Test Prep?

I read a few teacher blogs of teachers from the States and when things like test prep or State testing come up I am very thankful that I teach in Canada. The insanity of some of the testing just makes me want to take someone and shake them. Luckily, Provincial testing in Canada hasn't become quite that bad. We only have, generally, one Provincial test per year, though Grade 5 Intensive French has two, one of which is coming up in two and a half weeks.

Also luckily, the prosperity of my school and my job do not hang in the balance over the results of this assessment, in fact, in the past two years where I've had my class write this assessment I have yet to see any of the results of how my classes have done. I want my class to do well, but I'm not spending all of my time prepping my students for it either. Good thing too because that would defeat the purpose of Intensive French.

In a nutshell, the point of the Intensive French program is to have an intense period of only French to help our Anglophone students get to a level of French where they aren't going to be sliding back in levels every year. Researchers found that with the old Core French program, especially in the older grades, the same concepts had to be taught and re-taught every year. Some students would make some progress, but the majority never did. Intensive French is centred around using and re-using phrases until they become ingrained. We also do reading and writing in French but the majority of our mornings are meant to be spent talking in French.

Some classes are assessed orally, but everyone is given a written assessment at the end of the Intensive French block. They're given a story starter and are asked to write a fictional story based on the story starter. My opinion of this particular assessment and it's validity is beside the point. I need to get my students ready to write this assessment.

My main focus to prepare them for this isn't that I need them to do well either. I do want them to do well, of course, but my main focus this year is that I don't want them to feel over-whelmed and stressed this year. My first year of teaching I had my class for three weeks before the assessment. I didn't know what the assessment was going to be like and I did very little to prepare my class. I thought they might do okay on it but I wasn't prepared for the tears and the frustration that both they and I felt. Last year was a little better because I knew what was coming so we could talk about it before. But still, they were frustrated. There were tears. They wanted me to be able to help them like I did normally when they were writing. I realized that I had failed them. I had talked about how to do this assessment, we had done practice stories, but I hadn't had them practice writing independently. They were lost without me as their guide and as "Mme leDictionnaire".

So this year, against my judgement, I decided to introduce independent writing, just like I do with Daily 5 in English Language Arts. We did an I-Chart, talked about what to do when they're stuck, and I enforced the idea that they needed to stay where they were, working in their spot, using the resources around them, but not asking me for help. I would walk around and conference with them, but I was not going to translate every sentence for them. They can write about whatever they want. We did model stories together and model brainstorming and I let them go.

And they amazed me.

Their writing is not perfect. There are lots of mistakes and most of them wrote more descriptions of people or pets than actual stories (my mini-lesson for tomorrow is going to be on the difference) but they wrote. Not all of them wrote their own stories, some copied the model story and that's fine. It's a stage of learning, but they did it and some of them did an amazing job. Not only that, some of them ask for time to write and I happily give it to them.

We'll continue with our "assessment prep" over the next two and a half weeks, enjoying their new-found independence and I will hope that there will be fewer tears this year.

Tables and Desks

Please excuse my absence from my blog. Life has been busy lately. I have another post coming explaining why in part but for now I have another post about today.

We had a meeting today about our new school. Our school and another in the area are going to be closed next year and our new school is currently being built. We will be combining the two school staffs and students and to ease this transition, we have meetings occasionally with both staffs to talk about what we would like to see at our new school and what we would like our culture to be like and to get to know each other.

I’m fortunate enough to have worked at both schools, though the other one I only worked there for about two months and then supply taught a bit after, but I know most of the teachers there.

One of the things we were asked to discuss today was what we would like to have in our classrooms. We came up with a list of things like having a tall stool, a small table near the SMART board for our laptops, having a guided reading table and a reading area with something on the floor. These were all things we easily agreed on in our grade level groups.

Then we started talking about desks versus tables for the students. I had never even thought about this idea before. I just assumed we would be getting standard desks and that would be that because that’s what every classroom has in the upper grades that I’ve seen. But the other Intensive French teacher said that she would like tables. She explained that she didn’t have her students put much in their desks anyway and they always end up being a mess. The students tend to play with things in their desks and they end up being more of a distraction than necessary.

