperation due to this policy, but in the end I needed to do what I needed to do. (I cannot save all???)

My last assignment was given this past Friday which they moaned when they received.

As a last stage of my student teaching in Unit 3, the HW was given as follows.

Instead of another written test, we will have an oral performance sessions on next Wed (3/31) and Thu (4/1). You and your partner will create a dialogue in Spanish using the vocabulary and grammar from Lesson 3A and 3B. In this dialogue, it should be a format of A-B-A-B-A-B so that each presenter has at least 3 lines to talk. The grading criteria (100) is:

1. inclusion of the content of Lesson 3A and 3 B (30)

2. Spanish pronunciation and understandability (20)

3. Without paper (you both need to memorize the dialogue) (25)

4. Before you present to the class, you and your partner need to turn in the written form of your dialogue to me. (25)

HW is to start making the dialogue with the partner. Decide the part, and memorize the dialogue. Some students even asked me if I would give them a time to work on it during the class period. I usually would not like it, but I said I would because this project needs cooperation from the partner which can be difficult to do for some students during the outside of the class period.

Another reason for agreeing to provide the time during the class is if this is solely the work at home, I would not know how they memorize the dialogue with correct pronunciation. I would rather them memorize it correctly, than doing at home.

Thus, lesson for me is that I really have to put the thoughts into HW. I think I need the entire summer to look into the textbook and develop UbD/DI including HW as an instructional (effective) tool.

The fifth week (03/22 Monday - 03/26 Friday)

We basically did not have SPRING BREAK (of Marshall University), because we are teaching at schools.... :-(

Even though Ms. Ross had a family emergency and sent her sub teachers on two days this week, I did not get panicked. I felt pretty comfortable with students (have remembered all their names finally). What I did not expect was that they started to get tired of me because I make them WORK more than Ms. Ross. Every lesson is involved with lots of speaking, listening, writing notes, and reading. At first, it was fresh, but now I think many students who are not used to work work work, they use my nationality and culture as excuse, saying "Mrs. Egnor, you are Japanese, but we are Americans and not used to work hard like that." WHAT a bull----

But I know all about it, because my kids sometime use similar bull-excuses. :-)

I tell them "if you think so, this is a great opportunity to learn the virtue of WORKING HARD.!!"

It is always difficult to do after some other teachers when students are not get used to do in MY way. That is something I need to get used to, and learn to collaborate with other Spanish teachers. I often ask questions what and how they are teaching to other Spanish teachers too.

I wish the teachers have more opportunities to discuss formally (not just during the lunch or ISE day), but at least once a week or so.

Connection with Marzano

I want to talk about cues in lesson 10. I try to use lots of cues, instead of just giving them an answer. For example, when I am introducing new vocabulary, I purposefully do not use English translation of the words until they come up with one. (However, after they have an idea of the meaning of the words, I give them English translation to confirm their idea).

When I am introducing the word "el semáforo," which is difficult to guess from English, "the traffic light", they usually have clueless about its meaning. Instead of giving them the translated word, I tell them "cuando el semáforo está rojo, no puedes cruzar (when the SEMAFORO is red, you cannot cross), pero cuando está verde, sí puedes (but when it is green, yes you can cross.)" It is now sort of a riddle they have to solve, so they listen to my explanation, guess, and usually they get it. Then I show them the back of the flashcard that is spelled "el semáforo" which they will learn how to spell the word in Spanish, and orally confirm it is the traffic light (I do not need to help them spell "traffic light.")

As for Advance organizers (lesson 10), again, each unit has the big theme, and I am currently teaching Unit 3 Community. In the part 3A was more focused on the places to go and do such as pharmacy to buy toothpaste, medicine, or bank to cash the cheque etc. The 3B was the vocabulary of driving and safety.

