42 minute read
Session 7: Class Survey
Objective
Advertisement
By the end of class, you will be able to…
(NOTE: The example objectives and lesson are given in French; they can be used with any language. You can download materials in multiple languages from our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff), or use the examples to make your own materials.
Beginner: write words or phrases in French to describe the class's preferences about (topic)
Intermediate: write two or more sentences in French write words or phrases in French to describe the class's preferences about (topic), using transition words to say more
Advanced: write a paragraph in French to describe the class's preferences about (topic), using transition words to say more and organize your paragraph
Preparation
For the next lesson, in Session 8, which is another Card/Slide Talk, this time about preferences, you will probably want to tell the class to think about their favorite/least favorite example of the topic you want to address in the Card/Slide Talk about Preferences lesson, if you are planning to do Card Talk. If you are planning to do Slide Talk, you will most likely assign them the task of uploading their images to the class’s slideshow as homework, or set aside some time in class, either at the end of this lesson or the beginning of the Slide Talk lesson, for them to upload their images. The example lesson in Session 8 is “weird chores,” so if you plan to use that topic, you might want to check out Session 8 before assigning this task to students.
To prepare the Class Survey, you can choose to use picture prompts, such as the ones in the example lesson, which you can download from our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff), or you can simply make a chart on the board or overhead projector (using pen and paper or a digital format like Google Docs) in which you can record students’ responses to your questions about their preferences. You can choose any topic about which to survey your class. The example from our TpT store is about the topic of shopping and restaurants.
If you are going to make your own survey, you will first want to choose the topic. You might have topics that you need to cover, or that you and your students find interesting. Some possibilities are: foods (pizza, cookies, fruits, etc.), types of cuisine (Italian, Chinese, Thai, etc.), types of locations (the beach, the city, the mountain, etc.), sports/activities (theatre, baseball, soccer, etc.), or clothing (dresses, suits and ties, boots, etc.). Of course, there are an almost-unlimited number of possible topics. Basically, you want a category (e.g. sports/activities) and then specific examples within that category (e.g. soccer, debate, theatre, basketball). Generally, about eight specific examples is a good number to work with.
Soliciting Students’ Ideas for the Specific Examples in the List
You can either pre-select the specific examples, or, if you want to solicit more student input and tailor the lesson to your students’ specific interests within the larger category, you can simply decide on the topic (e.g. sports/activities) and then generate a list of eight or so specific examples with your students during class. You would tell them - most likely in the class’s stronger shared language at the beginning of the Guided Oral Input time - that you are going to lead a class survey - a poll - of their favorite and least favorite sports and activities (or foods, or clothing, etc.), and then work with them to make a list, and then vote on the specific examples one by one, working your way down the list (or part of the list, if you run out of time in the Guided Oral Input portion of the lesson).
Because this is not demonstrated in the example lesson, here is a short demonstration of how that process might go.
(students talk, probably in their stronger shared language, for about 30 seconds.)
(Have your Class Starter, if you have one, give the signal to start French time, or give the signal yourself, and have your Videographer begin recording, if you have set that up. You might want to begin with a brief calendar check-in before transitioning to the class survey, as demonstrated below.)
(gesture)
(place your hand under the word “sports” on the grid you have drawn, and sketch a little drawing that represents sports, perhaps a baseball).
(gesture)
(place your hand under the word “activities” on the grid you have drawn, and sketch a little drawing that represents activities, perhaps a music note).
(model a couple of examples to begin the list)
(write “football” in the course language and sketch to reinforce the meaning)
(place your hand under “sports”).
(write “basketball” in the course language and sketch to reinforce the meaning)
(place your hand under “sports”).
(gesture)
(place your hand under the word “sports”)?
(gesture)
(place your hand under the word “activities”)?
(students call out various sports and activities, most likely in English)
(write “debate” in the course language and sketch to reinforce the meaning)
(place your hand under “activities”).
(Continue until you have a list of six to ten (more or less) sports/activities.)