I agreed with all of her points and felt that I too would prefer tables over desks. I’ve always had my students store most of their stuff in places other than their desks and I find that their desks end up just being cluttered and full of things that they don’t need. So why have desks? Wouldn’t it be easier to have the students store things elsewhere? And also, this could help them prepare for middle school where they will not have desks of their own. They will need to carry their stuff from room to room and won’t be able to keep supplies in their desks. For that matter, I question the necessity of having desks with storage space in middle and high school. What’s the point? All it does in encourage them to put things in there like notes for students in other classes and other distractions.

Together we thought of a system where we would have tables with different responsibilities for bringing over the table’s basket of supplies. Especially in Intensive French where we do so much oral and group work together, there isn’t a lot of need of supplies. We barely have any duotangs or scribblers and no text books. So what is the use of having a desk to store things? But the other grade 5 teacher, who teaches French Immersion was not convinced. She wants desks with storage space in them in her classroom. At first we thought this would be fine, that we could customize our spaces. 
But it turns out that they want our wings to be be uniform. And when I thought about it a little more I realized that although I’m setting up this classroom for me and for what I would like to have to teach, I also have to think of the teachers who will have my classroom after me. After all, it’s not likely that I will stay in the same classroom for the rest of my career. And even if I did, the new school is going to outlast my career. So I have to think about what the teachers after me would want to have in their classroom as well. And that’s a difficult thing to do. We’ve been told that we can’t change our minds once our furniture is ordered. We don’t have enough money for that. So if we decide now that we want tables and then we find out that it was a horrible mistake then we just have to live with it. Both of us are new teachers. We’ve never worked with tables before in older grades. We just have this idea that it would work better but we don’t know in practice. 
So I’m asking you, my more experienced PLN, what do you think would work better? If you could have any kind of furniture in your room, in your ideal classroom, what would it be, knowing that you have to get the whole wing to agree and that future teachers will be living with your choices? And other than student work spaces, what would your ideal classroom contain? Would you prefer a round table for conferencing or a ‘c’ shaped table? Would you prefer to have a water fountain in the room or in the hallway? If you could design your classroom to look however you wanted, where would you put the board? Your desk? Would you even have those things in there at all?

French video resource

It's been a while since I last posted. I've been very busy, like all teachers, getting into classroom routines, marking work, getting to know my students better and all those little day to day tasks that pile up. I've been thinking of a few topics I would like to write about but I need to find a costume for our school's Halloween Howls tomorrow night and I need to get to bed so this is a quick post today.

I am very fortunate to work in a school district where YouTube is available for us to use and even encouraged though they prefer us to take the video, save it and show it without worrying about ads or other videos being shown that are inappropriate. My solution to that is that I set my laptop/SMART Board to extend so I can queue up the video on my laptop where the students can't see it, then slide it over to the SMART Board where they can. That or I go to a channel where I trust the content.

My favourite YouTube channel is La chaine de Mme Duckworth, created by a Core French teacher in Toronto. She has about 1500 videos on there, some are silent videos, some are songs, some are tv shows. Not all are appropriate for all ages, but with any video, it's best practice to watch it first before you show it.

Some day I would like to start my own YouTube channel for songs and videos I use in my classroom. Do you have a favourite resource for videos that you use?

Happy Halloween!

Tickets please

After blogging about it, talking it over with our M&R teacher and doing a lot of thinking I have gone back to using positive participation tickets in my class. We had a big discussion about it on Friday and, after being out sick on Monday, I started using them for the first time today. While the system isn't totally fleshed out yet, basically this is how it works:

A student speaks French, gets settled quickly, helps someone out, goes above and beyond what is asked of them, I give them a ticket. These tickets can be redeemed for privileges, things like; indoor recess with a group of friends, time in the gym, Smart board games, Lego and so forth. The idea with the "rewards" is that they were mostly group rewards, not just for an individual.

What I haven't worked out yet is the "value" of each of these rewards. I suppose I need to come up with some sort of price list or something so that the students know how many tickets they need to save up. Now I know from video game theory that the most effective reward systems start of with small, easy to achieve goals and then over time make the goals harder and more time consuming. But rather than increase the value of the rewards (with some sort of strange inflation?) I think as time goes on I will make tickets harder to get, so for example whereas now, if a student attempts to speak French, even by repeating what I'm saying back to me, I give them a ticket. In time I will only give out tickets for full sentences or spontaneous French.

