Lesson Planning Strategies from 2 Foreign Language teachers

For this blog, I have interviewed two Spanish teachers; one teaches at Union High School and the other teaches at Grand Valley State University. I thought it would be interesting to see the differences in planning styles based on the very different schools, and how I believe I will use these techniques in the future.

With Union High School being somewhat chaotic in the classroom, planning is essential, but often times does not go as planned. The teacher at Union High School, Ms. C, really tries to plan a week in advance for all of the lessons. She says that many times, however, she will only plan one to two days in advance because the students do not get to everything that she had originally planned. She decides what to do based on the curriculum, textbook material, weekly objectives she has made, and most importantly, student abilities. She writes down all of her objectives, and checks them regularly to make sure that her students have clear objectives every day. Ms. C has a lesson plan notebook that she uses to quickly plan out what she is going to do on a given day. She also uses the lesson planning notebook for ideas and organization. At Union, however, they do not need to submit lesson plans, so she does not create anything formal. She uses the lesson plans she made as notes for herself during the class. The objectives are on the board not just for the students, but also for the teacher. She constantly checks her notes throughout class and believes this is a good skill to model for her students. After classes, she likes to reflect on what she did that day and journal.

The atmosphere at Grand Valley is very different than at Union because the students genuinely want to learn. For Mrs. G's classes, she usually prepares a semester or summer ahead of time, and then prepares specific assignments that she would like to do based on the type of class. For other courses, however, she already has a general sense of what she's doing, so she will just plan a few days ahead of time. For literature classes, she tries to divide the readings up so students have enough time to finish the material, and then in class students discuss what they had difficulties with in the readings. Mrs. G does not write down her objectives, but she keeps them in mind throughout her lessons. She doesn't have notes exactly, but she does have an outline of what she is going to do for each class. To stay organized, she uses powerpoints and also uses notes that she has already collected from the in-class texts. She always plans her own lessons unlike Ms. C, and doesn't really like to use teacher manuals. At the university level, the administration is less strict with the lesson planning, and there is much more freedom academically. In addition to the powerpoints, Mrs. G also uses index cards to take notes on the texts. During the lesson, though, she does not look at the notes with much frequency aside from the notes in her textbook or on the powerpoints. After the lesson, this teacher does not reflect so much on paper as she does mentally. She usually keeps all of her notes in a folder, and then just updates them as needed for the next classes she will teach.

Overall, I expected a lot more planning from both teachers. We always talk about how important it is to have a concise plan ready for the students, but with the chaotic life of a teacher, it is not always that easy to achieve a beautiful plan for every class. I have always been more for "winging it" in academics, and I feel that I may do the same during classes. At first, my planning will have to be day-by-day, but as the years go on, I can build off of my already planned material to make it better. I believe that the students are an important part of planning, and every class cannot be the same, so I will definitely take that into account when teaching in the future. I think that it is crucial to at least have some sort of notes ready for the class in case of a difficult student question or a misinterpretation of the material. I also like how Ms. C reflects after each day, that way she can go back and see how the lesson went and what things she needs to change. As I said before, I love to teach on the fly and build upon student interests, which may just completely destroy my original plan. However, I think that this is a good technique for getting students interested in learning.

Persuasive Letter for Foreign Language

Dear Board of Education,

It has been brought to the attention of many schools in the district that there are some parents, teachers, and administrators that do not believe two years of foreign language is necessary in schools today. As a student, first and foremost, I believe that foreign language is absolutely necessary in our ever-changing, diverse society. Foreign language builds connections with the community at a local, national, and global level; facilitates students to use their skills for a better chance at success in their career field of choice; and helps the United States stay on par with the rest of the world as far as the use of foreign languages.

Every day, immigrants come and go to and from the United States, constantly changing the culture little by little. In many schools, there is a high percentage of Hispanic youth that know Spanish, or come from families that know Spanish. Locally, it is imperative that connections are made between different social groups in order to build a strong community. Through language communication, people can be brought together, ideas can be shared, and innovations to the community can be made. Nationally, Spanish and other languages can help unite our nation because there genuinely are so many different cultures in the United States. Furthermore, not even learning just the language, but also the culture, will really give students a different outlook on their lives and the lives of others in the United States. Students will also have a better concept of different cultures throughout the world, and how people live differently in different countries. Knowing a second language opens up opportunities to study, or just travel, abroad to countries that may have been previously too intimidating to travel to.