I made an graphic organizer of vocabulary. Instead to just arrange the orders of words that appear in the text, I made the students categorize with the related words, using my graphic organizer. (in bold letters were new vocabulary)

place--------what to do-----------what things

farmacia ---comprar--------------- el cepillo de dientes, la pasta denta, el champú

el banco-------cobrar-----------------un cheque

la biblioteca --devolver ------------ los libros

----------------- sacar----------------los libros

------------------leer /estudiar-----------los libros

In this way, they construct Spanish sentence much easier than just memorize one by one. Chunking the vocabulary and memorizing together is most useful.

As Marzano says that advance organizers are most useful with information that is not well organized (p118), just memorizing all the vocabulary would be caotic and forgetful, and effort in vain. However with this organizer, the students can memorize the vocabulary as a chunk which is, in reality, much useful in comprehending the language.

I did the math!

I did the math.

75 hours of students teaching = 3 hours a day x 25 days......

25 days ÷ 5 days (a week) = 5 weeks......

One blog a week means only 5 blog postings................. I need to post two a week until I finish my student teaching (because Dr. Cartwright wants us to post 8 blogs in total).

OK, what am I going to talk about???

Connection with Marzano

I would like to talk about Nonlinguistic Representation (Chapter 6).

As a language teacher, nonlinguistic representation is definitely essential because many students do not know what I am talking about if I talk only in Spanish or in Japanese. I use lots of gestures, facial expression, and acting while I talk in only Spanish, and eventually I decrease the amount of those movement so that they can understand what I am saying by only listening the sound.

Language learning includes 4 disciplines (reading, listening, writing, and speaking). It is so easy to focus only on reading and listening because those two disciplines are more passive and receptive than other two. In the English literature class, it may be OK to focus on reading and writing, but in the class of foreign languages, we need to do all four disciplines.

In order to have students engage more in speaking, I use lots of pictures (without English). For example, when I introduce new vocabulary, I make a flash card with only pictures and the Spanish words on back, like the one I did for the peer teaching. In that way, the students were not relying on English to comprehend Spanish. They repeat after me for the correct pronunciation, as well as those oral movement will enhance the memorization of vocabulary by listening the sound, not just relying on the visual help to memorize the vocabulary. This type of practice is NOT utilized that much in the classroom of foreign languages.

Unfortunately at first I observed the teacher assigned the students to copy and write all the new vocabulary on the notebook and turn it in during the class, and she announced that there will be a vocabulary quiz on Monday (3 days to study for it). Yes, they might memorize all the vocabulary correctly by Monday, but where is the instruction of how to pronounce correctly and how to listen and understand what it means by auditory? This part of practice is so important to be able to communicate in Spanish.

I think the flashcard activity including repeating after the teacher may be childish to some students (but they don't know how effective in language learning), and some students who are not used to my way of learning have been expressing great discomfort. (which I believe they have been focused on intensively visual, and not enough auditory and kinesthetic learning.)

Although I believe I want to continue my way of vocabulary learning, I need to be aware of students' discomfort, and direct them to be comfortable with the new way of learning. Because I am also a strong visual learner and have experienced the same discomfort once, I now can understand what they have been through.... and because I speak 3 languages, I can convince them easier to bear with me..... :-)

As they become more comfortable speaking orally (which probably will not happen during my student teaching period), I would like to do other method of nonlinguistic representation which is "simulation." The students will be given a situation and create the dialogue in Spanish, and present to the class. This type of simulation exercises have been done in my Japanese classes and the students like this activity because they can demonstrate their creativity in Japanese (although some students do not like to present in front of the class).

Well, for now, for these Spanish 2 students with Chapter 3 (My community), since oral presentation would be too difficult, I assigned by next Friday (March 26) the students will make a poster sign (in Spanish) to express the rules in the community, such as Throw the trash in trash can, Don't drink or drive, Wear seat belt, pick up doggy crap... etc.. I am looking forward to the creative outcome of this assignment.

The fourth week (03/15 Monday - 03/19 Friday)

The fourth week was about Plan B!

