When they’re finished they answer the “Question of the Day”, either in Spanish or English. Then they read it again silently as they translate the underlined words. They are just to listen and follow along with their eyes. The quiz works like this: 1st I read it to them once, slowly, without them writing anything. Here’s the vocab quiz my Spanish 2s took last Friday. And they’re looking at context! And I think there’s more “real world” application here… I mean, in real life, how often do we have to define a random, contextualized word? Rarely? Never? Bueller? Bueller?
They still translate specific words/ phrases but now they’re reading also. Here’s what’s been working for us: I write little stories, with specific words underlined. One of those things that didn’t meet my goal was vocabulary quizzes…Yeah, I think they’re important so I can give my little darlings a grade ( actually, I wish I didn’t have to give them grades, but that’s another post for a different day) but in my eyes, the minutes that they were defining vocabulary words could be better spent on input. How could I give them input at the same time AND assess their vocabulary acquisition?! I really honestly looked at all my activities/projects/ games/ practices/policies/procedures for the entire year and cut out or modified everything didn’t give me the Input Impact I was after…there just wasn’t time in my new schedule. So armed with these two focusing goals, I initiated an obsessive witch-hunt searching for anything and everything not Comprehensible Input. ONLY comprehensible input…no time for anything else.
(Thanks for the pep talk, mom!) With my new and improved outlook, I set two goals for the upcoming school year: After the initial despair ( Noooo! You can’t do this to me!! My kiddos need more time to acquire Spanish, not less!) I decided that the only thing I could control was my attitude. I panicked! 20 minutes less every class?! So in a week, I will see my students 40 or 60 minutes less than the previous year?!! (Because: Block Scheduling). (So, to paraphrase our administration: you will have 30 more students and you will have less time to teach them, oh yeah, and a shorter prep period too.) Rather than six 110 minute classes, we were going to have seven 95 minute classes. Remember that really awful day when my Principal told me that I was changing classrooms? It was about the same time we got other bomb dropped on us: Our schedule was changing too. I am basically obsessed with packing as much Comprehensible Input into my little darlings’ brains as I can muster during a 95 minute class.
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