Dramatic Academic Growth
"Academic gains are the ultimate door opener – they are the foundation of a truly transformational teacher. Students make dramatic levels of academic growth (that is measurable and rigorous). Families know the level of rigor necessary for college and career readiness in the 21st century." (Johns Hopkins, n.d.).
Introduction
My goals as a high school Spanish teacher are to not only prepare students for college and career in the 21st century but to also achieve dramatic levels of academic growth and make them lifelong learners of Spanish. I teach Spanish levels 1 and 2, so many of my students come into my class knowing little to no Spanish. For these students, I aim to expose them to as much Spanish as possible through story, video and song lessons, so that they acquire the language in a fun and engaging manner. I also have Heritage students, who come from families that speak Spanish. Many of these students can understand Spanish but have difficulties reading, writing and speaking. For these students, I aim to boost their fluency in speaking, reading and writing. This requires differentiation and student-centered learning; however, this year I have noticed significant improvement in both groups of students. Below I will explore how teaching through stories, videos and songs has led to my students making dramatic gains in their Spanish skills in a practical manner.
ACTFL World Language Standards
The ACTFL World Language Standards were created by the American Council on the Teaching Foreign Languages to assess the proficiency of learners of foreign languages. The standards are broken up into different levels of proficiency, which are novice, intermediate, advanced, superior, and distinguished. When thinking of a new learner of a language — such as Spanish 1 — they are usually in the novice level. As students progress, they move up levels. Ideally, Spanish 2 and 3 students would be intermediate learners, while Spanish 4 and AP students would be closer to advanced. Within each level, there are subgroups, as well. For example, Novice is further broken down into Novice Low, Novice Mid, and Novice High subgroups. On top of this, students demonstrate proficiency in numerous aspects of a language, including conversation/speaking, listening, reading, and writing. A student could read at an intermediate level, but be unable to maintain a conversation or write a sentence. As I work to achieve dramatic gains, I push students to in levels 1 and 2 to reach Novice High to Intermediate Mid proficiency.
ACTFL Can-Do Statements
The ACTFL World Language Standards help me set my goals when it comes to my students' growth. I measure their gains in Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Speaking, Presentational Writing, Interpretive Listening and Interpretive Reading. As stated above, I want my students to achieve dramatic gains and reach Novice High to Intermediate Mid proficiency at the end of their Spanish 1 and 2 years. In my Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence pages, I will further break down my students' progress, aligning it with the ACTFL Standards.
Teaching as Leadership
As I continue to work with my students, so that they may make dramatic levels of academic growth, I look for resources that can provide me direction. Teach for America's Teaching As Leadership model "offers evolving guidance on several questions that flow from our commitment to students’ enduring path to self-determination and opportunity" (Teach for America, 2016) pertaining to Academic Growth, Personal Growth, Social and Political Consciousness, and Access. Within Academic Growth, TAL (Teaching as Leadership) asks the following questions (seen below in the Student Indicators and Broader Outcomes Wheel):
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Are the students making and justifying arguments with evidence?
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Are the students critically thinking and engaging in real and meaningful discourse throughout the lesson cycle?
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Given the grade level and content... are the students engaged in rich problems, texts and/or questions that are worth tackling?"(Teach for America, 2016).
Teaching as Leadership: The Student Indicators and Broader Outcomes Wheel
1. In my classroom, I teach through the use of stories, videos and songs in a way to achieve dramatic gains in speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. That means that the students are exposed to a sizable amount of the target language in every class. As Shrum and Glisan (2010) mention, “It has been well documented that students who listen to authentic oral segments, such as radio broadcasts, demonstrate significantly greater listening comprehension than do students who do not interact with authentic segments (p. 195). To maximize the exposure and student takeaway, I ask comprehension questions based on the stories, videos and songs. This can appear as me asking questions and the students responding using their listening skills. It can also appear as a written question, where the students use their reading comprehension skills. The questions can be based on a spoken story, video or song, where the students must use their listening and speaking skills to back up their responses. They can also be based off of a written text — whether that is the text form of a story, video script or song. In that case, the students would need to use their reading comprehension skills to back up their responses. I make sure the students back up what they say, so that I know they are not just guessing and understand what we are learning in class.
I ask the students comprehension questions based on stories.
2. In previous years, I struggled reaching dramatic levels of student growth by teaching to the text and over-focusing on grammatical structures. Another benefit of teaching through stories, videos and songs on top of exposure is that the lessons are much more practical and meaningful for students. Instead of focusing on grammar and vocabulary, the students build their Spanish skills in a way that they can apply in the outside world. The goal of this style of teaching is fluency. As Ray and Seely (2015) mention, “Some people claim that to function adequately in a language we need 1,800 words. Certainly vocabulary is important. Others suggest only 300 to 600 words may be needed for fluency in a second language” (p. 30). Teaching through stories, video and songs focuses on exposure to high-frequency words, constantly reusing and building off of them. I have noticed a significant improvement in my students' abilities to use the language in a variety of scenarios, describing the stories, videos and songs we learn in class. This is significantly different than my classes in previous years that focused on grammar and vocabulary units over fluency. Whereas they could conjugate numerous verbs and list off every kind of clothing or weather pattern in Spanish, they struggled with basic conversation, listening comprehension and quick responses. This year it has been much different, with my students much better at basic conversations and talking/writing about a variety of topics, as well as much quicker at understanding Spanish spoken (or sung) to them and responding in Spanish.
The students learn through meaningful song lessons.
3. To reach dramatic student gains, there needs to be student investment in the material. As a high school teacher, I am often confronted with questions asking why what the students are learning is important or how it will help them outside of the classroom. It makes me reflect on what materials I give the students and if it is worth all of our time in doing it. I want to make sure the students are thinking critically and can apply what they are learning outside of the classroom. As a result, I avoid redundant book work or exercises and projects that consume time but not challenge the students or lead to growth. As a foundation, I use the target language as much as possible in class, so that the students have enough exposure to Spanish to feel comfortable writing, speaking, reading and listening to it. As stated by ACTFL, “The more learners use the target language in meaningful situations, the more rapidly they achieve competency … As language educators, we owe it to our students to provide these opportunities." On top of this, I teach story, video and song lessons that are based on high expectations of students. They come into class learning entire stories, videos and songs as Spanish 1 and 2 students.
I try to make the lessons as engaging as possible through videos, stories and songs.
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Conclusion
Throughout the year, I have aligned my lessons to the ACTFL World Language Standards and Teaching As Leadership model in order for my students to achieve dramatic academic gains. As a result, my students have shown significant progress in their Spanish abilities. My idea of a transformational Spanish classroom involves an immersive environment that challenges students with practical material that they can apply outside of the classroom. I want my students to be prepared for college and career, as well as traveling and interacting with others in Spanish. My hope is that students see the progress that they make in our classroom and become lifelong learners of Spanish.
References:
ACTFL. (2012). ACTFL PROFICIENCY GUIDELINES 2012. Retrieved October 5, 2019, from https://www.actfl.org/publications/guidelines-and-manuals/actfl-proficiency-guidelines-2012.
Ray, B., & Seely, C. (2015). Fluency through TPR storytelling: Achieving real language acquisition in school (7th ed.). Berkeley, CA: Command Performance Language Institute.
Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2010). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle, Cengage.
Teach for America. (2016). Teaching as Leadership Student Outcomes Wheel and Rubric. Retrieved March 15, 2020.