(gesture)
(place your hand under the word/sketch).
(gesture with one hand raised and the other indicating the class)
(write “loves” in the course language and draw a sketch, perhaps a heart)
(place your hand under the word/sketch “football”)?
(You can either write students’ names or make tally marks to record the class’s responses. Both options are illustrated below.)
(gesture)
(place your hand under the word/sketch).
(gesture with one hand raised and the other indicating the class)
(write “likes” in the course language and draw a sketch, perhaps a thumbs-up)
(place your hand under the word/sketch “football”)?”
(Tabulate students’ responses, using names or tally marks. Continue in this fashion, adding other responses (e.g. “does not like” and “hates/loathes/detests with the fire of a thousand suns”) and tabulating them. Then proceed to survey the class about the next example in the list (in this example, basketball) and tabulate students’ responses.)
Preparing a Class Survey using Pictures
You can also prepare a slideshow, Jamboard, Padlet, or other interactive digital format and use pictures of the specific examples (e.g. football, debate, theatre, soccer) to conduct the survey. You can choose to share the digital file with students so that they can enter their own responses, or you can simply use the slideshow to tabulate students’ responses through shows of hands, after which you can type into the file to record their answers.
The most basic way to do this is to have one slide per example, and perhaps a “key” at the top of each image, to help you tabulate the responses, as shown in this example. I made the slide background in Canva, which has a large collection of graphics. You can get a free “educator” account that gives you access to the “pro” library of images (photos and graphics) from Canva, and I highly recommend it, because as a language teacher, the graphics really come in handy for supporting comprehension. It works best to set the image as the the slide background and then add text boxes to type students’ responses on the slide.
If you want to set up your Class Survey to be more like a Visual Survey, you would just make slides with pictures or graphics to represent each example (e.g. a slide for theatre, a slide for soccer, etc.) and then have the “voting” slide at the end, with all the examples together, so students can vote all at once, after you have discussed their preferences on the individual slides.
You can also download our Class Surveys that are aligned to Cycle One Phase Two, in multiple languages, from our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff). Now, we will move on to the lesson procedures for the example lesson, using a digital Class Survey on various places to go in town (restaurants, shopping, etc.).
Norming the Class
Continue to greet the students in English, review where to put their things, etc., remind them briefly that they need to work together to focus and listen. Remind them that each day the first activity of class will be reading. You might want to tell them that the lesson today represents a slight “pivot” away from describing settings, moving into describing people, or more specifically, their preferences - what they like, what they don’t like, what they hate, etc. You might tell them that to begin the lesson, you will read about foods and mealtimes.
If you are using our materials, you might also want to tell them that we are also pivoting in the format of the Reading Workshop texts we will use in this phase, and that we will read brochures. If your students are unfamiliar with what a “brochure” is (in today’s non-paper world), you might bring in some examples to show them. You could even spend the entire Reading Workshop today passing around some brochures written in
German Beginner Reading Workshop Text: Brochure
the course language, and simply allow students to look them over, perhaps working with a partner, to see what information they can derive from them, as a less teacher-centered Reading Workshop lesson to kick off this phase.
Another note on our materials is that beginning in Cycle One, Phase Two, each lesson includes four levels of texts: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Plus. The Plus reading is designed for upper-level students, or any students needing additional challenge, such as Heritage learners and native speakers of the language.
German Intermediate Text
German Advanced Text
German “Plus" Text
A Note on the Videographer
If you have not yet set up your Videographer, I urge you to do so now. The benefits are so valuable. If you have already been using the Videographer, and you have a little collection of class videos, I encourage you to start watching a few each week, without much of an agenda, just to see what you can see as you observe yourself.
It’s truly surprising how powerful this practice can be, even if all you ever do is watch your videos in this nonchalant, unfocused way. You will make enormous strides if you can get over the initial awkwardness (or, let’s be honest, the initial paralyzing, incapacitating, abject fear) of watching yourself on video. It is worth it.