I usually make lesson plans on weekend for the coming week, so that on Monday, I receive the approval from Mrs. Ross. Mrs. Ross wants me to place my lesson plans on her Ed-line. In this way the students who are absent can check what they have missed (although they have not fully utilized this Ed-line system :-(

Also according to Mrs. Ross, it is my protection and reasoning to leave no excuses for the students not to do the catch-up work. (great idea!)

Although I made lesson plans ahead of time, this week's experience was to have plan B and be FLEXIBLE because on Wednesday Mrs. Ross could not come to school, and she arranged the substitute teacher who extensively travelled around the world so that he could talk to the students about his experiences and inspired them. I knew that she would be absent, but I did not know that the sub teacher, Mr. D would take my teaching time to talk....

With his artifacts from south America displayed all over in the classroom, I decided to ask him to take over after a quick vocabulary review that I needed to do, and went on to the plan B which I believe, taking advantage the great opportunity of the guest speaker who happened to be the sub teacher for Mrs. Ross. His experiences in China to communicate with a Chinese doctor in Spanish had blown the students' mind. Stories of his Mexican wife who went to deep in Amazon in Bolivia and gift exchange with indigenous people were interesting. Usually students were very noisy but they were glued in his presentation. At first, Mr. D said I could do whatever I wanted including just carrying out my lesson plans and ignore him, but I am so glad I changed my plan A to plan B so that he could inspire the students. (However, that means I had to re-create the lesson plans for Thursday and Friday, and re-post on Ed-line. And I believe it worth the extra work!!)

Connection with Marzano

This week I used the Similarities and Differences (chapter 2) because Marzano says that they might be considered the "core " of all learning.

I did not want to just focus on language learning, and wanted them to know some hispanic culture. As the textbook suggests cultural connection with two Mexican artists, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, on Friday I planned to do some cultural exploration in English.

At first on Monday I assigned the students to research about one of these two Mexican artists by Friday, so that the students will be prepared some knowledge of unfamiliar Mexican artists, Frida and Diego. I allowed them to write down in English, because my focus for this activity is not a language learning, rather deeper understanding of history and culture.

On Friday those students who did the homework had a chance to present the information they researched to the class (unfortunately many students on 6th mod did not do the homework, even though I gave them a reminder throughout the week). Then I went over some more information on powerpoint, about their biographies, about their art (surrealism), and stories behind the paintings.

Then we compare and contrast these artists in Venn Diagram with the group. I used the student-directed activity which I anticipated the many different ideas from each group. However, I needed to give them a specific theme on similarity and differences, so half of the class was focusing on the biography (which I on-purposely assigned to the groups with difficulty), and the other half groups was focusing on the similarities and differences of artworks (which I assigned to the higher performance groups). In this way I was able to differentiate a little bit depending upon the students' ability. While the students were working on as a group, I moved around and checked every student's participation as well as answering some students' questions.

At the end, each group had a chance to talk about their outcome in Venn Diagram while I write on Smartboard what they said in order to create one big Venn Diagram as a whole class in each category of biography and artworks of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

Overall, the students were able to engage the activity, not just my boring lecture. Since I am going to have a vocabulary (Lesson 3B) quiz on Monday, I am going to add a question and ask them what they remembered about these two Mexican iconic artists.

What I liked about the activity of similarity and difference was 1) every student engaged in the activity, 2) I was able to differentiate depending upon the ability, and 3) they understood the class because performed in English, giving some struggling students a break from learning Spanish language (and I did receive more interested participation from these students.

The third week (03/08 Monday - 03/12 Friday)

There were two big things this week. One was that Dr. Huhn from Marshall University came to Cabell Midland High School and observed my lesson on Wednesday (March 10). I received many good comments as well as many points that I need to improve. It was a refreshing learning, receiving comments from someone professional, and her comments were precise such as "I have to be more careful for pronunciation because the students were picking up my Japanese-accented Spanish." (Dr. Huhn at right)

The second big thing was that I gave the students mini quiz. It was somewhat a mid-term of my student-teaching. We were finishing up Lesson 3A and moving on to Lesson 3B, which is still within the same unit of "My Community." Many students were nervous because I did not allow them to see the verb conjugation sheet for regular verbs (which Ms. Ross has been allowing them).

