Indirect statements can be tough for the kids to get a hang of - it requires verb shifts and an interesting understanding of time relativity. We know, though, that comprehensible, compelling repetition is what helps us acquire language, so with that in mind, here are some ways we've practiced indirect speech:
1. I put a silly sentence on the board. Students are in groups. We circle the sentence and make sure students understand what is going on. I give them a subject and a head verb (like "Paulus memoria tenuit), and their job is to turn the whole thing into an indirect statement (e.g. "Paulus Claram infantes quaerere memoria tenuit"). When the group feels they've got it, a runner goes to the center of the room, where I have put a bell, to ding the bell. The whole class stops talking and listens. The student gives us their sentence. If they're right, we applaud, I ask some questions, sometimes we act it out, and we move on to the next sentence.
2. The class is divided into five groups. Each group has as many small white boards as the number of people in their group...plus one. On the extra white board...
-group one makes a list of accusative nouns.
-group two makes a list of infinitives.
-group three makes another list of accusative nouns.
-group four makes a list of ablative nouns.
-group five makes a list of things you can do with your brain.
I ask a student who is going to be in this sentence, and they typically offer me something entertaining (Magnus Pater, Iohannes Cena, etc). Then I consult each group in turn for a word of their variety. Eventually we end up with what's basically a constructed madlib that looks like this...
Magnus Pater regem devoravisse carcerem oculis censuit.
We make sure everyone understands the sentence, and then each person on their own board draws the sentence. We show our boards, and I take individual boards and show them. One of the things I like to do with this is point at the parts of the picture and have the kids tell me what part of the sentence that is, such that we end up reconstructing the sentence together.
Rinse and repeat.
I've also done this with lines out of poetry and just removed certain forms, such that the line of poetry basically becomes a mad lib.
3. The kids get a sentence form, like: ______________ (aliquis) ____________________ (aliquid) proposuit, sed __________________ (aliquis) ___________________ (aliquid) sprevit.
This sentence form is under a picture. Groups work together to fill in the blanks to describe what's going on in the picture. (the link goes to a powerpoint i recently used for this.)
Addition: I sometimes give a quiz that goes along with this, while we're doing this. After we've done each picture, I ask one or two questions about what has been established to have happened in that picture.
Monday, December 3, 2018
Three Things You Can Do With A Bell
I have a small metal bell. It was given to me my first year of teaching by our then-county foreign language coordinator, and it's one of my favorite classroom tools. Here are some things you can do with a bell:
1. Put students in pairs. Each student has a different job (ex: one signs and one says what the other is signing; one reads and one translates; one describes and one draws; one reads a text with errors in and the other points out the lies). Ding your bell. Students switch seats and switch jobs.
2. Speed dating. Students talk to each other on a topic, and when the bell rings, they find a new partner.
3. Bell races. Students are in groups around the perimeter of the room, and the bell is in the center. The groups are asked to consider something together, and when the group has an answer, a runner is sent to ding the bell, at which point everyone else in the room quiets down and listens to that person.
An example of that one can be found at number 1 at the link here.
1. Put students in pairs. Each student has a different job (ex: one signs and one says what the other is signing; one reads and one translates; one describes and one draws; one reads a text with errors in and the other points out the lies). Ding your bell. Students switch seats and switch jobs.
2. Speed dating. Students talk to each other on a topic, and when the bell rings, they find a new partner.
3. Bell races. Students are in groups around the perimeter of the room, and the bell is in the center. The groups are asked to consider something together, and when the group has an answer, a runner is sent to ding the bell, at which point everyone else in the room quiets down and listens to that person.
An example of that one can be found at number 1 at the link here.
Monday, September 17, 2018
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Y'all, I don't have a name for this, but it's a vocab review thing
Be warned - this is high output, but you could probably modify it down if you wanted them to be producing less unscaffolded language.
I put kids in groups of three or four (I wouldn't do two, or any more than four), and gave them each:
a. a die
b. a short list of vocab words (5-8 words)
c. a list of six questions
Every group got a different list of vocab, and there were three separate question lists, so when they finished one, they got a new set of vocab and a new set of questions.