And the abject fear will soon shrink into just slight awkwardness, and then (in my experience, at least) into a real appreciation for yourself, and a deep feeling of ownership of your strengths, and a sense of empowerment to tackle your “flaws” or “growth areas.”
Your growth areas probably won’t find, examine, and correct themselves. If that were the case, they probably would not still be areas of growth for you. So, you really have two options. Hope that they go away magically on your own, if you ignore them long enough…or take the first real step in correcting them: SEEING them, acknowledging them, and being honest with yourself about your own teaching practice, skills, and persona.
That’s right. ME GUSTA watching myself on video…NOW. I was a pile of nerves at first. But it was THE MOST VALUABLE professional development I ever undertook. And I want that for YOU!
If you have not done so already, I urge you, encourage you, I beg you, I beseech you from the bottom of my heart, to consult the HR Manual in the Appendices for more information on this job.
Reading Workshop
Find That Cognate
Hand out (or project/display) the Reading Workshop text. You might make your own, use the ones in our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff), or read a Shared Writing text from a previous lesson. Then, share the lesson objective if you have not already done so, check in with your Class Starter (and perhaps Videographer, I beseech you, Reader), and begin the lesson.
See the notes in Session One for detailed instructions on how you might conduct this Reading Workshop strategy. Note that I am re-using the simplest Reading Workshop strategy possible, Find that Cognate, because this text is, while still quite simple, a more challenging passage than the cognate readings that were used in Cycle One Phase One. So, in order to reduce students’ cognitive load, when transitioning to this more challenging format, I have chosen to re-use this very simple strategy so that the format of the task is as simple as I can possibly make it, as the content of the text is more complex and challenging.
Distribute or display the text. Once the students can see the projected text, or they have it on their desks, you can proceed.
(if the students have a paper copy, you might say “mark the text”)
(you can say them in English).”
(Shawn gives the signal. You take a deep, calming breath and center yourself to lead the class through a simple, very comprehensible task.)
(Place your hand or pointer on the title of the text and begin reading in a slow yet fluid way, moving your hand or pointer through the text as you go. Resist the temptation to stop and establish meaning. The goal is for students to actually read through the text in its entirety with you, looking for cognates.)
(Read the text aloud in the language.)
(Once you have read the entire text, point to or circle a very obvious cognate and ask for its meaning in the class’s stronger shared language.)
(Students answer. Then you write the English on the text, and spell it, saying the letters in the course language, as demonstrated below.)
(saying letters in French). Fascination.”)
(Repeat with another cognate, or solicit students’ noticings, perhaps similarly to what is modeled below.)
(gesture).
(gesture)
(might need to write this in the course language and the class’s stronger shared language to establish meaning)?”
(Getting back into the language, and repeating the same words that you just used in that little English aside,)
(gesture)
(gesture)
(Students answer, probably in English.)
(spelling in French)
Take a few more cognates or (if no one volunteers) continue asking questions like the first one modeled above. After a few minutes, you will want to move into the Guided Oral Input, with a short calendar check-in and then the Class Survey.
Guided Oral Input
Class Survey (Preferences)
It is suggested to continue the routine of a brief (2-3 minutes) calendar check-in, which (1) creates an opening/transition routine and (2) continues to reinforce, daily, and in a meaningful context, important vocabulary such as the names of the months and days, weather, numbers, preferences, and activities. For guidance on how to gradually introduce new topics/vocabulary into this daily routine, please see Session Five.
(gesture and pause to sweep the class with your eyes to check for understanding)
(jot “3” somewhere, perhaps on the board)
(Some kids call out “September”)
(write 3 on the calendar).
(point)
(point)
(Some kids call out “Wednesday!” )
(point)
(point)
(point)
(write the word year in French on the calendar, and perhaps spell it out as you do so)
(jot “2021”)
or 2022
(jot “2022”)
(Some kids call out “2021!” )
(point)
(point)
(point)
(write “2021” by the word “year” on the calendar)
(Walk over to the window, or display the weather forecast, if you have no windows.)
