Holding On...

A few thoughts about holding on...

My German 1 students are so well behaved. They work hard... are super excited... and quiet down instantly when I do the hand! I see this and then get frustrated with my upper level kids for not quieting down in the same way... so I realized that I need to look at this differently. It's awesome that these kids are great and that things are getting done and they are living up to my expectations. Instead of getting down on myself about the others not doing the same (because they've been trained for a longer amount of time NOT doing that), I'm starting with the 1's... and holding on to it with them. They are, if you will, the beginning of a new era. And the others will be out within 2 years. By 3 years, it will be an entirely new crew! So I'm beginning the new era with these guys and it is good. I am really enjoying the class and the things we accomplish. For instance, today I showed them the bent objects powerpoint I had prepared for my 3's... and told them we needed to say as much as we could and prefaced the entire thing with it being "a chance to be creative". I was SUPER surprised at what they came up with! They were saying things I would have never even thought of. And to think that if I would have stopped them, or moved on after I heard the 2-3 sentences I expected, I would have never had the opportunity to be impressed and surprised! They are excited about verbs and excited to learn "haben" tomorrow. I want to keep building on this in a very fluent way. I'm excited about this.

Another bit of holding on... it is dark, dreary and (very) cold around these parts lately. My body is going into hibernation (AKA eating/craving fatty and sugary foods and not exercising). I hate this. I need to get back into the schedule of exercising at least. That helps. But there is a bit of stress coming up that I want to be sure I'm well taken care of for...

We have conferences tomorrow night, then Friday is there and Saturday/Sunday is another Master's weekend. So I need to finish my homework on top of the grading and meetings that I have in front of me already. I haven't gotten to that stressed/anxiety place yet about any of this... and, honestly, I hope I don't. So I'm trying to do it bit-by-bit so I can get some things taken care of ahead of time. Then we're back at school again next week... but at least we have conference days on Thursday and Friday. That should help with some of the stress... and should re-energize me!

I'm excited to go to the language conference. It's the first time for me and I know how energized I feel going to the speech conferences and the master's conferences... I'm excited to be energized and to make some contacts who are interested in the same things I am. So I'm holding on for that.

Finally, we talked quickly about circumlocution today in German 3. It was a good thing for them to be told about... they got it right away, and then we practiced (probably too easily) with some food words. But it was a good stepping stone. What they didn't know was that tomorrow, during "Deutscher Donnerstag", they are going to have to use some of those skills. I think it is a great stepping off point.

Tomorrow is also the first day of money. This should be interesting. The Spanish teachers have had huge success with the money. I am excited to give it a shot and have the students police each other (and myself!). I think I will also try it with German 2... and tomorrow we will not have a walk.... we'll keep it all inside. I would like to move the German days to twice a week for German 3... start slowly stepping it up. Spanish 3 is doing 30 minutes at the beginning of every day. We can do the 45 minutes at least twice a week! So, just keep holding on to this fluency... it will only keep getting better...

and I need that as a strong trick in my bag for next spring!

Surprises...

Surprise #1: After our first Thursday of just speaking German (15 minutes in 2 and 45 minutes in 3), I have had many students asking for and looking forward to that Thursday. On top of that, Annaliese asked me to ensure that Thursday we were going to go on a walk again with the German. Apparently the "real-life" application of seeing things and being able to talk about the things around us every day has been meaningful and other students asked for that as well. When I feared that we wouldn't be able to go for the walk (due to time) I asked if they wanted to just do the German in the classroom. It was unanimous that we should go for the walk. This time we stayed in the building. It was nice. I often get a couple stragglers, and the students look forward to the stamps if they just spoke German during that time (I tell them it is their own integrity and ethics on the line if they lie). The kids are reacting positively to this at this point. I'm glad I'm doing it.

Surprise #2: Last Wednesday was the talent show and one of my students wrote and sang her own song. It was AMAZING. I've been pestering her ever since about it... and she's doing some recording this week! I hope I can get her music.

Surprise #3: Friday after the carnival, each of the returning speech coaches found an envelope with a 10-page letter along with a personal letter full of gripes, complaints, venting and castigation. It was hurtful and did not make for the start of a good weekend.

Surprise #4: We returned a letter... and received a surprisingly positive e-mail in return. Alles wird besser... aber nichts wird gut. (Aber besser ist auch jetzt gut.)

So that's it for these parts! More about an idea in a moment.

In der Sprache...

Yesterday we had done some "practice immersion" time in German 3. During that time, I asked if they would rather talk (today) for 30 minutes or 45 minutes. The vote was 6 to 13... in FAVOR of the 45 minutes! That is awesome!

So today I began with D2... we went for an "in building field trip" where we talked only in German as we walked around a bit of the school (and outside) talking about the different classes, teachers and nature. It was good. When we returned, I asked how many enjoyed it. At least 75% raised their hands. Then I asked who thought it was beneficial (whether or not they enjoyed it). 100% raised their hands!

So then on to D3... We began the hour with the 45 minutes of German. Some times were tough when we were trying to fully describe everything... and hope that everyone understood. But it was really pretty good! Only a couple kids were doing the English thing... and some of the time because they didn't even realize they were doing it.

The fantastic time came at the end of it... when we went over all of the stuff to be sure they understood... and Karsten (who had been advocating this when we first voted as well) said that next time we should just do it the whole time. The majority agreed with him! Saying things like "It can only help!" I agreed and told them how excited I was that they were excited about this. I did, however also explain the brain frying that sometimes happens... so we'll have to watch that carefully and not go so long that everyone's brain just fries. Because then it's not just not positive. It's negative.

They got it.

