Interculturality Blueprints #1

At the recent SCOLT conference, the 2017 ACTFL interculturality Can-Do Statements were mentioned in several sessions. These focus on two primary skills: investigate and interact. So the question becomes: What are some real-life ways for students to "do" culture and share what they learn? Here are four adaptable blueprints drawn from a choice board that I use with my Spanish students for intercultural tasks:

1. Music video trailer
Students investigate three to five target-language songs and choose their favorite. Then they choose images that represent vocabulary and ideas from the song to combine into their own short music video (at least one verse and the chorus.) This has been a popular option among my students because, well, what teenager doesn't enjoy music?!? This has also been a great way to build digital skills such as using Creative Commons images and different tools for creating videos from individual images. For the interaction component, students share their video trailer, along with a sentence or two in the TL about what they liked or why they chose the song. My students use the discussion feature in Canvas, our district LMS, but the same could be done using Google classroom, Schoology, Edmodo, or a blog platform that allows students to post and comment on others' contributions.

*Key to success:  Provide some starting points for students in the form of a class playlist that students can add to as they find more songs that they like.

2. Work of Art
I am very fortunate to have art teachers as teaching neighbors. This option grew from a  grant proposal written with one of my talented colleagues. Spanish students investigate art styles from target cultures while art students study techniques to create the artwork. Students then create their own versions of the artwork and share with small groups and/or via class social media. The interaction component occurs in two phases, by finding out about art techniques from the art teacher or students (probably in English) and then by describing and sharing their own work in Spanish. The projects that we chose were:
papel picado using tissue paper (Mexico), Mayan stelae and hieroglyphs created in clay (Guatemala), mola pictures using paper and/or yarn (Panama), masks using plaster or paper mache (for Carnaval or Day of the Dead), amate bark paintings simulated with brown paper bags (Mexico),  and pottery from different regions and traditions. See my Pinterest inspiration board here for examples.

*Key to success: Create exploration modules where students can learn about the art and techniques using links to videos, sample projects, and tutorials on relevant techniques at their own pace.

3. Interview
Few of my students have chosen this option, which I attribute to possibly having few connections with native speakers and a lack of conversational confidence. This is one of the options that I plan to work on in the coming year. The interaction component is straightforward- ask the person eight to ten questions and document their answers. The task is to produce and share some sort of multi-media product featuring two to three responses from the interview. The interview itself is part of the investigation, but it is also helpful if students do some preliminary research to aid in creating their interview questions.

*Key to success: Provide support for students in deciding what to ask and how to form the questions. One of my adjustments will be to provide some suggestions for people to interview. I also plan to create (or have a student create) a sample product (NOT a Powerpoint) showing options for using media and tech tools.

4. Community Excursion
This is another under-utilized option in my choice board. I suspect this is because it takes a bit more planning and seems harder than making a music video or preparing a recipe to share. To make this a more attractive option, I intend to leverage the experiences of heritage speakers and invite students to take part in events around our local and surrounding communities. 
Activities with friends who are heritage speakers might range from playing pick-up soccer at a local park to quinceañeras and other family celebrations to a religious service conducted in the TL. I realized the power of this type of experience recently when students were talking about details of a classmate's quince party. The students shared pictures and videos from the party. We ended up having a giggle-infused impromptu dance lesson in class for "Caballo Dorado"  a.k.a "the Mexican Electric Slide." Did everybody dance and take part? No, but it was fine though, because even if they were only spectators, everybody had a new experience that they shared with their fellow language-learners, which built our class community. I need to articulate my expectations for this task more clearly so that students investigate and describe the what and why of an experience. I also need to give them some tools for observing cultural products and practices so that they can move quickly from "That's weird!" to "It's different, but kinda cool because..." Much of the interaction in the experience above happened in English, so I want to think through ways to support reflection and discussion in the TL.
I also hope to be more proactive in helping my students experience community events. Sharing information and possibly organizing optional outings for concerts, plays, movies, art exhibits, cultural festivals, dance demonstrations, markets, and any number of other events are all good possibilities. This is a great opportunity to network with local universities, museums, civic organizations, and target-language community members. For my high schoolers, a simple formula for this might be:
1) find an event, 
2) attend with a friend or two, then 
3) share a short summary of the experience in the TL, your opinion of it with a couple of reasons why, and then a reflection (in English if needed) about what you learned or what stood out for you. All of this could be presented as a review in the form of a podcast, blog post, or flyer shared on a bulletin board.