The other advantage of this system over last year's is that, rather than constantly having to get new tickets, I'll be able to re-use the same tickets over and over again until they fall apart.

Today's introduction to the tickets went pretty well. As I expected, almost all bought into the system instantly. I saw hands go up from students I hadn't heard from without specifically calling on them before. And yes, this is extrinsic instead of intrinsic motivation, but you know what? It was a happier, more peaceful classroom this morning when we were doing our French work. And hopefully I can gradually pull the program back as they become more confident in their abilities and eventually they will buy into the real reason that we're doing all this learning - to better themselves.

Any hints or tips on how to make this program even better?

Going back to carrots

I'm thinking of going back to positive participation tickets. Instead of giving my students actual things in the draws though, I'll try for less tangible prizes, like having a group in for indoor recess, or taking a small group to the gym or getting first choice of responsibilities.

My reasoning? Well I've been trying for the past three and a half weeks to get my students motivated, not only to learn French, but to be respectful and supportive in our classroom. I'm trying to create a classroom environment that is conducive to learning and at times I'm struggling. I feel bad for the students in our class who are trying very hard and I would like to reward their struggles with more than just words. I feel like I shouldn't have to. I feel like they are doing what they are supposed to and they should feel wonderful about themselves because of it, because they're meeting their learning goals that we set, but I'm also starting to feel like it isn't enough.

I'm also finding that quite a few of my students are hesitant to try, hesitant to make a mistake. I hope this is not because of anything I've done. I model that I make mistakes all the time and have to fix them "Madam a fait une erreur!" I exclaim and fix it, or look up a word I don't know on Google Translate. But learning a second language is tough and it's put them out of their comfort zone for sure. I get that. I've been there. After all, French is my second language and I didn't learn it until I was 12.

So my idea is to start off using the tickets and then gradually use them less and less frequently in hopes that the external motivator will help build some positive habits that will become internal motivators. Am I foolish in thinking this? Am I opening up a can of worms that I won't be able to close or am I doing the right thing here? Really looking for some advice on this one.

Read to Self trials

I haven't been keeping up with my blogging this past week. I had a feeling I would slow down a bit in September. Things are so busy. Last weekend's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival was amazing and a well needed break. My husband's band had an amazing show and placed second in the competition. Thanks to everyone who voted and came to the show. I'm so proud of them.

At school, my class is progressing. We're starting to develop some good habits and routines. Some days they seem to require more reminders of those routines than others. There French skills are progressing as well. It amazes me, watching them figure out what I'm saying, what they need to say, learning the sounds and the grammar of a new language. It's been a few years since I started French Immersion, 15 years now actually, and I have a vague recollection of how frustrating it was at first. But despite their frustration, most are catching on to the daily phrases and routines that we do in French and are getting more accustomed to me speaking in French.

As I mention in my First week with students post, I'm integrating some parts of the Daily 5 program into my Intensive French classroom. In February I'll be implementing the whole program. For now we're focusing on read to self. We did an I-chart of what that looks like, we talked about the three ways to read a book and we have a chart on the board for a visual representation of our stamina progress. More so than any other year, I'm finding their stamina is erratic. Some days they are able to read for 14-15 minutes, other days they only have stamina for 2 or 3 minutes, or can't get settled at all. I am noticing a general trend of more time as we go along, but we have setbacks still. Today their stamina was 2 minutes.

I had one student today who did not want to read at all. This student had been having a difficult week and was being obstinate. I tried having other students encourage this student to try and reminders of the three ways to read a French book but to no avail. And I do believe strongly that when we're building up our class stamina, it has to be the whole class.

Does anyone have any tips for how I can help this child? It wasn't just this one issue today. I tried speaking one on one a few times, and have attempted to contact home to see if there's something else going on but haven't been able to reach anyone yet. How do you deal with students who refuse to buy in to this?

Moving from carrot and stick motivation

Even before I became a full-time teacher, I struggled with the idea of how to motivate students. While in university we looked at various methods and discussed how students who are intrinsically motivated (motivated to do something because they know it will benefit them) work better and have a more meaningful education than those who are extrinsically motivated (those motivated by either fear of consequences or because they will get something else if they do well).