Overall: Exciting! I can do this! I AM doing this! Cool.

It doesn't have to be hard...

Today we played the "Ich mag Leute..." game and again they LOVED it. It's always a little loud, but also a lot of fun. And best of all? The kids are speaking, listening and responding to the language!

Today I also started the routine of "Foto Freitag"... where I will bring in Fotos... and it could go anywhere from there. Today I described what the fotos were... then the kids had to guess, and then it came up on PowerPoint once they guessed it! So they were listening to the German, getting meaning, and remembering vocabulary. I think I will also bring in fotos for them to use to tell a story or to tell what is happening (I got an idea from Kate that I could bring in Fotos from my youth and then they could tell the story of what was happening... I love it!)

What's important here is that there is just more language happening. I need this. I love this. And I especially love how easy and fun it can be. It does NOT have to be hard. It should be fun. (Unsere geheimnisse Sprache...) now I just need to be sure that we reinforce that usage!

It is the baby steps of a big and exciting change. Baby steps that I need... not because I can't handle the big steps, but because I can get overwhelmed and depressed about the big steps... and really, the kids need the scaffolding just as much as I do.

So here's to baby steps. PROST!

Technology reflections...

Week one is done and the UbD has been going well... I planned too much for especially the first day... so I've had to do some rearranging... but otherwise it's good. In reflection, though, I'm seeing that until this point, it is heavily focused on technology and learning and perhaps less so on language usage. This will be a place for improvement for the unit, and those to follow.

So some quick notes on technology:
*PowerPoint: as we still don't have our "smart classrooms", I checked out an LCD projector from the media center. I have been doing the notes, agenda, city presentations and a bit of internet on PowerPoint. It has been beneficial to kind of keep me on track, and one student mentioned on the first day (before we even talked about learning styles) that he really liked the PowerPoint things because he is a visual learner... so he hoped we would have more of these. :) I think it's going well. It forces me to at least preview the plan for the next day and get things together and going.

*Audacity: We recorded our voices for the audio vocabulary section of the UbD. I exported it to mp3 and published it online. It took a bit of time to do the recording (just because there were so many people who needed to get up and to the microphone)... but once I had the file cut and exported, it was about 4.5 minutes. Everyone's voices sounded really good and I was inspired to do more with this because it truly is an authentic means of assessing their pronunciation and understanding (especially if they recorded conversations on it). I loved it. The kids liked to hear themselves and many mentioned that they downloaded it and "didn't sound as stupid as I thought I would". This is good. Step one in preparation for the podcasting. It should prove to be super beneficial for me... and they like it too! What else can you ask for? Great for step one!

*StudyStack: For our visual practice, I inputted the vocabulary into StudyStack for the students to be able to interact with online. We'll see how many actually put this to work and how seriously they are taking this.
Which brings me to some reflection about the quizzes...

Will the students actually take this seriously if they are not being graded on the quizzes? Do we need to have a discussion about the purpose? Is the purpose meaningful enough for them? I think it is interesting and good, but do they? And will a grade motivate them anyway? Should we have the discussion that a language is nothing without vocabulary?

I don't know. I was a little concerned about all of this tonight as I was thinking about the 120-240 words they will be studying for tomorrow... and how some might remember that just tonight... and then, instead of studying, just tell themselves that it doesn't matter anyway because they won't be graded...

that just might break my heart.

My newest technologies...

After much procrastination, I started futzing around with Audacity today. I was perhaps a bit afraid of hearing my voice on the software... unsure of what it would sound like... and perhaps worried that it would take SO much work to make it sound good that it wouldn't even be worth it. But alas. That was not the case.
After figuring out the crazy new way to do audio inputs with Vista, I first tried the Bluetooth. It worked! However it did not work well. So then I tried working with Shawn's Plantronics headset. It was most amazing. I sound like I'm in a sound studio and my voice sounds, excuse me saying so, amazing! It is actually so much fun! I've figured out cutting the audio file (to get rid of those onesie-twosie words that clutter an audio file), how to record:pause:record and how to place underlying audio tracks with other words or even music. Very exciting stuff. I think I will be doing the "audio track" for students to use for studying as their first podcast. Then they can see how easy it is. That way when it's their turn to record podcasts, they can do it super easy and should enjoy it! I'm excited. Now I just need to get something worthwhile recorded as my first podcast... and then work with uploading and publishing it so I can seem like a seasoned veteran when I do it in front of the kids. This is SO exciting. I find it exciting to hear my voice... I can only imagine how this excitement can spread when 25-35 kids have the same opportunity!

Well, once I had Audacity figured out, and had all of the audio input devices figured out, I figured I might as well sign up for Skype as well! So I did! Whew!

I'm pretty excited about the idea of "getting a Skype call" at any point (like I often hear happens to speakers at the educational technology conferences). Okay, I know that I probably won't have people calling me "at any point"... but the dream is there!

SO here's the exciting part: I was futzing around on Skype and found "Skypecasts". These are opportunities to set up a time (or find a "cast" of interest) and talk with people from around the world! I see definite possibilities in this for my German students. How cool would it be for them to talk with real Germans in this venue! Also, I could set up a Skypecast, plan it ahead of time and students could join as we talk. What would we talk about? I don't know... How to change the world? What about a "Stammtisch"? That's cool! How about a review session from our homes? I wonder if I will want to create a school account if I'm going to do that...

Nah.

Very exciting stuff. I hope I remember to use it all! (And I hope I get technology IN my classroom one of these days!)

UPDATE: I set up a Skypecast for Monday, September 17 at 8:00 PM! Everyone can log in and speak/practice German! Is this going to be a cluster...? Who knows! It's all worth a try!