(gesture)
(walk to the window and point).
(gesture)
(gesture)
(point/hold up a visual aid that says “windy” in a “windy way” in your course language, like the examples provided, or establish a gesture)
(use visual or gesture)
(Students answer, in English or French, depending on ability/inclination, Windy!/Rainy!/No!)
(depending on answers, you might write or place a visual aid on the calendar).
(gesture)
(gesture)
(Students answer)
(depending on answers, you might write or place a visual aid on the calendar).
Then, you will move on to the Class Survey. At the beginning of this session, you will find an explanation and lesson demonstration of how you might proceed if you want to draw a graph to collect students’ responses. This example lesson uses the Class Survey from our Teachers Pay Teachers store (CI Liftoff), on shopping and places in town. As explained above, you can use any topic as long as it is a category and at least four or five specific examples (e.g. in the category of “school subjects,” the specific examples might be chemistry, biology, algebra, Spanish, and performing arts). This is a good chance to “angle” the input to work with any required vocabulary to which you might need or want to expose students.
If you have required vocabulary or grammar, please take careful note of the information below. It is presented here in the hope of saving you a lot of stress.
Important Notice
Please do not rely on your communicative language teaching to achieve the objective of students’ memorizing lists of required vocabulary, or, for that matter, being able to manipulate grammar features in the language. These are conscious learning objectives.
Communication in the language - giving students ample opportunities to process comprehensible language they hear or read, is the only path to building students’ acquired competence in the language, BUT it cannot do everything. For that reason, you are encouraged to use other strategies that activate students’ conscious minds if your objective is for them to memorize vocabulary so that everyone knows the same words. Or, at least everyone might remember them until the inevitable “brain dump” after the quiz or test; consciously-studied vocabulary is notoriously fragile unless reinforced by - wait for it - COMMUNICATION that USES the words in CONTEXT. Using the Page 198
language in a meaningful, engaging context is the topic of this book and the focus of our national standards, and most states’ standards.
In order to introduce or reinforce (NOT to “hammer into their heads” or “get them to memorize”) thematic vocabulary, you can often “angle” the topics of your lessons to EXPOSE students to the vocabulary in context. However, unless you ALSO engage them in some conscious learning (vocabulary games, flashcards, the Word-Off, anchor charts, etc.), you will not see consistent results for all students through this “exposure” approach.
It helps. It really does. If we can use the required words over the course of several lessons, ideally spread out over several weeks, months, or even years, we give our students a schema or “container” that they can “file” the vocabulary into, when engaged in conscious learning strategies.
If you can get comfortable with separating the language acquisition part of your course from the conscious learning part of your course, then you will find more peace and a surer feeling about this whole communicative language teaching thing. Please see the Appendices for more guidance on ways to plan lessons for conscious learning.
This lesson example uses a slideshow from our Teachers Pay Teachers materials, a Class Survey on places students like to go (e.g. restaurants, cinema, etc.). There are other options available on TpT as well, including the following slideshow on “Types of Teachers.” You might spend more than one lesson on this session, and if so, you might choose to return to the survey you conduct today, or conduct a different survey. Here are some slides from the “Types of Teachers” survey, to give you some ideas of other ways to conduct this lesson.
I love this survey; it is so fun! Please feel free to “steal” or use and adapt this or any idea in this book. If you want to purchase it ready-made, I will happily save you the work of re-creating it. But if you are the “hyperaustucieuse” type as shown above (super-crafty), please never, ever hesitate to remake ANY of the ideas presented in this book. That’s what you paid for; the ideas and inspiration and guidance! Go forth and teach and use these ideas however you want. I promise I will never pursue any hard-working teacher who is simply trying to educate kids on the limited budgets that decades of misguided public policy that has eroded the financial resources available to our profession have left us with. So, please, rest easy, and teach freely!
The example slideshow has four slides to determine what the class’s favorite place is, and then, for the most popular option, I will use one of the slides that give more details about the locations, to determine what their favorite thing is in that location.