I put kids in groups of three or four (I wouldn't do two, or any more than four), and gave them each:
a. a die
b. a short list of vocab words (5-8 words)
c. a list of six questions
Every group got a different list of vocab, and there were three separate question lists, so when they finished one, they got a new set of vocab and a new set of questions.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Fishbowl/Socratic discussions in an FL class
Socratic seminars have become a big thing in English classes, and they go a long way towards fostering discussion in a structured way. This is a handy way to discuss issues raised in a novella you're reading, discuss cultural ideas, or simply talk about a topic or two.
But it's harder in an FL class, especially when we're trying not to force production. So here's how we've been doing it.
Warning - I have only tried this with threes, and I'm not sure it's suitable at other levels. If you try this with lower levels and adapt it, let me know.
1. Choose the passage or passages you want kids to talk about, if it comes from a reading. If not, perhaps create something to have them look over to prime their brains. Have them spend time reading that however you wish - groups, individually, whole class, etc. That's up to you.
2. Write some questions to get them thinking about the topic itself. Would you like to have a pet? If your sister had a pet, and you didn't, would you be jealous? Etc. I wrote four questions, and then I gave them three minutes per question to write as much as they could in answer to the question. We went over each question and established understanding before they wrote, and then they had to answer all four (twelve minutes in total) - I told them when each set of three minutes was up.
3. Have them share some or all of their responses in groups, or with the whole class. We do it in groups, and then each group selects their favorite response to each question, and we share as a class and discuss a little.
4. Then each student writes four open-ended questions about the topic we're going to discuss (the last one we discussed was the Siege of Masada). We spent some time discussing what kinds of questions would be good for this (would you prefer... what do you think is... would you have...) and which ones are less good (yes/no questions, questions that require a factual answer). I typed up eleven of my favorite questions and projected them for support. Kids could ask their own questions, could make up questions as they went raised from the conversation, or the questions I was projecting.
5. We set up five chairs at the front of the room and a hot seat. Everyone else sat in a semi-circle around them. The hot seat was there in case you had a statement or response you wanted to make in the moment, but didn't want to be actually in the circle at that time. You had to make your response and get out. If the hot seat had been abused (people using it to get out of being in the circle, etc), it would have been removed, but no one abused it. The five volunteered themselves, and began. Students were told if they didn't understand something, they should ask for clarification or repetition whenever they wanted, and they didn't need to be in the circle for that.
My role was to answer "how do you say" questions and then write those on the board, to clarify as needed, and to gently steer if something got out of hand or off-topic.
People not yet in the circle tapped in when there was a question they wanted to answer, or they'd begun to have thoughts on a topic. To tap in, they simply came up, tapped someone's shoulder, and switched seats. They were required to wait 'til that person wasn't speaking, and they had to tap out people who'd been there longer first.
If you were ready to be tapped out, you could put your hand on your head, so that when someone was ready to tap in, they knew who wanted to be out. If you got tapped out but wanted to contribute again, you could use the hot seat, or you had two extra tap-ins left if you needed them.
Often by the end of the period, I had a few kids who hadn't been in the circle. Those students were required to choose one of the questions raised that day and make me a 1.5 minute video, to be turned in to Flipgrid (which is free!). They had a few days to do it and could practice, which for most of them alleviated the anxiety of impromptu speaking, and also allows them to produce at their own pace. I did NOT announce this as an option before fishbowl - I told them at the end.
But it's harder in an FL class, especially when we're trying not to force production. So here's how we've been doing it.
Warning - I have only tried this with threes, and I'm not sure it's suitable at other levels. If you try this with lower levels and adapt it, let me know.
1. Choose the passage or passages you want kids to talk about, if it comes from a reading. If not, perhaps create something to have them look over to prime their brains. Have them spend time reading that however you wish - groups, individually, whole class, etc. That's up to you.
2. Write some questions to get them thinking about the topic itself. Would you like to have a pet? If your sister had a pet, and you didn't, would you be jealous? Etc. I wrote four questions, and then I gave them three minutes per question to write as much as they could in answer to the question. We went over each question and established understanding before they wrote, and then they had to answer all four (twelve minutes in total) - I told them when each set of three minutes was up.
3. Have them share some or all of their responses in groups, or with the whole class. We do it in groups, and then each group selects their favorite response to each question, and we share as a class and discuss a little.