Language is also extremely useful now in the job market. As I mentioned before, our constantly changing society deals with a lot of diversity, so those students that have experienced different cultures and that can speak different languages are far more desirable in the workplace. Not only is it useful for employers, but also the customers/consumers that don't speak English as a first language. To be able to communicate with non-english speakers makes those non-native English speakers feel more comfortable and secure living in the United States. These connections can lead to the United States being more globally recognized with proficiency in language.

In a recent speech by our president Barrack Obama, he said something paraphrased to the extent that our country is falling behind with world languages. We shouldn't be so concerned with getting immigrants to speak English as much as we should be concerned with teaching ourselves these foreign languages. Many countries, especially in Europe, have students learn foreign languages at an early age through intensive programs. By the time many students are in college, they can proficiently speak several languages including German, English, Mandarin Chinese, French, Italian, Portuguese, and many other important languages. By knowing all of these languages, people can connect and share ideas, as said before. Our goal now should be to get on par with the rest of the world so that we may be a communicative force among other countries throughout the rest of the world. 

TELL Framework

The TELL framework broke down how to be an effective language teacher in a very concise and easy-to-read way. Some seemed very important to me, and others seemed trivial and almost not worth the mention, but it was good to see everything in the framework. Some things from the TELL framework that really stuck out for me were the parts about creating a good classroom environment, providing a good learning experience, and a couple of points within the professionalism category. All of the others, of course, are equally as important. I think that the classroom environment needs to bring out the personality of the teacher and the language that is being taught. A student should walk into the classroom and feel ready and interested to learn every day, and that environment should reflect the language culture. I really think that this is the foundation for student interest in a Spanish classroom. Tailoring to the students' needs to provide a good learning experience is also something that stuck with me. I think that helping the "students see connections among learning experiences" is very important, that way the students can be conscious of everything they've learned as a whole, not just moving from day to day and getting the grade. Also, making everything clear to students by clarifying what is said in a variety of ways such as simplification, restating, and adjusting the speed, as said in LE4d. That, along with talking in 90% of the target language, the students will hopefully pick up quickly on understanding the language, and that will make bridging the gap toward speaking much easier. That way they can work on that output, or producing the language, when given the input. Lastly, I think that being professional and interacting culturally out of school is also important. Teachers must keep ties with information in the real world in our constantly changing society, and there is no better way to do that in language than using the language outside of school in his/her everyday lives. This way, the teacher knows what it's like to to be out in the real world, and he/she can share his/her experience with the students.

The rubric that we will use for teaching observations touches on many things found within the TELL framework. As far as the communication, using a variety of strategies and trying not to talk in English is very important. One thing that I have found in certain TPRS classrooms is a lot of talking in English, and a lot of translation from the target language to English, which worries me. I believe that no translation should be seen, as mentioned in the rubric. Also, constantly checking for understanding using different types of questioning is something to really look for, and assessing that understanding and providing corrective feedback is crucial. As a student in foreign language, corrective feedback is very frustrating and must be handled with care. It should not be skipped over, but it shouldn't be given to the student very bluntly, but rather eased at them with care and concern that doesn't discourage the students. The learning activities must be very interesting to the students in order to get them motivated to work. This, as said before, I believe starts with the classroom environment, but then translates to activities, as the activities must grab the students' interests. Culture is another thing that must be included in both the environment and the lesson. Small group activities are very important to get students communicating with one another, as that is the key. I believe grammar is a little more important than what the rubric states simply because it is the foundation for language, and I personally like to speak very well in certain settings. As a learner, I believe that grammar is very crucial and there must be a solid grammatical foundation in order to start communicating correctly with others, especially Spanish speakers. Grammar, however is very boring for must, and should be put into interesting contexts within dialogues and other exercises. As far as materials go, it is very important to get the students' hands on different types of texts such as novels, poems, song lyrics, and more. Also tying back to the classroom environment, the visuals in the classroom must be very stimulating culturally and grammatically.

I'm most concerned with working with a TPRS teacher, especially one that is not as experienced as others. I don't really favor the teaching style because I like a more grammatical approach to language, but I also think it may be a great learning experience. Another concern I have is my Spanish ability being up to par both for the students and with the teacher. In all honestly, I would like to speak better Spanish than the teacher that way I can become more confident in my skills.

My goals for this semester in teacher assisting is to improve my Spanish skill and really figure out what makes students interested in foreign languages. Spanish especially is almost a "blow-off" class for most high school students, but I believe that I can really get students to see the benefits of Spanish in our modern, changing society with a heavy Hispanic influence. I also really just want to gain confidence in my teaching skills and find methods that work well for both myself and the students. I have a lot to learn, and I'm very excited to become a better teacher.