Differentiation with Barkelona

 Happy fall, everyone!

We are about a month into the school year here in Idaho, and this year is shaping up to be a challenging one for me. I love my school, my boss is great and I have a bunch of really sweet kids, but the challenge for 2023 is going to be: DIFFERENTIATION!

This year, my Spanish 1 classes are mixed 7th, 8th and 9th graders (about evenly mixed). I also have a large number of students with 504s, IEPs, behavior plans - students with everything from autism to ADD to Oppositional Defiant Disorder. In addition, I have quite a few native speakers and heritage speakers mixed in throughout my Spanish 1 and 2 classes. 

All of this is awesome! I am so glad that so many diverse types of students are choosing to take world languages. However, it means that I need to do some serious differentiation if I'm going to reach a 7th grade boy with ADHD and a 9th grade Spanish-speaking honors student in the same class.

I've been working through a variety of ways to do this. For example, I typically have students complete a warm-up activity writing something we've been learning about recently. This year, however, I'm dividing it into sections: a shortened, basics-only warm-up that everyone can complete quickly, and a challenging sentence or two that push my higher-level students to apply a concept in a new way, or guess at a new vocabulary word. 

Another lifesaver has been Barkelona, the comprehensible input video game that my husband and I have been developing over the past year. The last two Fridays, I've set students up playing Barkelona while I worked with small groups or individuals who needed extra assistance on assignments. I was also able to discuss a Spanish-language novel with one of my native speakers. While we were working, the other 85% of my students were highly engaged and stayed on task. I felt good knowing they were basically spending that whole time reading comprehensible input in the form of conversations with game characters. Some of them also taught themselves new words with the mini-games, such as numbers, foods and body parts. It even worked well as a behavior incentive for my student with ODD: he was willing to complete a missing writing assignment so he would have time to find the tomatoes for Chef Antonio in Barkelona. In his words, "This game is FIRE!" 😂🔥

To keep my native speakers engaged, I've been having them read short news articles on topics related to what the class is doing. Then, I ask them a few questions about what they read as a sort of mini-interview to share with the class. For example, last week my on-level students were discussing who does which chores in their house. As they interviewed each other, the native speakers read and discussed an article about the gender gap between boys and girls completing chores and how it mimics the gap between men and women's household labor. After they read, I asked them (while the rest of the class listened) "Ustedes leyeron un artículo del NYT. Según el artículo, quién hace más quehaceres en casa?" and "Quién recibe más dinero por sus quehaceres? Es justo o no es justo?" Then the entire class discussed their opinion of this phenomenon.

I need more ideas, though. What are your go-to differentiation strategies to ensure a good use of class time for all your students? Please comment with your favorites!

Free Materials for Back-to-School!

Hi all! I have created a few free materials to celebrate the start of the 2023 school year. They are all available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store as free downloads! 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Katie-Baker-1336 

Levántate si: a Comprehensible Getting-to-know-you Game for Spanish 1 or 2

 

Levántate si is a fun game for new Spanish learners or those returning from summer break. Students hear and read a variety of comprehensible statements in Spanish (full of cognates and pictures). They stand up if the statement applies to them. It's a fun, low-stakes way to get to know your new students.

4 rincones: First Day of School Game 

 4 corners is a fun and easy way to get your class moving and thinking in Spanish on the first or second day of school. It also gives you a chance to get to know some students in your class. This game includes a variety of comprehensible prompts with four options (full of cognates and pictures). Students move to the corner they feel fits them BEST (no fair choosing two corners). Once in their corner, students converse in Spanish with the other students in their corner.

Luis el lápiz: a Comprehensible Input Easy Spanish 1 Reading for Back to School

 Luis el lápiz is a short reading for Spanish 1 students at the beginning of the year. It is highly comprehensible and uses a limited vocabulary, including high-frequency verbs and school words like pencil and teacher. The text is in Spanish, while the 5 comprehension questions are in English.

2023 Classroom Tour!

 Hola maestr@s,

 As I walked into my classroom to get ready for the start of the 2023 school year (year 12 for me), a feeling of calm and well-being washed over me. I love my classroom! It's my happy place and I can't wait to see it full of students next week. In the meantime, I thought I would share some of the things I like best about my room to give you some ideas for organizational systems and functional decorations that can make your classroom more useful and joyful.

 

Decor and useful words to post:

 
Of COURSE I need my Super 7 verbs in a couple of tenses and question words in Spanish and English. We use these every single day, so they are at the front of the room flanking my whiteboard (also where my projector projects).

I like having a laminated calendar that I can write on and erase. The pocket chart below is an easy place to put the days of the week and the season.

 

In the corner, I have some student-made posters with colors and clothing, along with the "little words" that make writing easier.

 

Frida says to put away your phone. And if Frida says it, just do it.

Finally, I have my culture map. This is a map of the Spanish-speaking world that I traced on butcher paper, colored with the flags, cut out and laminated. Yes, that took a long time. But it's so nice to look at! It's also useful, because as we learn about cultural topics (foods, celebrations, geography, dance), I post pictures near the country of origin. It makes for a great visual reminder of all the cultures we explore!

 

 

Organization: 

If you are still using turn-in trays, I highly recommend switching to these plastic drawers (available at Wal-Mart and Target). With an enclosed drawer, work never falls out or gets mixed up in the wrong tray. You can label the inside of the drawer with the class period (it's just printer paper taped inside).