4. Then each student writes four open-ended questions about the topic we're going to discuss (the last one we discussed was the Siege of Masada). We spent some time discussing what kinds of questions would be good for this (would you prefer... what do you think is... would you have...) and which ones are less good (yes/no questions, questions that require a factual answer). I typed up eleven of my favorite questions and projected them for support. Kids could ask their own questions, could make up questions as they went raised from the conversation, or the questions I was projecting.
5. We set up five chairs at the front of the room and a hot seat. Everyone else sat in a semi-circle around them. The hot seat was there in case you had a statement or response you wanted to make in the moment, but didn't want to be actually in the circle at that time. You had to make your response and get out. If the hot seat had been abused (people using it to get out of being in the circle, etc), it would have been removed, but no one abused it. The five volunteered themselves, and began. Students were told if they didn't understand something, they should ask for clarification or repetition whenever they wanted, and they didn't need to be in the circle for that.
My role was to answer "how do you say" questions and then write those on the board, to clarify as needed, and to gently steer if something got out of hand or off-topic.
People not yet in the circle tapped in when there was a question they wanted to answer, or they'd begun to have thoughts on a topic. To tap in, they simply came up, tapped someone's shoulder, and switched seats. They were required to wait 'til that person wasn't speaking, and they had to tap out people who'd been there longer first.
If you were ready to be tapped out, you could put your hand on your head, so that when someone was ready to tap in, they knew who wanted to be out. If you got tapped out but wanted to contribute again, you could use the hot seat, or you had two extra tap-ins left if you needed them.
Often by the end of the period, I had a few kids who hadn't been in the circle. Those students were required to choose one of the questions raised that day and make me a 1.5 minute video, to be turned in to Flipgrid (which is free!). They had a few days to do it and could practice, which for most of them alleviated the anxiety of impromptu speaking, and also allows them to produce at their own pace. I did NOT announce this as an option before fishbowl - I told them at the end.
Friday, March 16, 2018
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Re-reading activities
I know I often want my students to simply re-read a text to get as many reps as possible. Here are a couple ways we are doing that:
1. Bombus
Bombus is the buzzing sound made by bees in Latin. It's pleasantly onomatopoetic - choose whatever onomatopoeia you like.
1. Put students in pairs, and have them switch off reading sentences. If someone doesn't understand something in a sentence they've read, they should first ask their partner, and then you. (you can write the definition on the board, if you like, and refer other students to that as reading goes on.)
2. You have a couple options here.
a. If your text has good paragraphs, tell students that when they reach the end of the paragraph, one of them should shout bombus or tax or any other onomatopoeia you like. The one who doesn't shout the word has to summarize the section they've just read.
OR
b. If your text doesn't have good paragraphs (ours are often short, and so don't), you can ring a bell periodically. When you do, they compete to shout whatever onomatopoeia you've concocted. Again, whoever gets there second has to summarize the paragraph. Depending on the level, I may or may not ask them to do this target language. In Latin I and II, I often tell them "if you can do it in Latin, you should." This leaves the possibility for those who don't feel they can to still express their comprehension without the pressure to produce.
2. Fill in the Blank
This becomes, unexpectedly, hilarious pretty quickly.
Each student is going to need a copy of the text. You'll need one, too.
Round one: you read the text to them. When you stop, the whole class fills in the next word. You can stop as often as you like. Every couple sentences, stop and make sure they understand, circle, answer questions, etc.
Round two (optional): do this again in English. Some texts don't lend themselves well to that, but if you want to, read the text again in English. When you stop, the whole class fills in the missing English word - which might not come physically next in the sentence.
Round three: do round one again. But this time, when you stop, call a student's name. That student has to fill in the word. If the student doesn't supply it pretty readily, joyfully start over. (i like to immediately target the kids i know are a little less likely to be on, to sort of let them know i'm holding them responsible.) Once you've started over more than a couple times, it actually becomes a little hilarious. We applaud every paragraph or so that we make it through without starting over. It provides really, really good repetition of the text, especially if you're checking for comprehension as you go. (as always, repetition without comprehension is pointless.)
1. Bombus
Bombus is the buzzing sound made by bees in Latin. It's pleasantly onomatopoetic - choose whatever onomatopoeia you like.
1. Put students in pairs, and have them switch off reading sentences. If someone doesn't understand something in a sentence they've read, they should first ask their partner, and then you. (you can write the definition on the board, if you like, and refer other students to that as reading goes on.)