*Key to success: Leverage the available resources in your community, no matter how basic they might seem. It teaches students to look for cultural insights everywhere and builds intercultural competence and connections that yield deeper understanding than memorizing cultural factoids.

Quick fix: listening skills

This week I stumbled upon one way to address a couple of my weak areas as a teacher--building listening skills and "teaching" vocabulary. I say "teaching" because I don't really believe in teaching vocabulary, but rather, providing opportunities for it to be acquired. My students always say that they need more vocab and I struggle to meet their needs while keeping a constructivist and communicative environment. This seemed to work for both of us, though! Here's how it went:

1. I played a one-minute video clip with the sound only, no video. I asked my students to write the words that they heard/recognized as I played it twice.  We used this clip: 

2. I asked them to share what they heard and wrote their words on the board, pausing to clarify what each word meant by circumlocuting in Spanish.

3. Next, we listened to it again (still no video) and numbered the words to show their sequence in the clip. 

4. After numbering, we talked through the words in sequence building our own summary of what they thought the clip was about. They picked up that a woman was rapping, that she was part of a religious community, and that she used music in her efforts to help others, including the poor. Not bad!

5. Finally, I showed them the video (they loved it and wanted to watch it twice!) so they could see what they got and what they missed. We added the word "monja" (nun) to our list.

And that was it! The students really liked the activity and I see it becoming a regular part of our routines. Some tweaks that I plan to make are:

• they have vocab notebooks that I'm honestly not great about leveraging. Next time I will ask them to copy the vocab (old & new) into their notebooks, and hopefully we'll see a transition from words to phrases to sentences.

• I will also ask them to do a quick write, either in vocab notebooks or on an exit ticket, or digital platform like Padlet. The quick write will be a summary (in their own words) of what the story was about, along with a personal connection,opinion, or reflection.

What are some of your favorite "quick fixes" for listening or other skills? Feel free to share in the comments below!

DIY- Daily Life IPA

     I knew that I needed something humane this week to get my Spanish 2 students back into the groove after Spring Break. We had looked at different aspects of life in different Spanish-speaking countries before the break and were due to conclude the unit with the interpersonal and presentational components of the integrated performance assessment (IPA) for the unit. Now, I can guess what you might be thinking-- "Wouldn't it have been better to wrap up the unit before the break?" Yes, it absolutely would have, but field trips, sinus infections, and the need for some review and clarification intervened, and here we are.

At the recent #SCOLT17 conference, I attended a session presented by Norah Jones (@NorahLulicJones on Twitter) and she demonstrated a couple of approaches for doing an IPA everyday without killing yourself or your students. Here is how I used her model to bring my students back from vacation:

1. Share an authentic resource. I chose a short video called Vidas Paralelas about two girls, one from Colombia and one from Spain. We watched it twice; once without sound to observe and generate vocabulary and then with sound to hear the narration. Students had scratch paper and were asked to note how both girls were similar and how they were different. My students are in six table groups, so I asked for one detail from each group to share out on the board, as well as walking around to see what they had written on their scratch paper. Interpretive task--check!

2. Get them talking about it. The students were then asked to discuss and share additional information with their table groups for 2-3 minutes.  Some groups talked for the duration while some had trouble figuring out what to say. My goal was to give them another opportunity to use the vocabulary by hearing the words, forming sentences, and writing details that they did not already have, which they did for the most part. See Takeaways below for how I would tweak this in the future. 

3. Don't forget interculturality! Observing and discussing culture is a substantial part ot this unit because one of the essential questions is "How are Spanish-speaking cultures similar and different?" We talk about the fact that not everybody is Mexican or eats tacos. I steer them toward being cultural observers who may think, "Ooo, that's weird/ gross/ interesting/different," followed immediately by, "I wonder why..." The context for the unit IPA is to support the statement "There is not one Spanish-speaking culture, but rather many Spanish-speaking cultures." I asked students to discuss, "What cultural things do you notice in the clip?" Sometimes these things are subtle such as modern vs. historical buildings, so I may draw their attention to visual cues.

4. Give feedback. While they dug into this analysis in groups, I visited each table to listen to a 2-minute conversation that was essentially a repeat of what they did before, but possibly with some cultural observations. This served as a mini dress rehearsal for the upcoming unit interpersonal. I like doing this because it allows the students to be familiar with the process and expectations, so that they are free to focus on their language production. I used our district interpersonal rubric [ Rock Hill Schools Interpersonal Rubric 2016 ]and gave suggestions like:

"Try to group your information. If one person comments about family or community, add to the information, rather than just jumping to another random fact."