Extrinsic motivation is often called  using "Carrot and Stick" motivators. So you tell a student that if they do this thing you want them to do, they will get a candy (carrot) but if they don't do it, they will get a detention (stick). In some way it is nearly impossible to get away from using carrots and sticks. After all, if a student does well they get a high mark, if they don't do well, they fail. I suppose the amount of importance you give to those marks can change whether or not they become motivators. I myself as a student was highly motivated by marks and by praise.

In a previous post over the summer, I thought about Video game style motivation where I talked about using goals to help motivate my students. This is something I have started doing a little this past week, having the students express their learning goals in writing.

But I also spoke about my positive participation tickets. So far I have not resumed this practice and I would like to refrain from using it this year for several reasons. One is it's a carrot. It motivates students to something I want because they will get something from it. I found it difficult last year to see the students become greedy about the prizes last year and it also took up a lot of time and money to get the prizes. The positive participation tickets came from a system developed for the intensive french program. Most intensive french teachers use them or a variation to motivate their students to speak French. I'm concerned that if I don't use the system that when my teaching is observed, my choice to not use this system will be questioned and I'll be told to start using it again.

My other concern is what to use instead. Last year I tried to go without my tickets with one of my grade 5 classes. After a few days of not getting any hands I started in with the tickets and suddenly the hands went up. I also randomly call on students using a random name selector. But so far this year I haven't seen participation from a lot of my students. What motivators have you used in your classroom that work for you?

Almost nearly ready

I'm nearly ready.

I'm almost nearly ready.

To be fair, I'm never going to be completely ready. But I can get as close as possible. I spent another full day at school yesterday. I finished a few little projects and did a lot of tidying. I hope that if I spend just another hour or two in there this weekend, plus I need to buy a few little things, then I'll be finished in terms of my classroom. I also have some other things that I can do at home.

One of my big projects for Friday was my name-tags for the desks. I laminated my name-tags and stuck magnets on the back. This way, if I put the desks in groups I can move the name-tags around easily and there's no messiness on the desks. I did the same thing with my responsibilities.

But unfortunately, the adhesive on the magnets didn't work well. I came in my classroom in the morning to see most of the tags on the floor and the magnets still up on the wall. One of my colleagues suggested using a glue gun. I glue gunned them all on and then set up my seating chart.

 

That worked pretty well, but there were still some that let go so I ended up putting packing tape across the back of them. But I'm happy with the way they look now. It's hard to see from the pictures, but the tags are mostly blue with some stars and a guitar. I use a lot of music in my classroom so I thought they were fitting.

My schedule's all set up now and my responsibilities list is up though I won't be using all of them on the first day. One thing I forgot is that I haven't done their names to go next to their job. Rather than go through all the bother with the magnets and packing tape and glue guns etc. I'm hoping to go and get magnets that I can write on and just write their names or get them to write their names and decorate them if I can find what I'm thinking of. I don't look forward to shopping this weekend but it has to be done.

 My other big project that I did yesterday was putting up words around my room. Last year we were given these nice big poster of classroom object words but I didn't get around to using them. So this year I've put them up around the room, but not just to identify objects. They're mounted on velcro. My plan is to leave them up for a few weeks, call attention to them, have students use them in games like I Spy, but then take them down and have the students try to put them back up in the correct spot.

This is the display outside my classroom. Same idea as what I did last year but with more students it's a bigger arc. I just found out I have a new student though so I'm going to have to try to fit her in somewhere.

I like making rainbows, even when I'm just organizing my duotangs. I was looking at all kinds of beautiful classroom pictures where teachers have specific themes and I was a little jealous that I didn't have a theme. Then I decided my unofficial theme is rainbows.

So when I set up my scribblers and duotangs and folders for the Intensive French block, this is how I set them up. I was also feeling very tired and a little silly when I did this.






Just a few more things to do and my classroom with be all ready. Three more days and then I'll have my students.

Welcome back students - bienvenue mes élèves

First week back

We're two days in to the school year. I'm feeling a little nervous, a little hurried, a little over-whelmed and a little grateful.

It's so nice to be back with my colleagues. I've missed them over the summer and I'm happy to be able to see them again. Unfortunately, my next door neighbour moved one door down, leaving an empty class between us so I'm all alone on my part of the wing, a little isolated from everyone else, but it's a short hallway so it's not hard to go visit. There are only four teachers in our wing now.