2. You have a couple options here.
a. If your text has good paragraphs, tell students that when they reach the end of the paragraph, one of them should shout bombus or tax or any other onomatopoeia you like. The one who doesn't shout the word has to summarize the section they've just read.
OR
b. If your text doesn't have good paragraphs (ours are often short, and so don't), you can ring a bell periodically. When you do, they compete to shout whatever onomatopoeia you've concocted. Again, whoever gets there second has to summarize the paragraph. Depending on the level, I may or may not ask them to do this target language. In Latin I and II, I often tell them "if you can do it in Latin, you should." This leaves the possibility for those who don't feel they can to still express their comprehension without the pressure to produce.
2. Fill in the Blank
This becomes, unexpectedly, hilarious pretty quickly.
Each student is going to need a copy of the text. You'll need one, too.
Round one: you read the text to them. When you stop, the whole class fills in the next word. You can stop as often as you like. Every couple sentences, stop and make sure they understand, circle, answer questions, etc.
Round two (optional): do this again in English. Some texts don't lend themselves well to that, but if you want to, read the text again in English. When you stop, the whole class fills in the missing English word - which might not come physically next in the sentence.
Round three: do round one again. But this time, when you stop, call a student's name. That student has to fill in the word. If the student doesn't supply it pretty readily, joyfully start over. (i like to immediately target the kids i know are a little less likely to be on, to sort of let them know i'm holding them responsible.) Once you've started over more than a couple times, it actually becomes a little hilarious. We applaud every paragraph or so that we make it through without starting over. It provides really, really good repetition of the text, especially if you're checking for comprehension as you go. (as always, repetition without comprehension is pointless.)
Monday, February 19, 2018
Tag-yourself memes
I don't know if you've seen tag-yourself memes on facebook. In general they're pretty hilarious.
Check it out:
Check it out:
Monday, January 29, 2018
(Pre-)Reading Without Words
Many of us use gestures or hand signs of some variety to associate with vocabulary words. I've been thinking a lot recently about the process of reading, and why it can get so overwhelming. I decided to try a little twist on something old-ish to see if I could access reading to prep them for a text.
We had several new vocabulary words, all of which were pretty interesting. You need some verbs in order to do this. You also need some agreed-upon, constituted hand gestures: and, but, is, because, end of sentence (we use a bell for this).
We had several new vocabulary words, all of which were pretty interesting. You need some verbs in order to do this. You also need some agreed-upon, constituted hand gestures: and, but, is, because, end of sentence (we use a bell for this).
Friday, January 26, 2018
Alea iacta est - a vocab review game
This is an extremely simple, pretty low-prep vocab review game that happens in pairs or groups. It can take five minutes or an hour, and it keeps pretty well. You'll need:
vocab cards (either TL or L1)
dice
Thursday, January 25, 2018
An activity for new vocabulary
This is not something I would do with a class that doesn't have a good sense of humor.
I wanted to introduce several new vocabulary words that didn't have much of a common thread between them. I was pressed for time, so telling a story wasn't an option, and I wanted context and a lot of repetition.
I wanted to introduce several new vocabulary words that didn't have much of a common thread between them. I was pressed for time, so telling a story wasn't an option, and I wanted context and a lot of repetition.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Some Uses for Gallery Walks
I love gallery walks - they get the kids out of their seats productively, let them move around and interact with their peers' work, and the movement between various stimuli keeps it novel. Here are some uses for them!
Friday, January 12, 2018
Easy, authentic sources
One of the things, of course, that we struggle with as Latin teachers is finding authentic sources for our students that also aren't terribly difficult to read. Abbi Holt started searching for such a list, and when we couldn't find one to hand, it seemed wise to start one.
So: if there's one out there, please let me know - I defer to it. Until then, please feel free to use (and contribute to!!) this very nascent one:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j1EDQmovXGkm-fnTujUJZ3e_xQUrNjLk0-v9-YxpSNs/edit?usp=sharing
So: if there's one out there, please let me know - I defer to it. Until then, please feel free to use (and contribute to!!) this very nascent one:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j1EDQmovXGkm-fnTujUJZ3e_xQUrNjLk0-v9-YxpSNs/edit?usp=sharing
A variation on read-and-draw with a gallery walk
My kids got a new text this week. I wanted them to read and visualize it together, as well as get in a few reps, and both have the opportunity to read and draw. I wanted comprehension high and forced output to be low. So:
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