Long-time no see I know, I am sorry this is taking so long.
Instagram posts are just so snappy and easy that this blog is not getting as much feed. If you want to stay updated more often make sure you either check into my Pinterest blog page
Blog Laclassedemademoisele or my Instagram @laclassedemademoisele where you will see more posts and ideas that may not appear here.
Now, my November was full of professional development. It so happens that both took place in the same time frame. First, if you have not yet understood, I am hooked on the professional development offered by ELEInternacional for ELE teachers. The Jornadas offered 5 days of online conferences by some of their best teacher-mentors. I did the free versions and because of the overlap with the ACTFL 19 conference, I only managed 4 days out of the 5. The offering was varied as per usual and some of my favorites bloggers also offered insights on how to modify classic games such as Bingo for example. Ana Gomez is amazing in the way she approaches her teaching a=with emotional learning as well and in the designing creative activity course she gives you a few examples as well. I also discovered Jardin de idiomas, where, Ana Marín Tabuenca explained how to use the software pages to create new activities. Enara Villán offered a thorough insight into how to use music in the classroom in 20 creative ways. This got me thinking and I was able to create my own bingo sheets and Clue game for my French classes.
Remember my focus this year is to develop my new French 6th-grade curriculum.
I did all that while on the train to Washington and headed to ACTFL 2019. I will be honest and will say that I Have a hard time totally adhering to ACFL's approach. It is possibly because I was trained in Europe in two various systems, the English GCSE/ A LEVEL and the CEFR European model which was the one we looked at during my FLE Masters. So my teaching approach is a mix of what works best for the kids. My goal this year was to come to ACTFL ready to learn more about Comprehensible input, group work and authentic material use in the classroom. I enjoyed listening to how some teachers 'do it' I still have a hard time seeing myself completely buying into that. Why you ask?
because of the pace. I do do a lot of repetition, there is no problem with that but the fact that what I saw looked very teacher-focused and not so much student-centered is making me skeptical. So I have started implementing more ways to use only TL, but I am not ready to move to TPRS yet and I want to continue seeing my kids having fun and speaking a lot in the class and understanding the grammar, yes, the grammar as I don't think you can have solid students without explaining grammar as you go along. I am in awe of the teachers who are successful such as La maestra loca and I will be using many of her ideas and I also was very interested in Martina Bex's talk on Planning for proficiency who took time during her presentation to show us how it is done.
I added links to all these great teacher's pages so check them out if you don't know them yet!
Below I am adding some pictures of what I have created pre- and post conferences a little catch up :)