Let’s move on to the lesson procedures.
First, create a table on the board, chart paper, in a digital format (like Google Docs, etc.), or on paper under your document camera, in which you will record students’ preferences as you work through the survey with them. An example of what the survey might look like is provided here. You can choose any expressions that describe preferences that you want to reinforce, or simply use the ones provided.
(gesture)
(put your hand under the word “survey” on the projected slideshow and write the translation).
(Proceeding on to the first slide)
(gesture)
(put your hand on the word or image of fast food)
(gesture)
(point).
(gesture)
(gesture)
(point)
(Students raise hands or call out, and you tabulate the results on the class chart, either writing their names or using tally marks.)
(If you write names, you might spell them out in the course language for additional exposure to the names of the letters in the language. If you use tally marks, you could count them aloud as you write the marks, for additional exposure to the names of the numbers in the language.)
(Continue through the other options you have chosen for preferences, such as “likes” and “does not like” until you have established the class’s preferences for all the options in the survey.
Establish the “winner” that the majority of the class likes best. You might not have time to go on to the next part today, and so you might move on to Scaffolded Oral Review at this point; you could return to the additional options for that choice in the next lesson and explore further details about what is the most popular option. For example, if the class favorite is clothes shopping, you might continue on to ask if they prefer shoe shopping, or shopping for athletic clothing, or shopping for fancy dress clothing.)
(Moving on to a slide that you have prepared that shows options for that choice. In the example, you see a slide in French that gives options for “films” — comedies, horror, Westerns, fantasy films, and animated films.)
example of a completed class survey
(gesture)
(Tabulate students’ responses. You might ask for examples of that option, such as titles or name brands, as shown in the example.)
(gesture)
(place your hand under the words to reinforce the meaning)?”
(gesture)
(Students may call out examples. Record students’ responses, perhaps spelling in the language as you write them, and then continue through the rest of the options in the same fashion.)
After you have spent about 10 to 12 minutes in the Guided Oral Input portion of the lesson, you may find that you have not made it through all the options. That is fine; you can simply move on to the Scaffolded Oral Review and the rest of the daily instructional framework with the information that you do have.
You might return to the rest of the options in the next lesson. Block classes are not scheduled to have another lesson using the Class Survey, so you will want to come to a stopping place in the second session of Guided Oral Input in this lesson.
Here are some examples from the French slideshow that show some possible options to extend the discussion of these topics, using the category of “clothing stores.”
These are a possible additional options for the topic of “restaurants.” You might have time today, or in the next lesson, to discuss one or more of the additional options. You will most likely want to prepare a set of extension options for each of the topics in the survey (in this example, “clothing stores,” “films,” “restaurants,”
and “fast food”) because you will not know ahead of time which one of the options will be the most popular in your class, so you will not know which set of additional options you will want to use.
If the discussion of a certain topic is super-compelling for your students, I urge you to challenge yourself to allow the discussion to linger on that topic, without feeling pressure to “cover” the other options. For example, you may end up spending the entire Guided Oral Input time (which is not that long, really, being only about 12 to 15 minutes in a short period and 20 to 30 minutes in a block period - broken up into two shorter sessions of Guided Oral Input) talking about the very first option of “fast food” because your students were so engaged in simply expressing their preferences about fast food. So this might mean that you never got to the other topics (in this example, the other topics woukd be “clothing stores,” “films,” and “restaurants”).
This is a natural aspect of a student-centered, communicative language course. Because we are basically engineering ways to conduct communication in the course language, the specific content of a given lesson is “up in the air” until we are actually in communication with our students during the lesson.
This is a very important point, and one of my main objectives for you in writing this book in such long-winded detail. So please mark this passage if you see yourself and your concerns reflected in the following paragraphs, and you feel that you could stand to re-read it.
