Polyglot Press
Staying
Connected to World Language Teaching Resources
June
7, 2013
MOVING ON
·
Best wishes to our retirees! Sue
Mead and Peter Conrad are both retiring. Both taught at Sun Valley ‘back in
the day’. Currently, it is the students and staff at Weddington HS and Porter
Ridge HS who will miss these talented and positive folks. Peter’s famous
rendition of En el Viejo San Juan has serenaded many audiences at many county
schools. Sue began her career in the elementary Spanish program although her
latest accomplishments have been in creating a robust level 1 through AP French
program. You can ‘see’ Sue for years to come as one of the UCPS Teachers of the
Year photos, presently on display at the PDC. Heartfelt best wishes go out to
both. Happy retirement to Wanda Parks
who ‘retired’ in January but came back to teach the semester when a teacher was
needed. This time she is retiring for real.
·
Best wishes to Kristen Mouritsen,
MRHS French teacher who will be taking off a few years and homeschooling her
children.
·
Best wishes to José Sevilla
who will be leaving MRHS after five years as a VIF teacher of Spanish. José is
a native of Colombia who previously taught elementary Spanish at Walter Bickett
ES in Monroe.
·
Best wishes to Anjella
Tabor-Smith who is leaving Weddington HS to teach at Central Piedmont
Community College.
·
Best wishes to Sharon Tian
who has resigned from Chinese teaching at Weddington MS.
CONGRATULATIONS
·
Congratulations to Heather
Buskard who will become a full-time French teacher at Cuthbertson HS.
·
Congratulations to Francy
(Yubely) Zolke and her husband on the birth of Lara Camila. Francy teaches
Spanish at East Union MS. .
CONDOLENCES
·
Our greatest sympathy goes
out to Sue Mead, who recently and unexpectantly lost her mother.
BRAVO
·
Congratulations to Spanish teacher, Antony Lucia, on the Cinco de mayo celebration he
coordinated at Sun Valley HS complete with a mariachi band. Cultural announcements about the events leading up
to May 5th were broadcast on the school sound system. Mr. Lucia
organized a guest speaker series on:
Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, He
believes the guest speakers have been “a wonderful way to teach kids, and
sees that they are happy to hear first-hand information from native
people speaking to them. The result has been very positive, and the kids
respond positively.” In addition, Mr. Lucia is in his second year of organizing Skype calls between his students and a
teacher and her Spanish students in Italy.
·
At Piedmont HS, Spanish
teachers Katie Kane and Julianne Lease
took 51 students from Spanish 2, Spanish 3, and International Club to the Hispanic Flamenco Ballet on April 29th
at Central Piedmont Community College. . The show was amazing, as usual! Kids
enjoyed it very much. The J building (where all of us are) won the Best
Decorated building for International Week- we had Costa Rica, Cuba, Trinidad
and Tobago, and Haiti/Dominican Republic.
·
Kathryn Snearly http://bit.ly/11kckbB and Francy
Zolke, are recognized by FLANC as “incredible
teachers” http://bit.ly/17rDyW7 See their photos and others from across the
state at http://animoto.com/play/kwqfzqzoID0OTBM2NrucQg
·
State Superintendent Dr. June Atkinson visited Western Union
Elementary and recalled their class visit to Raleigh, and Dr. Atkinson said, “When you had a discussion about how to improve education in
North Carolina, you came up with an excellent idea in about 10 minutes.” Dr. Atkinson said “that idea was that any student from kindergarten through grade 12 should be able to take
any world language, including Spanish and Chinese.” http://www.ucps.k12.nc.us/news/jump.php?news_id=375146
Mark Your Calendars
·
August 12 - 13, 2013 Effective Practices for new
UCPS teachers (and those who did not attend Effective Practices in 2011 or
2012)
·
August 19, 2013 Optional Teacher Work Day
·
August 20 – 23, 2013 Required Teacher Work Days
·
August 22, 2013
Thursday, 8:00 – 11:30 a.m. World Languages
Curriculum Day Piedmont High School Media Center, 3006 Sikes Mill Road,
Monroe, 28110.
