A Music-Centered Curriculum

Last year, I made an attempt to follow the curriculum in the newest Look, I can talk! books (Blaine Ray).  However, for various reasons, it just wasn't cutting it for me.  However, one thing that students were picking up really well were the songs.  Along with the LICT curriculum, I did activities with LEGO stop-motion videos based on the original LICT stories and of course Señor Wolly (their favorite).  In fact one particular struggling student's mom purchased a school Señor Wooly account so that her son and the rest of my students could access the videos!  Students were able to remember and use the phrases because they got the songs stuck in their head and enjoyed singing them as well as associated the words with the videos that accompanied the songs.  After getting some feedback from students, I decided mid-year to re-do my curriculum and have the songs at the heart of the curriculum.  In other words, my structures were pulled from the songs and listening to the songs became a central part of instruction.  Unfortunately, due to various circumstances, I wasn't able to plan this curriculum shift out methodically and it showed, but it also showed how much the students were learning.  However, the 2014-2015 school year will have a music-based curriculum that I feel will be much stronger and I can't wait to see the results.  Here's how I went about structuring it:

First, I used Bryce Hedstrom's list of the 400 most common words to identify the words that I wanted my students to know.  Then, I looked at various songs from both of the previous resources as well as songs commonly used by other Spanish teachers, including authentic songs (for example, "Eres Tú" is an excellent first-year song!).  I identified prominent phrases within the songs (usually they were repeated multiple times, giving me lots of repetition and increasing the likelihood that students would know them) and cross-checked that they included high-frequency vocabulary and/or important grammatical concepts that I wanted my students to be exposed to and acquire (in the lower levels, phrases with high-frequency vocabulary were emphasized while grammar gained increasing importance with the higher levels since they already know many of the high-frequency words and have acquired more fluency).  I also ensured that the phrases were in a complete sentence (or were put into a complete sentence with minor adjustments) and that I could come up with a discussion topic with which I could PQA, circle, discuss, and/or tell a story with.

In Intro to Spanish and Spanish 1 classes (which are very similar) have a very well laid-out curriculum, especially since I've taught these levels before and know where to start/end up, what my resources are, and the general strengths and pitfalls of particular phrases and songs.  Ultimately, I decided to leave my Spanish 2/3 classes (I have both levels in the same class) a little more flexible and identified a loose order of songs to do with them and will select specific phrases as we go (these students are generally more proficient than a regular Spanish 2 class since they've had Spanish all through elementary school, Intro to Spanish, Spanish 1, and for some Spanish 2, as well as being at a high-performing school and they take Spanish as their elective over other options; thus, the majority of what I'm doing is practice, practice, practice and just help them become more fluent since they are already conversational and this is the first time I'm teaching these levels).  The phrases are what students will be tested on, but as all Comprehensible Teachers know, they will know so much more than just those phrases.

In addition to centralizing my curriculum on these phrases, I'm doing "Verb Karate" with my Spanish 2-3 students, doing someting called "Algo Más" each Friday, and putting an emphasis on reading.

• Verb Karate is similar to the activities on Conjuguemos.com and will help them start solidifying their knowledge of grammar.  I'm going to directly teach a verb form once and then review it for a week or two before teaching the next form.  Students simply need to demonstrate that they can conjugate the verb endings (which will be available to them during the test) correctly by completing a conjugation quiz pulled straight from Conjuguemos every other week.  I expect them to earn 5 "belts" per semester, though there will be a surprise for students who earn all 15 "belts".  I'll write more about Verb Karate at a later date.
• "Algo Más" is simply that - "Something more".  These are a variety of topics that I don't cover nor test in my regular curriculum (though they might be a "bonus" question).  Some of these are vocabulary-based (head, shoulders, knees, and toes), some are culture-based (the countries and capitals of Spanish-Speaking countries), and some are just an additional fun way to get CI (learning a song that didn't fit into the curriculum but that students enjoy).
• With reading, students will be doing free-choice reading Monday-Thursday (further reinforcing their command of high-frequency vocabulary) and whole-class reading with me on Thursdays.  The whole-class reading for lower levels will come from Blaine Ray's New LICT books since they provide short stories and activities that go with them based on high-frequency vocabulary.  The higher levels will read more authentic resources from Spanish and Latin American literature as well as current events.  I worked out a 5-step process for students to complete these readings in groups (context, pre-reading questions, brief summary, embedded reading, and post-reading questions), especially since I'll be teaching both my Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 classes separately at the same time (thank goodness they're my more responsible and advanced kids!).  Again, I'll write more about these activities in a future post.

That's basically my curriculum in a nutshell!

PS - I'll update soon with the actual songs and structures I chose.

Genius Hour 2014-2015

Genius Hour next year is going to look very different than Genius Hour this year for a few reasons. During my first year teaching, I identified a few things that I need to address and fine tune a bit more before I'm ready to take on Genius Hour in the same way again: Spanish proficiency and Structure.  I felt that I was lacking in these areas last year, and Genius Hour was when it showed the most.  However, while re-structuring my curriculum and teaching this summer, Genius Hour emerged in a whole new way that I didn't expect.

Reading is a fundamental element of developing language proficiency.  In my quest to pack as much comprehensible Spanish input into my class as possible, I set aside a daily free-choice reading period for students.  However, I needed a way to hold students accountable for their reading and to check that they're getting out of it what they should be.  I added a reading journal, where students identified what they read and included a brief summary as well as a list of words they came across that they didn't know (note to self - I just had the idea of adding in a "rating" for each entry, indicating how students feel about reading that day).  Then, while deciding the format of my final, I decided to use that daily reading as the source for a book report and presentation, which allowed me to assess speaking, something that can be tricky in a Comprehensible Input-based classroom.  My main objective was simply to translate their reading into a somewhat painless writing and speaking assessment, but I decided to include a "product" of their choice that could represent their book as well as help remind them of what they wanted to talk about during their 1-2 minute presentation to the class.

In my push for more comprehensible input and Spanish instruction, I was a bit sad that I was eliminating Genius Hour, but felt this was needed and that I would be much more successful with my instruction and meeting my responsibilities with my new curriculum plan.  Then it occurred to me... Isn't this reading project just another form of Genius Hour?  I'm requiring that they read... but they're welcome to read anything they want to, create a project that represents their learning, and presenting it.  All the elements are there, PLUS it's all in Spanish!  I feel like I've found my silver bullet and am quite pleased with myself.  Because of some of the attitudes toward "Genius Hour" from last year, I won't be calling it that this year (at least not in front of my students).  However, the fundamental elements are all there and I am so excited to capitalized on this experience again!