World Languages K-12
AUGUST 2021
Welcome to the 2021-2022 school year!
I hope you are rejuvenated and ready to create a positive impact on your students through your language acquisition courses. I will be supporting you and your dept. colleagues through curriculum and professional development throughout this school year. Let me know how can I serve you best and facilitate your teaching.
Finally, enjoy another issue of the WL newsletter loaded with PD opportunities, resources, and important information about our WL program.
World Languages Highest Goal
Here in Pasco County, we want to help every student develop his/her skills in every language domain (Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing), starting as soon as they join one of our foreign language courses. We will accomplish this by design engaging lessons that will purposely target every receptive and productive skill.
STRIVE FOR 25 GOALS
- Early Literacy
- Operational Excellence
- Mission-Driven Leadership
- Access and Opportunity
- Community Engagement
World Languages Philosophy
The World Language Acquisition Philosophy at our district follows four immersion-related goals:
- to achieve proficiency in the target language (listening, speaking, reading, and writing),
to acquire comparable English Language Arts skills in our foreign language courses,
to reach cultural competency in surface features and deep features of cultural perspectives, practices, and products,
to gain mastery in our content areas.
QUESTIONING TO INCREASE LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & RETENTION
Questioning is one of the most common techniques to make language comprehensible and scaffold proficiency. Foreign language teachers should use different types of questions to facilitate both acquisition and comprehension.
Here are some of the most common questions:
Yes or no questions: Before/after introducing or discussing a concept or situation, the teacher asks yes or no questions. i. e. Does Carlos like spiders?
Either/or questions: Questions that give students two or more choices. i. e. Does Carlos like hamburgers or hot dogs?
Personalized questions and answers (PQAs): After making a statement, the teacher ask a relevant and/or fun question to a student about the content in a way that the student can relate to. i.e. Chocolate is delicious. Do you like chocolate?
Comprehension questions: Teachers ask comprehension questions to make sure students understand when he/she uses the target language.
Remember, use the target language as much as possible and encourage your students to answer in the target language too. With practice and time, they will be able to produce in the target language independently.
8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions
Questions can be extraordinary learning tools.
A good question can open minds, shift paradigms, and force the uncomfortable but transformational cognitive dissonance that can help create thinkers. In education, we tend to value a student’s ability to answer our questions. But what might be more important is their ability to ask their own great questions–and more critically, their willingness to do so.
The latter is a topic for another day, but the former is why we’re here. This is part 2 of a short series (can two articles be considered a series?) built around the idea about how to ask great questions as learning tools. Part 1 ‘An Updated Guide For Questioning In The Classroom.’
8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions
1. TeachThought Learning Taxonomy
The TeachThought Learning Taxonomy is a template for critical thinking that frames cognition across six categories.
It imagines any learning product, goal, or objective as a ‘thing,’ (i.e.g, a subject of some kind) then suggests different ways to think about said ‘thing’–mitosis, a math formula, a historical figure, a poem, a poet, a computer coding language, a political concept, a literary device, etc.
It’s designed to promote ‘whole’ thinking about otherwise discrete or disconnected ideas.
- Function–thinking critically about how a ‘thing’ works
- Self–Making sense of how the thinker relates to the ‘thing’
- Abstraction–Thinking about the ‘thing’ creatively, or in non-traditional ways
- Parts–Seeing the individual parts of the ‘thing’
- Interdependence–Examining how the ‘thing’ relates to other (similar and non-similar) things
- Whole–See the ‘thing’ fully and within the context
A literary device–a metaphor example, is usually studied in isolation. This writer uses this metaphor in this way to this effect. Using the TeachThought Learning Taxonomy, a learner would be forced to confront that metaphor in much more diverse cognitive terrain–to think about something in multiple ways for a more complete picture and advanced understanding.