·
October 10 -12, 2013 FLANC Conference.
(Foreign Language Association of NC) Winston Salem, NC Registration is open.
Work with your principals about attending. Registration
is only $105 for the Friday – Saturday conference now but goes up to $145
September 14.
o Pre- and post-conference workshops are explained online
at http://www.flanc.org/snippet_resources/files/FLANC%202013%20Workshops.pdf
o Jessica Garner will
be giving a Thursday morning workshop titled: Going Digital: A Make and Take Session to Move Your Classroom Into the
Digital Age
o Dr. Bobby Hobgood
will be giving a Thursday afternoon workshop titled: Creating the 21st Century World Languages Classroom
o Leslie Baldwin will
present on Thursday afternoon: From
Proficiency Levels to Assessment
o
Ramon
Vitacura will present a Saturday afternoon workshop titled: Understanding Proficiency Teaching “How” at
the Right Level: The Importance of Understanding Proficiency
www.flanc.org
·
October 19-20, 2013 Google Apps in
Education Summit, Cary, NC http://nc.gafesummit.com/registration
·
November 22 – 24, 2013 ACTFL Conference.
(American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Orlando, FL www.actfl.org
DPI
·
The ‘Student Growth Portfolio” has been renamed “Analyzing
Student Work”. This is the process whereby Arts Education, PE and Healthful
Living, and World Language teachers will be evaluated in order to gather data
for Standard 6 of the Teacher Evaluation Process.
UCPS
·
Dual
Language - Union County will add two
dual language immersion programs in August 2013. Kensington ES in the
Cuthbertson Cluster will begin a Chinese immersion program in kindergarten.
Unionville ES, in the Piedmont cluster, will begin a Spanish immersion program
in kindergarten. In the Spanish program, students have all instruction in
Spanish except for art, music and PE. In the Chinese program, students have 90%
of the academic instruction in Chinese with some literacy training in English
as well as art, music and PE in English. The UCPS dual language programs are
coordinated by VIF’s SLASH program and staffed with guest teachers who are
native-speakers.
·
World
Language teachers will work on common benchmarks and a common final exam for
Spanish 2 this summer.
·
TOY - During the program, the 2012 UCPS Teacher of the Year, Maxie
Johnson, a seventh-grade math teacher at East Union Middle, addressed all the
school-level teachers of the year. “You
are all wonderful and exceptional at what you do,” Johnson said. “Be proud. Be
strong. Be everything you were before: inspire, reach, teach, love, plant,
grow, coach and mentor. Teachers, be blessed and most of all, be a blessing.”
ACTFL Updates
Technology
·
UCPS
roll-out of 22,597 Lenovo Chromebooks
X131e “will be the largest user device rollout
that Lenovo is currently working on in the United States.” http://techserv.ucps.k12.nc.us/news/jump.php?news_id=373543
·
In
this week’s episode of Around the U, we were reminded how to be ready for the 2013-2014 school year to: become familiar
with the Google Chromebook browser, the ability to sync bookmarks, the Google
Apps for Education suite and the many attributes of Google docs.
·
Audacity - Are you planning to create some podcasts or prepare some
testing materials for next year? Audacity, a free
downloadable program permits editing and is not too hard to use. If you
download it to a home computer, you need to install LAME also, that permits the
Audacity files to be converted to MP3. It permits easy editing, importing other
audio files (i.e. German CD) to combine with your own recording (i.e.
instructions, numbers, etc.) There are numerous tutorials on how to use
Audacity. (It was a workshop last August by Dianne Mays) One tutorial http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html is
complete but dry and lots to read.
YouTube tutorials are very user friendly. I don't have a favorite but you could
try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rQr5YVNqI0
Just go to YouTube and google “How to use Audacity”, etc. There are a few basic
tools in Audacity. The Scissors tool cuts out what you don't want. The Time
Shift tool lets you move sections of track back and forth... The Selection tool
lets you click on the track where you want to work. Those are the three most
important features. You can play with volume and speed under the top menu
button "Effect"... Look for Amplify and Change Speed. Hover over all
the spots in Audacity and you will see their names.