"For your interaction, be sure to ask questions, answer questions, and piggy-back off of other people's comments. This shows me that you are listening and responding to your groupmates, rather than just taking turns talking."


"To exceed expectations, I need to hear you make comparisons and use reflexive verbs since those were key structures in this unit."

5. Polish and Share Now that students have wrangled the input in at least 4 different ways (watching video, listening to others talk about it, writing their own observations, and taking part in a couple of conversations) it's time for the presentational part. I asked students to identify 2 ideas per group that were evidence for many different Spanish-speaking cultures. I have to say that I was really proud of one of my heritage speakers who said that she expected the girl in the more affluent situation to be from Spain, thus circling around to an earlier theme of stereotypes. I saw others nodding, which told me that her insight resonated with them, even if they didn't mention it. We ran short on time (doggone morning announcements!) but I would have capped this by asking everybody to complete an exit slip where they give 3-4 facts that they observed and expressed a cultural insight as a tweet or Instagram post.

Plus/Delta and Takeaways
Plus-- What went well...
I really liked the flow of this lesson and the transitions felt natural. The kids seemed to appreciate the dress rehearsal for the unit interpersonals and several groups had amazing conversations,for the unit assessment, so the feedback raised the quality of interaction and lowered students' level of anxiety. Winner winner, chicken dinner!!

Delta-- What I would change...
In retrospect, I would have been more specific in the instructions for the interpersonal by requesting at least one new piece of information from each person at the table or identify 3 additional similarities and 3 additional differences. Some students didn't jump in, but I have found that having table groups is great for accountability. If I say that everybody needs to talk, the table members will prompt and prod to make sure nobody gets off without doing their fair share.

I would also have front-loaded the video and cultural observations by showing a few pictures and asking students to predict which things were from Colombia and which were from Spain. These images might include food items, examples of architecture, stores with prices displayed, school uniforms or anything else that might flesh out what they are going to see in the video clip.

Takeaways-- This format is very flexible and can be prompted by a variety of authentic resources. In addition to video, you could use a collection of photos, an infographic, a short news story, a menu, or a series of social media posts. Having some visual support is helpful for novices (usually levels 1 and 2.) This could also morph into a Movietalk or other comprehensible input task. Hmm.... that gets me thinking....

Hasta pronto!

Welcome to my "renovision"...Pardon the mess.

This was our deck in 2015 as our contractor was doing demolition. Dated. Ugly. Unstable. Impractical for our family to enjoy.

    

And, as we found out after they tore it down, not properly supported by the foundational structures. It had been putting pressure on the rest of the house, which finally explained some cracks that we had noticed in walls, but had simply attributed to the house settling.

         

Here is our new deck. Reconfigured with wider stairs and sturdy railings. Solidly-built. A place where our family can relax and enjoy the outdoors. However, it is also a work in progress. We have stained part of it, but need to pressure wash and stain the rest. It has some furniture, but is far from ready for a magazine cover. 
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This deck project made me reflect on the parallels between home improvement and instructional design. My teaching has changed substantially over my career, but particularly in the last 10 years, due to greater emphasis on proficiency. I have had to honestly assess the cracks in my instructional practices to fix or get rid of things that aren't well-supported and functional. I seek inspiration everywhere to find solutions that suit my style and budgetary constraints, while still considering the needs and tastes of my students. Sometimes I have to call in an expert or learn new skills to repair a problem. New projects generally require several tools and fresh materials to make the "renovision" a reality. The transformation is exciting, but the process is messy and you never TRULY finish.

As teachers, when we see or read about the amazing things that others are doing with their students, we are often inspired to try something new. Unfortunately, if it's not an immediate success, it can also leave us feeling dejected when we have to look at the remains of a project that didn't quite come to fruition. We may struggle to envision what it will look like when finished and installed or we may lack the skills to carry out the renovation by ourselves or we may simply underestimate the time and energy required to complete the project. The important thing is that none of these obstacles should keep anyone from tackling an improvement project-- experiencing and working through setbacks is what creates an expert. My goal for this blog is to celebrate this organic process of "renovision" through the failures and successes that happen along the way. Let's tear down some walls, put up some scaffolding, roll up our sleeves, and focus on building our dream classes, one project at a time.