A Very Important Point
Many language teachers transitioning to communicative language teaching find this aspect of the approach - not knowing in advance if they will cover the topic of “fast food” in detail, or if they will even get to the topics of “clothing stores,” “films,” and “restaurants” - can cause a measure of anxiety. For some of us, it is a great deal of anxiety. Many teachers like to plan out their lessons, of course, because we are teachers, after all, and generally as a group we are rather organized and like to know what the future holds. (Of course, there are also many teachers who thrive on the seat-of-your-pants, “cliffhanger” approach to planning lessons, so if that’s you, I see you, too!). For teachers of all personality types, however, not being able to predict what direction the conversation will take on a given day, and what specific content or words you will “cover” can be a source of some real stress.
Stepping Stones is designed to greatly reduce this stress and make communicative language teaching feel “safe” and doable, even for those of us who like to have everything planned out. It is designed to provide you a map, a pathway, a set of guardrails, and a schedule that you can plan out, in as much detail as you want or need, while leaving the specific topics and direction of the conversation open enough to allow you to respond to the in-the-moment engagement your students have for the individual topic.
If you can relax into the idea that you might not cover these topics at all in Cycle One Phase Two this time around, this year, in this class, you will be well on your way to one of the main benefits of the Stepping Stones curricular framework.
In another section of the same course, you might find that those students are not particularly engaged in the topic of fast food. Perhaps in Spanish One in second period, everyone had lots to contribute on the topic of “fast food” and so you really not have time to discuss any of the other topics (in this example, “clothing stores,” “films,” and “restaurants”) with that group. Then, to your surprise, in your other section of Spanish One, in seventh period, you might discuss all of the topics (in this example, “fast food,” “clothing stores,” “films,” and “restaurants”) with them. So, now what should you do, tomorrow? Does second period need to “catch up” to seventh period?
For many teachers, this is a real conundrum. Their two Spanish One classes have pretty much received two entirely different lessons! Here’s the big, important point:
This is how Stepping Stones is designed. It is designed for you to have the flexibility to respond to student interests, without one class “getting behind” another.
If you do not ever make it through all the options, that is fine. The goal of Guided Oral Input is to provide a mechanism for the class to participate in a communicative task in the course language. Here’s another big, important point.
Because this Class Survey is designed to elicit a discussion of preferences, you can rest assured that, even if you only “cover” one or two of the options, you will use the language function of describing preferences throughout the discussion, so you are “doing it right.”
Stepping Stones, as explained in Chapter Five, is designed to provide you with the maximum structure and also the maximum flexibility, with the least amount of prep and stress, once you have a solid foundation in the curricular framework and the daily instructional framework, and you are confident with a limited number of strategies to deliver the instruction within those frameworks. So, one of the main ways for you to relieve your stress when learning Stepping Stones this year is to allow yourself to not cover everything in a given lesson.
If you can keep in mind the fact that your goal is to conduct a communicative activity using the language function (in this case, describing preferences) and NOT to teach the specifics of the class survey (e.g. fast food, clothing), then it is my most sincere hope that you will begin to get more settled in your teaching, and drop into an easy flow, without the pressure to “cover” certain specifics or the uneasy feeling that one class covered Topics A, B, C, and D, while another only covered Topic B, because they were so engaged in that conversation.
You will probably see two huge benefits from this: (1) you will feel less stress and pressure and (2) you will be more relaxed in your lesson delivery, and you will allow yourself to linger on topics that are particularly interesting to your particular class, which will naturally and quite effortlessly tailor your instruction to your students’ interests and strengths, without the pressure to curtail an interesting discussion because you have to get to the option of “clothing stores” when the discussion of “restaurants” turned out to be so engaging to this particular group on this particular day.
Because there is no way for a curriculum writer (such as myself) to know what your specific students will find engaging and interesting on any given day, I have not developed a curriculum with specific material that you need to “cover.” Rather, I have developed a set of frameworks and strategies that move the instructional focus away from specific content and words, as much as possible, and that instead focuses on the kinds of language functions that are outlined in the ACTFL standards, performance guidelines, and Can-Do statements (e.g. describing people, narrating personal stories, expressing an opinion, etc.).