·
Meograph is an EASY way to create audio books. Listen to my alter-ego
Rita Pedernales in her first book in Spanish. http://www.meograph.com/ritapedernales Terms of Service If you are under 13 years of age, you are not authorized to use
the Service, with or without registering, unless your school has obtained an
education license from Company (http://www.meograph.com/education#extras). In
addition, if you are under 18 years old, you may use the Service, with or
without registering, only with the approval of your parent or guardian.
·
Flamingtext – a great way to
spice up a paper, Power Point, Movie, etc. with ‘flaming’ headers in lots of
colors and shapes. Free. Flamingtext.com Thanks to Francy Zolke for sharing.
·
Free wifi in Union County
–
page 12 https://webcp.ucps.k12.nc.us/forms_manager/documents/1/1-1_Handbook.pdf
·
Foreign Language
Begins with T: Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom http://spanish4teachers.org/techblog/
·
Pinterest and the
World Language Teacher
o
French
Resources (for 15 – 18 year olds) - http://pinterest.com/sunnyearth1/french-resources-15-18/
o
French
as a Second Language Ideas http://pinterest.com/jilltuttle/french-as-a-second-language-lesson-ideas/
·
Wallwisher is now
called Padlet – quick
and easy tool for students to write notes on a shared and mutually visible
‘wall’. Best if not use by many students at the same time as it does not
correctly save multiple users simultaneously. http://padlet.com/
·
Type it - Without a
French / German / Spanish Keyboard - Struggling to add accents? Students can learn
the short cuts codes that are good on any keyboard or they can write the piece
online then click on the accent when needed. http://french.typeit.org/ http://german.typeit.org/ http://spanish.typeit.org/
Methodology
·
Blended Teaching of
World Languages – A Free Online Course: 6 weeks; 3-4 hours per week LTMOOC is a
collaborative course for language teachers of all levels to discuss and gain a
deeper understanding of emerging trends in blended teaching and learning of
world languages, including the methodology, best practices, and practical
application of the blended and online classroom. http://ltmooc.com/
·
AIM Teachers - The foreign language teaching
methodology known as Accelerative
Integrated Method (AIM) uses gestures, music, dance, and theater to help
students learn. The basic premise of AIM is that students learn and remember better when
they do something that goes along with the words they are saying. For example,
while the students say regard (look),
they hold their hands in front of their eyes in the shape of binoculars. This
"Gesture Approach" includes defined gestures for hundreds of
essential French words, known as "Pared Down Language." The gestures
are then combined with theater, storytelling, dance, and music to help students
remember and use the language. Teachers
have found great success with this integrative approach to language learning;
in fact, some students achieve results comparable to those in full immersion
programs, even when the AIM-educated students only study the language for a few
hours a week. http://french.about.com/cs/teachingresources/a/aim.htm
·
Speaking and Writing
Prompts -
Create engaging prompts for your unit and final exam prompts with ToonDoo!
Alice Shrader shares that “teachers can create
cartoons for the students to describe using ‘ToonDo” It’s very user friendly.”
·
International Journal for Foreign Language
Teaching – latest
edition is now online at http://www.ijflt.com/?utm_source=IJFLT+May+2013&utm_campaign=IJFLT+May+2013&utm_medium=email
Grants
·
If you were an NCAE (North Carolina Association of Educators) member,
you could apply for the Linda Radar Professional
Development grant—in the amount of $3,000--to be spent as you so choose
based on justifications you include in the application. Here is the link to the
NCAE Linda Radar grant http://www.ncae.org/wp-content/uploads/LRAcertified.pdf A person must have
been a member for 7 years before pursuing this award.