I have two areas taped off with blue painter's tape. These areas are where I store student materials that they can access without my permission: pencils, pens, tissues, etc. I also keep my Chrome books and chargers in this area so that it's very obvious where to put things away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encouraging reading:

 

My student library has grown over the years with books I've purchased with grant money. I have them sorted by level. Each book has a dot (green for Novice Low, yellow for Novice Mid-High, red for anything harder) and the shelves themselves also have dots so the students know where to put them back. The shelf is a greeting card or magazine rack that a local store was getting rid of. Best dumpster dive ever! In the middle of the shelf you will see a variety of books with white covers. These are student-created children's books that my Spanish 2 students make as their final project. They do a great job because they know it's their "legacy" in my classroom, but I also make sure I edit the stories thoroughly so my future students are getting quality input.

These comfy chairs are a great incentive for students. Each Friday, I choose two names at random to get to sit in the comfy chairs all class period. The catch is that only students who are silently reading during the entire FVR time that week are eligible to sit in the cozy chairs.

I love doing Special Person interviews (see Bryce Hedstrom's blog for instructions on this awesome activity. But why just use this as one source of input when you can get a bonus one for free? After each Persona Especial interview, I type up a comprehensible biography of the student and print a copy to put in this binder. Ta-da! Now it's a book for your classroom library! These biographies are so popular with my students that I had to make a second copy of the Nosotros somos especiales book and I frequently get students who ask to sit together so they can both read it at the same time. Wow!

 

That's all! I wish you and your students a very happy start to the school year!

Spanish Camp! A reflection and how-to

Why host a Spanish camp?

One of the most successful and fun ideas I've had over the years was hosting a Spanish camp. There were so many things I wanted to do with students that just weren't possible in 45 minutes in a group of 35. So, though several people thought I was crazy, I decided to set up my very own camp! The students who have participated in camp have consistently told me that it was incredibly valuable for them. Most of them have gone on to take 4 or more years of Spanish classes after attending the camp. Here is a testimony from a student who attended camp the first year I did it (she was writing me a recommendation letter):

 

 

I envisioned the camp as a week-long cultural immersion experience. Every morning, we would spend 3-4 hours playing games, doing art projects and practicing conversation. Then, each afternoon, I would take the students on a field trip to experience some aspect of Spanish-speaking culture in our community. Here is a flyer I handed out to all the students in my Spanish 1 classes, which has a lot of the details about the camp.

Ideas for Fun Activities

We spent each morning doing immersion activities and playing games. Below is a list of  some of the activities we particularly enjoyed:

-Art Day: I taught the class about two artists and their work (Dalí and Botero). We watched the short film collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí. Then, students had time to create their own masterpiece in the style of either artist.

 

-Food Day: on the day we went to the grocery store and cooked in our school's Home Ec room, we spent the morning learning about foods from various countries and playing games with food, such as El Precio Perfecto, where students tried to guess the price of various pretend foods.

-Movie Day: we watched El Camino a El Dorado in Spanish and then learned about the real Spanish conquistadors along with Aztec and Maya culture.

-Language games: we played a ton of language-heavy games, such as Scattergories, Taboo, Hangman and Mafia. Mafia was their favorite by far!

-Breakout EDU: On the day we went to a Cuban restaurant, we spent the morning doing an adaptation of the CUBA O CASA Breakout kit from Martina Bex.

 

-Music: We learned a song every morning. We would listen first, do a cloze activity with the lyrics, learn the chorus at a minimum, and watch the music video.

Practical considerations

Location: I was able to use my classroom for free, because I was not making a profit. If I had tried to profit off of the camp,
I would have had to pay for a building use fee.

Insurance: It is highly recommended that you get some liability insurance for your camp (and it was required by my school in order to use the building). The cheapest policy I was able to find was through K&K Camp Insurance, but many companies offer such policies. This was the largest expense of running the camp.

Transportation: Since I was going to have a relatively small group, I used my own car and then recruited parents to assist with transportation. The first year I just had one mom with a big van volunteer for every day, but other years I had parents volunteer for 2-3 days and they switched off. This is not a fool-proof system! There was one year I couldn't get a single parent volunteer and I had to scrap the camp altogether. However, overall it has worked well and I have not found a better system.

Cultural Activities: Obviously, not every city will have the same cultural activities available (I think Boise is one of the few places with a Basque museum) but I'm sure you have something wonderful in your town! Get creative! I found local dance teachers to teach us some authentic dances (we've done salsa, tango and flamenco) and took the kids to a tiny Mexican grocery store where they shopped for authentic ingredients and practiced their Spanish with the cashier and the butcher (I checked in advance to make sure the employees actually spoke Spanish and didn't mind a troop of middle schoolers tromping in to practice their language skills). 

Budget: $675

Costs:

• 255 – insurance
• 150 – dance teacher
• 50 – Basque Museum Group Rate
• 33.75 – Waterpark (3.75/adult + 2.50/kid)
• 50 – Donation to Hispanic Cultural Center (Free)
• 136.25  to spend on grocery ingredients, gas and parking 

I tried my best to run the camp as cheaply as possible so that it would keep costs low for families. I think I had $12 leftover the last time I ran a camp in 2019, so I bought a couple of novels for the classroom. When you are setting the price of your camp, make a list of your projected costs, add $5 per student for miscellaneous unforeseen expenses, and then figure out how many campers you need to make your camp feasible. My minimum is 8 campers, as any smaller number makes it too costly to insure the camp.

Overall, I would recommend starting a camp to any language teacher who has ever felt like they needed more time and freedom to teach the fun stuff! It is a very rewarding experience for me, my students, and even for the parents we've brought along.

Happy camping!