This kind of learning objective is general enough to allow you a great deal of latitude in the specific content that you choose to address, and in the instructional and assessment strategies that you choose to deliver the content and provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and evaluate their learning.
It is my very, very sincere hope that, as you work through this book, you will begin to trust that Stepping Stones “has your back,” that you will be able to reconceptualize the big learning objectives for your course(s) in terms of the language and literacy goals embedded in the curricular framework, so that you can feel
confident that language teaching in a communicative manner is doable, natural, and, as time goes on, more and more comfortable and effortless for you.
Now, we will continue on to the Scaffolded Oral Review portion of the lesson, which you will move on to after about 12 to 15 minutes of Guided Oral Input, regardless of how many topics you covered. Take a deep breath and move on; it’s going to be OK!
Scaffolded Oral Review
True-False Quiz
Move to your Review Spot. For a detailed explanation of the “True-False Quiz” strategy, see Session Three.
(gesture thumbs up)
(gesture thumbs down).”
Write the words for “true” and “false” in your language on the board, or have signs or other visual aids ready to use, or simply ask students, “Show me true, show me false” to help them learn and recognize the thumbsup and thumbs-down gesture you are using.
(hold up one finger)
(gesture or use visual aid)
(gesture or use visual aid)
(gesture)
(gesture)
(gesture/visual)
(gesture/visual)
(gesture)
(gesture)
(The class calls out, “FALSE!”)
(gesture or use visual aid).
(gesture)
(gesture)
(gesture)
(gesture)
(gesture/ visual)
(gesture/visual)
(gesture)
(gesture)
(The class calls out, “FALSE!”)
(gesture or use visual aid).
(gesture)
(gesture)
Repeat with more true-false questions if time permits.
Share dWriting
Write and Discuss
The actual contents of Write and Discuss will, of course, depend upon your class’s discussion from the lesson. You will follow the same procedure as in the previous sessions. If time permits, you might do a little Write and Discuss move called Writing More Than Originally Existed. See Session One for an example.
You will still most likely find that you only have time to write three or four sentences for Shared Writing. That is OK; you are still building the foundation in these first lessons, and even throughout the year(s) you might routinely only write a few sentences in any given Shared Writing session, so that you have time for the other lesson components in the daily instructional framework.
Your Shared Writing might sound something like this today:
Write: What our class
Say:
Students: LOVES!
Say and write:
Write: Our class LOVES
Say:
Class: Films! Watching films! etc.
Say:
(writing and spelling)
Reading/Recycling:
Say:
(gesture)
(or the WHOLE (gesture) class)
Students: No!
Say:
(hold up three fingers)
Students: 26!
Say and write :
(say “comma” in the course language)
but Say:
(gesture)
(gesture or point to the words)
(hold up one finger)
(two fingers)
(hold up three fingers)
(gesture)
(gesture or point to the words)
(one finger)
(two fingers)
Students: ONE!
Say and write: 2
Say:
(gesture or point to the word)
(gesture or point)
Say and write:
(say “comma” in the course language)
(say “comma” in the course language)
(verifying spelling of the name)
Reading/Recycling:
Time permitting, you might write more or less.
Shared Reading
The “Go-To” Daily Strategies
During Shared Reading, you will work with the text that your class just created together. You will continue to use the three “Go-To” strategies (or, for block classes, perhaps four strategies, if time permits). Today, Shared Reading might sound something like this:
Read in the Language
(reading with expression, and pointing to the words)
Choral Translation
(class reads: it???? what???…)
(sensing confusion, you circle the words “ce que (‘that which’, or ‘what’ in English)
(Write “that” over “ce” and “which” over “que”.).
So, when there are two words in French but only one word in English, we will just say what it literally means in English, as closely as we can, because we are translating every word, word by word. Let’s start over here.”
(class reads: that…which…????)
(sensing confusion, you circle the word “notre”) “This word means “our.” Let’s start over here.”
(class reads: that…which…our…class…loves…26…people…love…watching…???…the?)