Technology for WL
10 Good Sites & Apps for Learning a New Language - http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/05/10-good-sites-apps-for-learning-new.html#.UZkk5ytgY8A
·
YouTube Downloader – Thanks to Jose
Sevilla for this information on how to download YouTube videos so that you u
have them for instructional purposes when there is no internet access. Note
that you won’t be able to download programs to your UCPS computer and will have
to download this program from an alternate computer. http://download.cnet.com/Free-YouTube-Downloader/3000-2071_4-75219434.html
·
Duolingo is a free language learning
service and app through which you can learn Spanish, English, French, Italian,
German, and Portuguese. To learn on Duolingo
you read, listen to, and translate
words and phrases. For example if I want to learn Spanish I'll be shown Spanish
words with translations. I can hear the words pronounced, too. Then to practice
I type and / or speak translations. To help me track my progress Duolingo
awards me point and virtual badges.
·
uSpeak HD is a free iPad app designed
to help beginners learn Spanish. The app matches you with word lists and
learning activities based on your current level of knowledge of Spanish. Before
you even register on the service you take a quick assessment to match you to
the appropriate lists and activities. uSpeak's word lists are organized in webs of
related words.
·
Spanish
Is Your Amigo is a series of video lessons
taught by Kristen Williams. The lessons are designed for beginners. The short,
upbeat lessons cover the basics of things like letter pronunciation, numbers,
syllabic stress, verb conjugation, nouns and articles, and common Spanish
phrases.
·
iMendi is a nice little
site for practicing vocabulary in the languages you're trying to learn. On
iMendi you can practice vocabulary in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,
French, German, Russian, Arabic, and Czech. To use iMendi just select the language you speak
and select the language you want to learn. iMendi then gives you the choice of
choosing a lesson (level 1, level 2, etc) or trying a randomly chosen lesson.
The "lessons" are really just simple vocabulary matching exercises
with a score and the correct answers revealed at the end.
·
BBC
Quick Fix offers a selection of essential phrases for forty languages.
The list of phrases varies slightly for each language, but they all include
greetings and other essential polite phrases like "I'm sorry I don't speak
Icelandic." All lists can be printed. You can also hear all of the phrases
pronounced. The pronunciations can be downloaded as MP3 files to take
with you on your iPod or phone.
·
Hello
World provides games
and activities for students to develop their knowledge of foreign languages. Hello World has games and
activities in nine languages including Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese.
Not all of the games and activities are free, but enough of them are free to
warrant listing as a good place for free learning activities.
·
Vocabla is a service for
learning English, Spanish, and Polish vocabulary. The service can be used
online or with the free iPhone and Android apps. The concept behind Vocabla is
similar to a lot of other language learning applications. In Vocabla you can
create lists of words and phrases that you want to learn. Alternatively, you
can select a list that was made by someone else and shared to the Vocabla
library. You can study each list in a flashcard style until you feel like
you're ready to take a practice quiz. You can earn digital trophies and badges
for your scores on the quizzes that you complete.
·
Pictolang is a CAPL service that
offers four image-based language learning activities. The Visual Word Trainer
is simply a flashcard activity that shows students an image and the word or
words that picture represents. The Picture Match Game shows students one word
and they have to find the picture to match it. Word Match Game shows students
one picture and they have to find the word to match it. The Analyst
Game is probably the most challenging of the activities. The
Analyst Game shows students a picture and they have to identify where that
picture came from.
·
Forvo can best be described as an audio wiki for word
pronunciations. One of the problems with learning to speak a language that is
not phonetic is trying to figure out how to pronounce the words. Forvo hosts hundreds of recordings of word
pronunciations by native speakers. Along with word pronunciations, Forvo
provides some basic demographic information about each language. Forvo's content is user-supported and
user-generated. New pronunciations are added on a regular basis.
·
Surface Languages is a free
service offering flashcards and practice activities to help students learn the
basics of a new language. Surface Languages supports 38 languages. To use the
site simply select the language that you are trying to learn then select a set
of words or phrases to practice. After selecting a set of words or phrases you will
be able to listen to the pronunciations of those words or phrases. You can also
flip through the words and phrases in flashcard format.
Globalization
·
The 2013 Global Education
Conference (http://www.globaledcon.com). The
five-day, 24-hour a day massive online event, with 400+ sessions and way-cool
keynotes, will be November 18 - 22. Co-chaired by Lucy Gray.