We've spent a few hours the last two days in meetings and workshops on various topics. Yesterday was about common language and common practice for working in teams. Today it was reading records, beliefs and practices when it comes to discipline and some basic "how does our school work" discussion. Very useful and informative stuff. It's hard to sit that long though. Another reminder that I need to get my students up and moving because they must find it hard to sit so long as well.

In our non-meeting time, I've continued my classroom preparation. It's looking better. Yesterday I heard I had two new students. I was very concerned about fitting those two extra desks into my already crowded room. At the end of the day I took this picture:

I'll admit, I didn't go home in the best of moods. I'm not sure why those two extra desks made me feel so much more nervous but for some reason they did. 24 sounded like a lot; 26 sounded impossible. But today I was feeling much better about it. I know that with a large class, routine is crucial. I know that I need to give lots of responsibilities to my students to help the class run smoothly and I know that we can all write our class vision statement, values, rules, and make them meaningful so that 26, while a little crowded, is not chaotic and learning will still happen.

Today I found out I have one or two fewer students. But I feel like even if my numbers go back up, I'll be okay. 

What made me feel even better today was we worked out our schedule for the 3-5 wing. Last year the schedule was a nightmare. We had to juggle me teaching my homeroom, and three other classes of French. We had to make it work around the gym and music schedule, we bargained, bartered and begged to switch other times around to somehow come up with a schedule where we were all getting approximately what we needed. It took us 7 hours of meetings and in the end, the result was so complex that even by the end of the year I was not always sure whose class was where. 

One of the other teachers, when I brought up doing our schedules, was not at all happy and I don't blame him. I swore to him that it would be easier this year. It had to be. Nothing could be more complicated than last year's. And it wasn't. About an hour of easy talks and simple fixes, I have the most lovely schedule I could ask for. Whereas last year's, my students' schedule and my teacher schedule looked nothing alike, this year's the difference is very minor, only that when they are in math with another teacher, I am teaching pre-intensive French to one of two classes. And when they have music or gym, I have a prep. I get to take them to library. My Intensive French block is unbroken and beautiful all morning.

It could still change, but for now, it is golden and perfect.

My classroom time I spent today on my French library. Almost all of the English books are out of my classroom now. I'm storing them next door until February. Last year I had a hard time keeping my French book boxes organized. I sorted them by category and labeled the boxes but the students didn't always put the books back in the right boxes. You all know the drill. Then on Fridays when we cleaned the classroom I would assign a few students to organize the library. But they didn't always know which books went in which box and in the end, I would do most of the organizing.

So this year, each book box has a number, and all the books in the box have the same number on the front cover. So for example, this is box number 14 - Robert Munsch books. I also have an 'F' in the corner for fiction and all the Robert Munsch books have a 14 on their cover.

 This book box has hockey books, both fiction and non-fiction, hence the F & NF in the corner.

This is the end result - at least so far. I finished 25 of the boxes today and I'll hopefully finish the rest tomorrow or the next day. 

That's how my first two days went. One week from today I will have had my first day back with students! So much to be done before then but I know I'll get what I need to have done finished. How are your days back going? Are you focusing on one specific area you want to improve for this year? How do you get yourself organized and ready?

Meet the Teacher Monday

This is something I found over at Blog hoppin' a website that links up teacher blogs. This week they're doing a teacher week with different topics each day of the week. Today's topic is "meet the teacher" so here's a little about me.

Tell us a little something about you...

My name is Jeannie Chiasson (Mme Chiasson or just Madame to my students). I teach Grade 5 Intensive French in New Brunswick, Canada. I've been married for just over a year and we have three cats. I started this blog about a year ago after a technology PD. It started off as a classroom blog but has developed into a teacher blog. I love to read. I'm a compulsive reader, especially since I got an e-reader in June. An endless supply of books at my fingertips is a dangerous thing. I have one week of summer vacation left before it's back to school and then another week after that before my students return!

How long have you been teaching?

Starting in January of 2007 I was a substitute teacher for three years, mostly in elementary. Then in December 2009 I got my first long term contract teaching Intensive French in grade 5. Last year was my first full year of teaching, again at grade 5 Intensive French, but this time I was also teaching grade 4 Pre-Intensive French. This will be my third year of teaching full time.

You might not know...

I'm also an aspiring writer. I've written a few novels and short stories. Over the summer months I've been working on a novel I wrote two years ago for NaNoWriMo geared towards late elementary children. I haven't been published yet but I would like to get published one day, possibly soon.