2. Digital Taxonomy Power Verbs
‘Power verbs’ aren’t exclusive to Bloom’s Taxonomy (see below). In addition to our TeachThought Learning Taxonomy (see above), there are ‘verbs’ that describe cognitive ‘actions.’ Add some kind of framework or hierarchy, and you’ve got a full ‘taxonomy.’
Enter the ‘digital taxonomy’ power verbs. You can download a ready-for-the-classroom curricula version of our power verbs here, but you can do plenty with digital taxonomy power verbs to help students ask great questions without spending a penny. From designing projects and refining assessments to classroom, discussions and digital citizenship lessons, the ‘actions of students are among the most critical components of any learning experience.
3. Socratic Discussion
A Socratic Discussion, which is also referred to as a Socratic Seminar, is a group learning strategy designed to support students in open-ended examination and extended critical thinking through dialogic terms. In short, students learn together by talking together in an open and student-centered format. These discussions are not teacher-led, but student-led–students talk to one another.
It is a dialectal method of learning inspired by Socrates’ iconic teaching methods that depend on a pattern of theory formation, revision, and elimination to arrive at loosely-held “truths.” Used strategically, this approach should promote inquiry as learning and the close examination of one’s own beliefs as primary catalysts for learning.
4. Paideia Seminar
A Paideia Seminar is similar to the Socratic Seminar–in fact, it uses Socratic Discussions on the part of the students, combined with a minor but clear role for teachers, to facilitate a verbal and critical examination of ideas. From the (a?) Paideia Seminar website, “The Paideia Seminar is an integrated literacy event built around formal whole-class dialogue. The purpose for doing Paideia Seminar is to support students’ ability to think conceptually and communicate collaboratively.”
One of the key differences between a Paideia Seminar and a Socratic Seminar is that within the Paideia format, teachers are “allowed” a role, provided that that role doesn’t exceed 10% of the total discussion. You can see a video here to learn more.
The Question Game focuses on “teaching children a kind of thinking which is particularly useful in creative problem-solving–a focused approach to get from a problem to the most effective solution. It is most effective when combined with regular repetition, which solidifies the thought pattern, and with groups, which encourages contributory exploration of alternative responses and creativity.”
Its dice-form not only offers a whiz-bang manipulative, but also introduces a level of gamification and playful uncertainty into the process, and its open-ended and universal stems make it practical for a wide variety of classroom applications.
6. Bloom’s Taxonomy
Similar to the TeachThought Taxonomy, Bloom’s Taxonomy can act as a framework or pattern to funnel content, inquiry, or other learning processes. This use of the taxonomy to create universal stems is one approach as modeled in the following graphic from Flickr user enokson.
7. Question Formulation Technique
We’ll have more on this soon but in short, the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is a kind of question brainstorming process based around a topic as a kind of kernel.
In the words of the Right Question Institute, QFT is a “straightforward, rigorous process that helps all students learn how to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize on how to use their questions. In the process, they develop divergent, convergent, and metacognitive thinking abilities.”
For now, you can read more about the QFT here.
8. Question Stems
As seen in Bloom’s graphic, sentence stems and question stems are wonderful tools that can empower students to ask questions by giving them a head start in doing so.
By using a ‘stem,’ a teacher has set the ball on the proverbial tee for the student to smash. Yes, ideally the student asks their own great questions, but what if they can’t–or don’t think they can? What if they don’t? What if they’re still learning how? What if they lack the background knowledge in some narrow sect of science or math or whatever, and need a push in the back? Stems can help.
See also 26 Sentence Stems For Higher-Level Conversation In The Classroom
Question stems are a more elementary questioning strategy than the Question Formation Technique (see above), but not necessarily less effective. They can be used for younger students, students struggling with a concept, or even “advanced learners” (not a huge fan of this term) as they narrow an open-ended learning experience, or to be used as ‘bread crumbs’ in the case that the teacher is trying to help them arrive at a pre-determined destination. Some examples?
8 Basic Question Stem Examples
Which differences between ____ and ____ stand out to you?
Why does____never seem to____?
How does_____impact____?
How does _____ work?