Chinese Resources
·
Sesame
Street just released their first season of Fun Fun Elmo: A Mandarin Language Learning Program on their Youtube Channel . There are
multiple episodes:
o
Yi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QerlKVfczG4&feature=share&list=SP8TioFHubWFvJ3ijWovmCYes-jKfgPqnn
·
CLTA
Members - The May issue of CLTA Newsletter is online now. Please use the
following link to view this issue directly:http://www.flipdocs.com/showbook.aspx?ID=10009068_382805 or you can access the Newsletter site at http://clta-us.org/newsletter for current and all back issues. This issue
has a new column ‘Regional Associations” where news about regional associations
is reported. Any news about the activities of the regional associations in the
future will be welcomed.
·
How do I learn
Chinese?
http://howdoilearnchinese.com/ See and click on
vocabulary to hear how they are pronounced. Play an interactive game that tells
you whether you are right or wrong.
o
Numbers in Chinese – listen, see and play the interactive game http://howdoilearnchinese.com/learnchinesenumbers.shtml
·
Growing up with
Chinese –
Chinese Greetings http://english.cntv.cn/program/learnchinese/20100803/100891.shtml
·
The Chinese Sound
System – online explanations, listening files and practice exercises:
o
1
– Tones; 2 – Initial Sounds and their Hanyu Pinyin Spelling, 3 – Final Sounds
and their Hanyu Pinyin Spellling; 4 – Possible Syllables, 5 – Numbers, 6 –
Personal Pronouns, 7 – Learn 50 Common Family Names, 8 – Tone Change Rules, 9 –
Two and Three Syllable Vocabulary Words for Classroom Greetings, Exercises - http://www.chineseliteracy.net/summer/cssystem.swf
·
Counting in Chinese – video by
pre-school age Chinese children http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dijFA3kqDaU&feature=related
·
Beginner Chinese –
Self-Introduction video
10:32 minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubZS7i34GIY
French Resources
·
La danse des
pinguoins
– catchy song and video that practices some body parts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcUvgSHDcBo
Spanish Resources
·
Antony Lucia shares: The Mariachi group I am in contact with is
one of the best. The group is made up of 4 singers and musicians. I
deal with "Pablito." Their phone # is: 704-299-3759”
·
AP Spanish literary works online: Cajas de carton, Una carta a Dios, Espuma y nada
más, El delantal blanco, No oyes ladrar a los perros, El almohadón de plumas,
etc. http://www.eslconnect.com/apspanish/ap.html#cuentos
·
Webpage
of Parthena Draggett, author of Temas and AP Spanish Prep Workbook http://www.jackson.stark.k12.oh.us/webpages/pdraggett/espa.cfm
·
Voy a ser
valiente – song for ir a + infinitive… http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/clozeline-caravana-cantante-ser-valiente/ Vocab, essential
questions and cloze activity http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/video-audio/clozeline-2013/caravana_cantante_-_ser_valiente_clozeline.pdf
·
Spanish Verb Tenses – Regular Verbs:
Sample per tense http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/courses/vtenses.htm and http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/courses/vtenses2.htm
·
Spanish Regular Verbs (hablar, comer,
vivir) in all tenses – PDF Handout http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/COURSES/verbs/Vtenses1.pdf
·
El coche híbrido y
eléctrico
- This site, in Spanish, features photos, brand names and descriptions of
the latest hybrid and electric cars. http://electricos.coches.net/
·
Entrevistas - Video
interviews with Spanish-speaking
women and girls fromXelajú, Guatemala – Created by LARC, the Language Acquisition Research Center
at San Diego State University for second language learners. LARC audio interviews
with Spanish-speaking women and girls – short introductions at http://larc.sdsu.edu/voces/VocesGuatemala/IntroEntrevistas/Introducciones.html and complete interviews at http://larc.sdsu.edu/voces/VocesGuatemala/Entrevistas.html
·
LARC interviews for
Mexico, Basque Country and Dominican Republic also. http://larc.sdsu.edu/voces/index.html
·
Quote: “La risa es el
lenguaje del alma." - Pablo Neruda