Also, French is not my first language. I grew up speaking English and didn't go into French Immersion until grade 7. I stuck with it all through school but decided to take German in University instead of French. But I did theatre in French and English through my BA degree and managed to get my French level up high enough to teach. I love languages and I'm proud of my Acadian heritage. 

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

I'm looking forward to teaching 3 classes instead of 4. My schedule last year was very hectic and I'm hopeful that my schedule this year will be a bit more sane. I'm also very excited that I will be teaching in the same school, in the same classroom and even some of the same students I taught last year! And for sure I'm excited about working with the same wonderful staff. I am so blessed with having such amazing co-workers though there will be a few changes to our little family. In February, instead of switching classes like last year, I will get to keep my students and teach them in English for half the year. I enjoy teaching the grade 5 curriculum and am very happy to be able to keep the same group the whole year.

What do you need to improve?

So much. I'm a new teacher and every day is a huge learning experience for me. I would like to work on my organization this year, both of my materials and my time. I would like to work harder not longer so that I can keep a good balance in my life. I would like to improve my classroom management techniques. 

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without?

I can't live without my SMART Board and internet. We had a few days when it went down and oh boy did I find that hard. Also makes planning lessons for supply teachers difficult.

My planning binder. Even if I totally change my plan mid-stride I need it there and ready for me in-case my brain falls off the train.

Positive Participation tickets. I've tried teaching without them. I won't go back.

My laptop. By far the most useful tool in my classroom. I am so grateful that our province provides one for every teacher. 

So that's me. If you're interested in participating in this teacher week over at Blog Hoppin' click this link below and join in.

Three Ways to Read a Book - In Intensive French

I've been thinking about my first week of school plans today. One of the first lessons I like to do with my students on their first day with me is to teach them the three ways to read a book. This lesson comes from the The Daily 5 system. I adore the Daily 5 and am so excited to be able to use it more in February with my class. I have another post in my head that I'm going to write soon about ways to incorporate the Daily 5 into Intensive French, but it needs more thinking and planning time before I can write it.

The first few days of Intensive French are conducted in English. We will discuss as a class how the next five months are going to go, we talk about how they feel about Intensive French and we go over some strategies for dealing with the frustration they will feel when trying to function in a new language. One big frustration they feel is that they are not able to read English books in my class, only French ones during silent reading. In order to deal with this frustration, I talk about the three ways that they can read a book.

I ask the students to think back to when they were first learning to read. I have them talk about what they remember. Memories are often a little spotty on the subject of learning to read. Many think they just tried and they could do it. Some remember that it was frustrating and they had to read one word at a time. Others remember picture books very fondly. I tell them that learning to read in French is just like learning to read their first language (English for almost all of my students) except that it's easier because they already know so much about reading.

My class library is better organized than this now with book
baskets, but I don't have a more recent picture

We start brainstorming what they know about reading. They know that they read from the left side to the right of the page, top to bottom. They know that words have meaning. They know what punctuation means. They even know the sounds of each letter and I tell them that the sounds in French are sometimes the same or similar and sometimes a little different but we will work on that together.

Then I move on to the three ways we can read. I show them three books, all French. One is a book we read together in grade 4 pre-intensive French. The second is a comic strip book and the third is a simple book with very few familiar words. I ask them if they know the three ways to read a book. Through prompting and modelling I can get them to come up with the ideas themselves that they can read a book by:
1. reading the pictures (the comic book)
2. re-telling yourself a familiar story (the book from last year)
3. reading the words (the simple book)

I model with each of these books, showing them my thought process as I look at a few pages. I have them help me by saying what they think is going on in the book based on the pictures and words or from what they know from reading the book last year.

This lesson helps amazingly when I start up silent reading time, which I do right away on the first day. I feel it is very important to give my students some time to explore the French books on their own, just as students in Kindergarten are given time to explore books in their first language to help them learn to read. Many students find a sense of relief after I explain this to them. Before I think they feel like I'm going to plop some books in front of them and expect them to be able to read them in the traditional sense. That would be an unrealistic expectation of them at this point. After all, I'm there to teach them how to read, not expecting that they will be able to do it right away on their own without help.

How do you help your students settle into your classroom? What are some of your favourite first day activities and lessons?