(Please note that *technically* this would most likely say “voir” in French (the infinitive “to see”)
and so “watching” is not an exact match. But there has already been so much interruption and popup grammar, and it is not giving the students any problems comprehending, and I would most likely get super-lost in some grammar explanation of what an “infinitive” is, and most of my students would probably get really confused, because they generally don’t even have a concept in their stronger language(s) of what an “infinitive” is…
So, in a situation like this, I think to myself, “Whatever.” That’s a technical professional educator’s term for “We can return to this later, for the students’ cognitive load is heavy at this time.”
Just to return to the flow of class, you just heard the class read:
(class reads: that…which…our…class…loves…26…people…love…watching…???…the?) (sensing confusion, you say)
(class reads: that…which…our…class…loves…26…people…love…watching…the…films…but…) (continue in this fashion.) (sensing confusion, you say),
(Note: please think about how valuable it is for students to “back up” in the text and re-read the grammar point that you just taught them about, and how it is basically forcing them to interact with the language input again and again, to help reinforce the conscious learning they just undertook in thinking about the grammar point you were making.)
(class reads: 26…people…love…watching…the…films…but…one…person…Mateo…) (sensing confusion, you say),
(circling “ne”)
(circle “pas”)
(class reads: 26…people…love…watching…the…films…but…one…person…Mateo…not…like…not… watching…the…films…) (Continue in this fashion, time permitting.)
Grammar Discussion
(Lead a brief class discussion and circle any students’ noticings on the text, ideally using a second color, and perhaps writing the students’ name/initials by their contribution.)
To continue to Reading from the Back of the Room:
(You have walked to the back of the room) “We are going to discuss what we wrote. If you need to look back at the text, you can. It is right there. But if you can look back here and answer the questions, you will feel really smart and know that you are learning a lot of French.”
Your specific questions will vary depending on the content of the class discussion. As the book goes on, and you develop your skills, the example questions and content will be, gradually, reduced, as you strike out on your own. It’s kind of like learning to ride a bike. I have been pushing the bike along with you, and you have training wheels on, but gradually I will step aside little by little, and then we will raise your training wheels, centimeter by centimeter, and before you know it, you will look back and see me cheering you on, from way back in the carport, and you will wonder, “How did I get so good at riding this thing?” And then, my sincere hope for you is that you will grow so confident that you will be popping wheelies and doing all kinds of tricks that I cannot imagine now.
This book is written for you to outgrow it. This is the first little step. Simply keep your Shared Writing text projected, and look at it, and ask a few either-or, yes-no, true-false questions. Lob your students some easyto-hit softballs, and you will be amazed at how far you go, and how soon you get there. And if you ever want to refresh your memory on how this looks, you can always return to the sessions that provided more handholding, read over them, and use the examples I provide when the strategy is new, to get your mind wrapped around how it might look for the specific lesson you are implementing a familiar strategy in today.
Student Application & Assessment
Written Quick Quiz
Note: For a more detailed explanation of this strategy, please see Session 5 in which it was first introduced. Walk to your Quiz Spot. Please note that, even for a written quiz, it is highly recommended that you still use gestures, facial expressions, or even walk to the board or Shared Writing text, to point out visuals that might make the questions more comprehensible.
(hold up one finger)
(gesture)
(gesture to the class)
(gesture)
(hold up one finger)
(gesture)
(gesture to the class)
(gesture)
(hold up one finger)
(two fingers)
(gesture)
(gesture to the class)
(gesture)
(hold up one finger)
(gesture)
(gesture to the class)
(gesture)
(one finger)
Continue in this manner, perhaps asking three to five total questions, making sure to leave about five minutes at the end of class to grade them. For more details on suggested ways to use the in-class grading as a learning opportunity (as students listen to you restate the questions and check their answers, or a partner’s answers), please see Session Five.
At the end of the period, you might want to debrief with students, congratulating them on what went well, and setting goals or perhaps telling them that tomorrow they will be able to understand and say even more.