Connection with Marzano

This week I would like to talk about the feedback. First of all I would like to write the processes I took up to the quiz day (thursday) this week.

On Monday I announced the class that there will be a small front-back quiz on Thursday. Told them what to study (on which pages, past tense of irregular verbs, vocabulary of community) , and how to study for it because some of them don't know how to memorize.

On Wednesday, my entire lesson period was to review for the quiz while Dr. Huhn was observing me. We reviewed 6 irregular verbs, not only orally but how to spell them, expressing things to do in each place in the community, such as "we check out books in the library." In this way, they not only memorize the each word, but they can create the meaningful sentence using those words. I also provided the study guide, and went over the study guide.

On Thursday, I gave them the quiz. They looked so nervous, so I announced before the test, that my test is notorious to be difficult, but my grading is fairly easy until you will finally learn the materials on the quiz. My goal is that everyone learns the materials on the quiz, so do not worry. Just do your best. If you need, I might give you the second chance. (I did not tell them what, but I was already going to have them re-do the part(s) they missed for 1/2 of the points after I return the quiz result to them. In this way, they will look at the part(s) they have missed and will learn from their own mistake(s). )

Also the bottom of the quiz, the students had to answer (in English) the feedback for this class. "Write your feed back for this class. Are you learning something? Did you study for quiz? How are you (and I) going to improve our class?" This part worths 5 points because I believe that reflection is important in order to improve, and no one will score ZERO as long as they write something here.

I worked so hard until late to grade all the papers, because I wanted to return the quiz with my feedback on Friday (03/12). Otherwise the students had to wait until next Monday. As the research in Marzano's book tells us, the feedback should be timely, even better when feedback is given immediately after a test (p.97).

I used the corrective method, so that the students can not only see what they have missed, but also how to fix it. Many students had a spelling mistake of "sacar, yo form, preterite," because it is orthographically irregular (if it followed regular -ar verb conjugation, it should be sacé which many students wrote. But sacé is pronounced as "saSe" losing original sound of "saKar." In order to maintain K sound, it should spell as saqué.) Yes, it was very time consuming, but I wrote both correct answer(s) as well as explanation for each students.

I also made a note to myself (while grading) which part is most missed by many students, including this saqué, so that when I returned the quiz next day, I re-taught on the board to all the class.

Finally I wrote my personal comment to each student, such as your pronunciation is good, or I would like to see you more participating in oral drills etc. I tried to write something good and encouraging as well as some room of improvement that I want to see from each student.

Because the students do not receive the feedback like mine, some students seemed surprised to see my red pen words everywhere while others did not care the put it away immediately. I told them not to put it away and have them corrected their mistakes. I used the cooperative learning method if they had to ask their peers. That was the lesson for Friday: to make correction and turn it in for partial credit.

Even though there were many anxieties over my quiz without the conjugation sheet, most students made 40 points and above (50 points as full score) whereas 3 students (in the same sitting area) scored 11, 17, and 18 ( 2 girls and 1 boy). I need to pay more attention to those three during the class, or have them change the seat.

The second week (03/01 Monday - 03/05 Friday)

Week 2 was a big week. I started to actually teach....

I was given the chapter 3 (my community) for Spanish 2 classes. Therefore I teach on 5th mod with 29 SP2 students, and 6th mod with 16 SP2 students while SP3 students are taught by Ms. Ross concurrently. I teach the same content class twice.

What surprised me the most a week ago when I was making lesson plans for Chapter 3 was that the textbook has too much information. It is impossible to teach from edge of the chapter to edge of the chapter within 10-15 days. Moreover, in this textbook (Realidades 2), the vocabulary which the students never learned in the past sometimes appears, and they are supposed to guess from the context. If they are unfamiliar nouns, I think it is OK, but some of them are irregular conjugation of verbs that require difficult grammar explanation.