Setting up my classroom

I went in to school this week, intending to get a start on setting up my classroom. I have an added challenge this year because I have, probably, six more students than last year so I have to factor the added desks into my classroom layout. I am also teaching one grade 5 class for the whole year, French first half, English the second, so I've inherited a great deal of resources to teach the English half. This is what I found when I came into my classroom.

The janitor isn't finished with my room yet. He's still doing the floors so I'm going to wait to go back in again until next week. What I did do is measure my bulletin boards that don't have fabric yet so that I can buy fabric to cover them. I measured them all, wrote the measurements down on a piece of paper, and left the paper in my classroom. Oh well, I'll get it next week.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all my English books. I'd like to have them neatly put away, somewhere not too accessible during the first half of the year so that my students aren't trying to sneak them out during silent reading time when they are meant to be reading French books. Most IF teachers teach one class all year. Last year I did something called the flip-flop where I only taught French all year to two grade 5 classes. This had many disadvantages but one main advantage was that I only had French resources in my room.

One storage option is my back closet. There are beams up there that can hold heavy boxes of books. I also have two new-to-me bookshelves and I have a few cupboards that didn't get used last year. I could, I think, get all the books stored in my room. The other option is we now have an empty classroom next to me so I could store the English stuff over there until the end of January.

I'm curious about what other Intensive French teachers do to store their stuff. Any suggestions? What do you think would work best? How do you organize your room?  

Video Game Style Motivation

On Monday I bought a new exercise game for my Wii. I've been using the Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus but I felt unmotivated by it lately. I've been playing it for a few years now and was frustrated by the fact the goals I had to set were based solely on weight and nothing else. Early on there were little rewards for reaching a certain amount of hours of activities, and I always made sure that I got in my 30 minutes so it would play the little happy music, rewarding me for my hard work, but beyond that there wasn't much. I don't need to lose weight, I want to be more fit. Sure, I could set my own goals apart from the game's and celebrate them for myself, but that's what I got the game for in the first place, to be my motivator.

I'm easily motivated by small success celebrations. Three seconds of happy music or collecting a trophy or sticker or check-mark both in games and in the real world are huge motivators for me. So I wanted a new exercise game that would let me set goals that were meaningful to me. A few friends suggested Zumba and I considered it (I love Zumba and dance in general) but there didn't seem to be any goal setting or rewards for reaching goals. Instead I bought Wii Sports Active. So far it has lived up to my needs.

But how is this all related to teaching? After all, this is a teaching blog, not a exercise game blog. When looking in to buying a new game, I thought a lot about what motivates me to do things. As much as I would like to be, I'm not often intrinsically motivated, or not as much as I think I should be. I clean my house because I like guests to feel comfortable and enjoy my house as much as I do. I mow the lawn because I don't want neighbours to think I don't take care of my yard. I write because I want people to read my writing and give me positive feedback (or critique it constructively). I do get some pleasure out of doing all these things as well, but when I feel stuck or unwilling to do something, it's often external motivators that get me going. I believe that the same is often true of my students.

We did a book study at our school this past year of a book called The Highly Engaged Classroom by Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering. A few teachers got together and we read and discussed chapter by chapter. It was a good read with lots of great ideas. The one I've been contemplating lately is having the students set goals and make choices about their learning. I believe that setting goals is highly motivating, but I haven't come up with a way to integrate this idea into my Intensive French classroom.

In video games, players don't often set their own goals in the same way. The game sets up the goals for them and they can sometimes choose which ones to go for or how to attain them. For example, one of my favourite video games is Little Big Planet. I get to run around and collect stickers and I get rewarded for finding more stickers and items. In other games, players are rewarded with experience points and get to go up a level. Or they collect gold and buy new items for their character.

Now, I already have a reward system in my classroom. My students get tickets for speaking French during our daily routine and these tickets go in for a draw at the end of the week. The students often cite this as one of their favourite parts of Intensive French. Not intrinsic motivation but often effective at getting reluctant students to participate. I would like to alter this system or add a different system that somehow uses what I know of video game motivation to help motivate my students to speak French in class. I would like to figure out a way to have the students either choose their own goals or have set goals for them to attain.

Have you used goal setting in your classroom? What worked for you? Do you have any suggestions for how I could use goal setting in my classroom?