Tuesday, January 24, 2017

It's a great day to learn World Languages @BMSED

World Language classes @bmsed on 1/24/2017

This morning I had the pleasure of spending some quality time in our World Language classes at Blake. As you can see from our photos and tweets #WLMedfield, there was a lot happening. To the left is a quick visual of a few of the classes.
 I began the morning with a visit to Madame  Buckham's sixth grade French class.They were reviewing vocabulary -always important, but they were playing a game while doing so. The students were very excited and just a little competitive as they all tried to put their hands on the word that Madame called out to the group!
I then moved to seventh grade French. Monsieur Cowell started the class with the group gathered on the side of the room in a semicircle. They did a quick word scramble to get their brains starting to think in French -or as we say in the World Language arena: TL= target language. Students eased their way into the French world and recited the day, date, and year. (see a video on instagram account @wlmedfield.) Next, I walked across the hall to seventh grade Spanish. As Sra. Manning's students were finishing their TAL (trabajo al llegar or work to be done upon arrival), they reviewed some basic questions and answers about clothing: where to buy certain items and descriptions. Sra. Manning arranged the students in pairs. They then discussed and asked questions about clothing images in a prepared powerpoint on googleclassroom. Down the hall students in Sra. Batts and Sra, Boulos' class were also practicing their interpersonal speaking skills. They went shopping on line at El Corte Inglés web site. Check out tweets -a few @elcorteingles were liked (within seconds) by the large department store in Spain!
Our eighth grade classes were also busy practicing their skills. In Mandarin class, Laoshi Liu had her timer on the board and students were asking as many questions in Mandarin as they could! Sra. Manning's students worked in stations: they reviewed vocabulary, role-played a restaurant situation, and much more. Down the hall in Sra. Batts and Sra. Boulos' eighth grade class, the students were researching tipping practices. The teachers offered the "Trip Advisor" web site to the students via classroom. They researched the same Spanish speaking country that they had previously explored through a project about typical meals. Students analyzed trends and tried to guess why tipping practices were higher or lower in certain places. It was a great morning to learn a language at Blake.
For more World Language news, follow this blog, twitter #WLMedfield and instagram @wlmedfield.

Describing clothing in seventh grade Spanish #WLMedfield #wlblog #bmsed


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Learning French with a vocab game 6th grade #bmsed #WLMedfield #wlblog


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Question games I. Mandarin class 8th grade#WLMedfield #bmsed #wlblog


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Conversations en español #WLMedfield #wlblog


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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Rising second grade parents: thinking about language choice?

Although 2017 has just begun, we are already thinking about next year. I suppose one of the reasons that I love teaching is just this: we get to think about new ideas, new situations, AND new students -every single day. Next year a whole new grade of students will join our World Language department and take either Mandarin or Spanish as second graders. We are fortunate to be able to offer this program to our young students and are excited to open up the world of language learning to them.
This morning Wheelock principal, Donna Olson, and I offered a brief presentation to Memorial School's PTO. We explained the goals and logistics of our program. We talked a bit about the history of the program and our two wonderful teachers at Wheelock: Laoshi Grace Wang and Srta. Sophilia LeBLanc. We also tried to give people information to help make a decision between our two offerings of Mandarin and Spanish. Our slide presentation can be found here. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
In addition to this brief presentations, plans are in the works for our Wheelock students to visit Memorial School and present a "taste" of our World Language program to the younger students. In addition, I have a created a quick infogram with some facts and figures about our two language offerings at Wheelock. My last blog post featured our elementary program. Have a look and check
out our twitter feed #WLMedfield and our instagram @wlmedfield. 
World Languages are ALIVE in Medfield!

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Happy New Year from WLMedfield!

After a short break from our World Language classes, our teachers and students are back learning and working on our skills as we continue the path toward proficiency. My next few blog posts are intended to give you a glimpse into what is happening in our department across the district. This week, I am highlighting our elementary program at Dale and Wheelock.
I visited all five teachers in their Spanish and Mandarin and saw some great activities: a few games, a few songs, some presentations in the target language and even a dance! Our students are learning to identify their skills in the language by framing their learning with the words, "I can..." Today my visit demonstrated that many children in Spanish at Wheelock can "name the days of the week." Their goal (identified by Ms. Leblanc) for the day was "to  be able to name one day of the week and one activity that goes with it." They sang a song and danced! Our Mandarin students were playing a game with Ms. Wang and learning how to say and identify words written in Chinese characters!
 At Dale Street School, the students were learning how to identify the members of their family in Spanish. Both Ms. LeVangie's and Ms. DellaMonica's were playing a game about Anita's family. Students were given a prompt and then they had to figure out which member of Anita's family was being identified. Their goal for the day (as identified by their teachers) was "to be able to identify and name the members of their family." Ms. Zhang's students in Mandarin were presenting their group drawings about the seasons and the weather.  They finished their class with a song!  Besides the collage to the left side of this post, you can catch some more photos and videos on my twitter feed: Ellen Toubman@EHToubs. You can also follow our hashtag #WLMedfield where we have various tweets from our department on the right side of our page. Our instagram feed (on the top left of this page) can be followed @wlmedfield.
Happy 2017!