What’s most important about it?
What’s most simple/complex about ______?
How could you classify____? (And ‘Why would you classify____?’)
When____, why does____?
HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH RESOURCES
Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM) Ideas September 15th-October 15th
Beginning of the Year Course
This image located on your myPascoConnect dashboard will take you to the 2021 All Staff Beginning of the Year Course. District departments have come together to create one place for all employees to access to the most important information necessary in order to ensure a successful start to the 2021-22 school year. Each of the departments have contributed to the creation of this course and have created acknowledgment quizzes for you to take in order to verify you have reviewed the required and optional materials. Please take some time to explore this resource.
Together We Learn ’21 Session Recordings NOW AVAILABLE on the PD Hub
Together We Learn ’21 Session Recordings NOW AVAILABLE on the PD Hub
Together We Learn ‘21 themed "Summer Time and the Learning is Easy" took place July 26, 27, & 28. Just over 2,000 dedicated teachers, school staff, and leaders attended 223 sessions of virtual learning. If you were unable to attend or would like to revisit any session recording please visit the TWL page on the main landing page of the PD hub. Enjoy!
Early Release 21-22 Overview
We are excited to share with you our plan for early release 21-2. All general education classroom teachers (including departmentalized teachers), ESE support facilitators, Speech Language Pathologists and academic interventionists will participate in professional learning workshop facilitated by District staff, school-based coach(es), admin and/or teacher leaders focused on Uplifting Literacy in Pasco County Schools. Specials/Electives teachers will engage virtually with teachers in the same roles from other schools. Professional learning will be focused on the Teaching and Assessing Cycle and will be facilitated by District content leaders and/or teacher leaders. Student services staff will engage virtually with staff in like roles from other schools. Professional learning will be focused on MTSS for Behavior and will be facilitated by District supervisors and content leads.
Dates for the early release are:
September 8th
October 6th
November 10th
December 8th
January 12th
February 2nd
March 9th
Secondary Office Hours
Here you will find the office hours schedule for this fall semester. Office hours are an opportunity to connect with OLL Supervisors, Senior Specialists and Program Coordinators regarding your curriculum questions. We look forward to seeing you.
Curriculum Resources
As we reunite with our students this year back in the classroom, we will continue to use our learning networks aligned to our approved adopted resources; connections to focus standards; MTSS; and vetted assessments/resources for unit and lesson planning support. The Elementary/Secondary Learning Network is a live resource, which we monitor throughout the year and adjust every summer based on feedback from you, administrators, and coaches on what would make your work smoother.
Once again, this year, we understand that there is a likelihood that individual and potentially groups of students may need to be out throughout the year based on the status of COVID cases. Therefore, student facing courses were developed by Pasco teacher teams to continue the momentum with Canvas usage. These courses are aligned to our ELN/SLN and contain curriculum resources and some assessments. As always, we want to ensure the approved resources and curriculum are being used in the classroom, but the pedagogy and teacher craft is always alive and strongly encouraged, please use the aspects of core resources that best meet the needs of your students. When you need to make changes to the course to align for this purpose, we only advise that you unpublish modules/resources that you do not plan to use, versus delete. You never know when you may need a resource that is in the course, and once deleted it is hard for us to repair in individual pushed out courses.
LEAD Professional Development for Aspiring Leaders
FFLA 2021 CONFERENCE
SCOLT 2022 CONFERENCE
Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT)
Format: F2F
Location: Norfolk, VA
Date: March 31st- April 2nd
SCOLT is accepting session proposals until September 1st, 2021. Submit your proposal HERE.
Contact us
Senior Instructional Specialist for World Languages K-12 &
Foreign Exchange Visitor Program
Email: ajmartin@pasco.k12.fl.us
Website: http://www.pasco.k12.fl.us/oll/page/world_languages_foreign_exchange
Location: 7227 Land O' Lakes Boulevard, Land O Lakes, FL, USA
Phone: 8137942319
Twitter: @PascoWlanguages