Podcasting.

For my ESL classroom, I would use ESL podcast episode 1053; buying food at a concession stand. I would use this not only to have my students practice food vocabulary in english, but also to have them learn some english colloquialisms such as "grab a seat," "hit the concession stand," "to be out of___ and  "Highway robbery." This would meet standard ESL 4:1, using english for the purpose of social interaction. I would assess whether or not my learning objectives had been met by first holding up picture cards of the various foods mentioned such as popcorn, a pretzel, and cotton candy, and having students say the english words aloud as a class. I would next ask individual students for the colloquial meanings of things such as "grab a seat" and "highway robbery."

Popcorn! a popular food for movie goers.

Mod 11 Post 2

I have created a spanish comic strip in which two teens have met for the first time. My learning objectives would be that students would be able to introduce themselves, express pleasure to meet another person, and how another person is doing and answer this question in Spanish (Standard LOTE 1.A ML1A:A). I would assess this by role playing with individual students asking them questions(¿cómo te llamas, cómo estás?), and seeing if they could answer them properly. I would then reverse role play and have a volunteer student ask me the questions and express pleasure to meet me( mucho gusto). If the majority of the students were able to do this correctly, I would know that my objectives had been met.

Mod 11 Post 1

For my Spanish class, I have created an Animoto Picture Story for the introduction of reflexive verbs. My learning objectives would be for students to recognize and use these verbs(standard LOTE 1.A ML1A:A), understand that they are actions you do to or for yourself, and know at approximately what time a day these actions are performed.  After first going over the definitions of the words shown in the picture show and practicing the conjugations of the verbs on the board, I would assess these learning objectives by asking the entire class what a reflexive verb is and then having students choose three partners and ask each other what time a day they perform various actions. The conversation should look like this

Student 1:¿A que hora te levantas?

Student 2 :Me levanto a las siete de la mañana. 

If the conversations sound like this and the time of day given by student 2 makes sense, I will know my learning objectives have been met. 

A 90's rific screen; but it can show Animoto video stories. 

Animoto is not complete without music!

follow up to last post

I forgot to mention; In a lower level Spanish class, the discussion would be in english to stress that learning another language is beneficial as well as fun! In this case, there would not be an LOTE standard to meet, but my objective would be for students to form and share opinions regarding the matter. I would assess this by tracking who participated in the conversation, ensuring that each student participates at least once.  In an upper level Spanish class, the discussion would be mostly in Spanish and I would assess speaking and listening skills according to standard LOTE 1B ML1D B; specifically addressing the use of a wide range of vocabulary and past, present and future frames. I would assess this by listening to each students' utterances and seeing if they employed newer vocabulary and employed the future tense at least once while discussing where they feel our world is going as far as multilingualism is concerned.

English only? I think not!

 To create my TEDed lesson, I was looking for a  TED talk to stress to my students the importance of language and why it is beneficial to know more than one language. I thought I had found that in Mark Pagel's "How Language Transformed Humanity." I could not have been more wrong! Mr. Pagel closed by arguing that in our new globalized world, we are destined to have but one language. I was fit to be tied! I couldn't believe that this view would even be allowed on TED.
  After I calmed down and thought, however, I decided that I could still make a lesson out of this. My objective would be to have students listen to this opinion and form their own and discuss it in class with each other and with me. I would assign this TEDed lesson to do at home(but make sure they did not look at the and finally section) and use the next day in class to be have a discussion, first making sure that the students understood what they heard from Mr. Pagel by reviewing the brief questions I added to my lesson. Then, I would allow the students to share their opinions with me. I would close by sharing my conclusions in the "and finally" section. Although communication would be slightly easier if we  all spoke the same language; the cost of loosing all of that diversity is too great.

Our globalized,multilingual world.

Spanish Greetings using Tubechop.

  For my Spanish classroom, I have chopped a 10min 40 sec Learn Spanish video into a shorter segment focusing strictly on the basic greetings. My performance indicator would be vocabulary recognition. My objective would be for students to be able to use initial conversation starters. (perdone señor(a)) and time of day greetings (buenos días, buenas noches) and learn how to respond to such greetings.  This would meet the standard LOTE 1 ML1, using listening and speaking in the target language for the purposes of socialization.
   I would assess this performance indicator by walking around the room and listening as students start conversations with at least 3 classmates. The conversations should go as follows.

Student 1: Perdone Señor(a)
Student 2: Hola, Buenos días.
Student 1: Buenos días.

If the students conversations sounded like this; I would know my objective had been met.

The Flipped Classroom

   I have to admit, when I first heard of the flipped classroom , I was skeptical. I figured that not only would the face to face interactions between students and teachers be lost, but it would be more work for the students to have the lecture portion of the course outside of class on their own. Then I read "Seven Things You Should Know About a Flipped Classroom", and learned that the benefits students receive from this instruction far outweigh the costs. Although more of the responsibility for learning is placed on the student in a flipped classroom, when the students watch the video lectures on their own at home, they can rewind and pause to capture exactly what they need rather than have to try to capture it as soon as the teacher says it. In a flipped classroom, the teacher takes on a more collaborative and co operative role as opposed to the typical head of classroom role; so the face to face interaction is not lost, just slightly different.I definitely prefer the former role as a teacher.
  To comment briefly on the homework article, when I was in high school; homework was always one of my biggest complaints. I would always come home and say "I was just in school all day, what do I need homework for." Perhaps for a student who feels this way(As I am sure many do) the flipped classroom would be a better model. Perhaps if the "homework" was to watch the lecture videos and the in class time was used for more hands on, collaborative activities and in depth discussion of the lectures,students would enjoy school more and get more out of it.