No wonder the students are overwhelmed, lost, and easy to shut down even before they open the textbook.

(The Japanese textbook I use here in USA and the textbooks that the Japanese students use in Japan are more compacted with "core information" as thick as a half inch for each subject. Therefore the teachers can teach from edge to edge, and have freedom to expand more depending upon the students' ability and comprehension levels. Because it is filled with "core information, " the students tend to pay more attention to the textbooks, while some treat it like a Bible of that subject.

Thus textbooks have more meaning to them, not as a reference book, and I felt that there is an urge to revise the textbooks completely in the USA.)

Connection with Marzano

This week I want to talk about the summarizing strategies in Marzano (Chapter 3). First of all, because the textbook has too much information, it is the teacher's job to dig the core information that is buried in the chapter. I had to know the subject (Spanish) really well to identify the key point(s) as much as I had to have a skill to summarize the important points, so that I can introduce to the students as clear as possible.

What challenged me this week was since I did not know the students' level of Spanish (and their learning styles), even though I was able to choose the "core information, " it was challenging to decide how much I can expand from the core information and how much I should use the textbook during the class. Ms. Ross doesn't like this textbook, so her advice was to use it nothing but a reference. She also added that it was up to me to use the textbook or not at all.

WOW what a choice! I asked my Spanish professor here at MU, and Dr. Huhn advised me that the goal for the teacher is to not use the textbook, but still teaching the content of the textbook.

This comment was almost culture shock to me where all the textbook matters.

Therefore I now know it is really important for teachers to be able to summarize that requires deleting, substituting, and keeping some information.

I asked Ms. Ross about students' knowledge of Spanish being the second year of learning, her answer was "none." On Monday (03/01), for my own reference (not reflecting to their grade) I gave them a pretest which was very basic introduction (Spanish 1, chapter 1-3), introducing myself in Spanish. Either they really did not know, or they forgot how to say self introduction in Spanish because they learned a long time ago, it was a disaster, proving Ms. Ross's word.

How am I going to teach them who don't know the basic of the basic?

Ms. Ross's answer was that we have to keep going. :-(

Well then, again it is my opportunity to summarize the important point as clear as possible. Chapter 3 deals with the past tense (preterite) with irregular verbs (ir/ser/poner/poder/estar/tener/hacer). After reviewing the past tense constructions of regular verbs, I on-purposely had them practice orally to conjugate. Many students were not used to my style of oral-instruction, so they asked me to write on the board. I was expecting this would happen, and assured them to give them a chance to write after repeating after me orally. I am so glad to find out that some students want to take notes. Now how to take notes is getting important when there are too much information.

Fortunately the workbook has a compliant exercise, and well organized vocabulary section with graphic organizer. After the oral practice, I went over one more time orally as I allowed them to copy and write on the workbook. Now it makes the connection of the Spanish sound and spelling. Thus they are exposed to new irregular verbs in auditory and visually.

Next week on March 10th (Wednesday), my professor, Dr. Huhn is coming to observe me.

I hope I can do as normal as possible.

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The behaviors of students with me were so disrespectful, listening ipod and doing games on cell phone because I jumped into teaching in the days when Ms. Ross was allowing them to do.

On Wednesday (03/03), I gave each class 10 minutes lecture for how rude to me, and made it clear with my expectation of classroom behavior. Since then they understood me, and giving attentions. :-) I should have done that on the first day ( not the third day).

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Lastly (I am sorry it is not related to this class). It is an assignment of Dr. Watson (CIEC 660) to create students' performance on Video. This is my students (Japanese 3/4) oral performance in Japanese, talking about self introduction, their favorite things to do, eat, etc. These students will come and compete in the SCORES that will be held at Marshall on April 17. I would like to do similar things for Spanish students in the future.