Well, in two words, I can simply say the 2024-25 school year was “pretty great.” I mean, yes, there were ups and downs but overall it was “pretty great.” When I wanted to write earlier this summer, I was not ready to try to put into words my thoughts. It took the energy and collective experience of attending this year’s CI SUMMIT to motivate me to write, share, and prepare for next year, I mean, next month. In this post, I will reflect on last year’s Spanish I and II classes and incorporate my newest learning and connections taken from the CI SUMMIT as I prepare for next year. I will follow up with a second post with more details about my Spanish IV class and again some take aways from the CI SUMMIT. 

Ninth grade – what can I say, it is where I spent most of my time this past school year, and it will be where I continue. Teaching Spanish I and II, I am reminded that a key to having a “pretty great” and what I would call a “successful year” has been  having well-defined routines of all of my expectations for students that I follow with as much consistency as possible – all while still being flexible as a teacher. 

Last summer I wrote about a lot about changes and routines I was going to put into place (you can of course still check out all 10 of last summer’s posts starting here) and overall, they were successful and continued to transform during the school year especially as I met the needs of the students I was teaching – this is part of the reason I still say I need to be flexible as a teacher. 

I survey students at the beginning of the year, at the end of semester one, and again at the end of the year – and I design and modify my plans from their feedback and the needs of the students in each class. As the teacher, I must establish the boundaries, rules, and expectations, but then I must decide as we move throughout the year how some of those expectations might need to shift a bit based on current students and the dynamics and needs in each individual class.

Last year, I also tried a new strategy and not only did I survey my students but I also surveyed guardians/parents about their student’s learning habits and needs. I will say that even though I only received 40/75 surveys about my Spanish I and II students, it was a great deal of new information that I had and it also allowed me to establish a new relationship with parents/guardians. Sending the survey home also provided me a chance to explain how we teach Spanish in our school. Even though I sent this Google Form through my classroom management system, this year I will also download all parent/guardian email addresses and send it via email, perhaps a few more will receive and complete the survey. Make yourself a copy of the parent/guardian survey here. 

With regard to my student survey, this year I am compiling my two former surveys (Former ones: How Do You Learn? and Getting to Know You and Interests) into one. With 90 students, my Labor Day weekend was filled a bit too much with reading their results in two surveys. You can make your own copy here of my newly combined student survey: 2025-26 Student Interest and Learning Survey. 

Looking at last summer’s blog posts, I was really motivated to incorporate many of the strategies that I read in Mike Peto’s guidebook: The Two Conversations Classroom: A Complete, Student-Centered Approach to Teaching a Second Language and what I experienced in his Portuguese classes. Three of these changes in my daily classes in Spanish I and II were: 1. having a daily Write and Discuss (or Shared Writing), 2. having a daily quiz over the content covered during class, and 3. eliminating speaking grades except for speaking grades on the midterm and final exams. These were in addition to continuing to clarify my daily expectations for students, oh, and finally having an all-school anti-cell phone directive that was enforced by all [yes, this one in itself was perhaps the best change of all for faculty/staff as much as for students (yeah, they know it is better for them too]). 

In requiring a daily Write and Discuss, I required binders for all students, pencils/pens, and notebook paper (but please know that working with some of our amazing custodial staff members, I collected thrown away binders and notebooks so that I could rip out the extra paper from the notebooks and harvest the binders). Then, perhaps more importantly, I had plastic bins by class where students could leave their binders in my classroom. I was very pleased that students this year had a place to keep the notes and songs for example that were printed. I do require students to copy the day’s Write and Discuss (Shared Writing), and then once a quarter, I would have a notebook/binder quiz. This school year, I will change this a bit, and force myself to do two or three notebook/binder quizzes during the quarter. I think establishing this routine will improve the practice overall for both students and myself; setting the goal of two to three times a quarter is better accountability for me and students. The quizzes were simple since I type up the Write and Discuss/Shared Writings in realtime during class, I just asked questions based on what we had written per class.  

Along these same lines, the use of Daily Quizzes was effective (again just asking questions about the content discussed in class). To this routine I will continue this grading practice that I changed midway through last year: the scoring. Regardless of the amount of questions that are on a Daily Quiz, which were always fewer than 10, I now score it out of 10 points. The consistency of scoring using 10 points, does a few positive things: 1. The scores are always a higher percentage and it is a bit fairer of a grade (like if a student misses 3 then a 7/10 (70%) is better than a 4/7 (57%) and 2. It is much more manageable for me to always minus points from 10, and I can input the Daily Quiz as 10 points in the gradebook for all of my classes and not input each Daily Quiz as a different assignment and point value for each class. This summer I am also toying with the idea of having a Friday Quiz that is over a common set of language structures that we are working with throughout the whole week; more of that to come as I iron out the details. 

The elimination of speaking grades in levels I and II did not have a negative effect on students’ production for their speaking grades on the midterm and final exams. Students were still required to do interpersonal turn-and-talks, speak out loud in class, and in Spanish II to submit some speaking samples via Speakable.io but I did not grade them for the gradebook. Overall I think this new approach was effective and did help ease high levels of anxiety that too often go in tandem with speaking grades. 

Having just returned from the CI SUMMIT, I had the amazing privilege to lead Squad 1 (Level 1): Foundations in Teaching with CI (Comprehensible Input) or ADI (Acquisition-Driven Instruction). Working with the incredible Laurie Clarcq (her site is called: www.heartsforteaching.com), we had to put ourselves back in the shoes of educators who perhaps have not used the strategies and activities that we have worked for some many years to hone and the current realities of teaching today’s students. Leading a 10 hour workshop with 60 educators certainly helps me start at ground zero as I reflect on my own practices and needs for the school year. Truly working with these teachers is the best professional development that I can do, and attending the conference also provides me with a bit of time to watch other teachers and their craft. This year it was great to participate in a three hour French class with Cécile Lainé. My time in her class provided me with many reminders, Aha Moments, and activities that I will share below. More of  Cécile Lainé’s ideas and thoughts can be found at her site: https://towardproficiency.com/    

Cécile Lainé’s French Class

I had the chance to participate in a French class this year and acquire some French along the way. What I also experienced was a seamless class that brilliantly showcased putting everything together we had hoped our participants were learning how to do in our Squad 1/Level 1 workshop. I am going to use bullet points here about some of the Aha Moments and reminders I need for the school year. 

• Her three responses: Cécile brilliantly used the three types of responses that she requires from students and that she is credited with articulating that I read about last year, wrote about here, and did successfully use this school year – and I must continue the practice: all-choral response, individual response, and blurt out answer response.
• STOP Stickers: She gave out stickers only to the students who STOPPED HER and let her know they did not understand her INPUT. We know this is one of the hardest things to have students do (they do not want teachers or their peers, more importantly, to know they are confused). Well, their letting us know by using a gesture or using the word STOP, must be celebrated and encouraged. Only rewarding these students with a sticker was a mindset change that I will take with me because if we can foster it early perhaps more students will do it throughout the year.  
• Movement: She seamlessly incorporated movement throughout the lesson using three strategies that even though I am always prepared to do – I do not do, and I know that so many of my ninth graders do need to move even if they do it with a lack of enthusiasm. Her three strategies were: 1. at any time during class, have students stand up using TPR strategies and gesturing, 2. have students move to one of four corners by giving them four options, and 3. have students cross the line by giving them two options. These were all very effective even for us as adults and all served as ways of still providing great target language INPUT. 
• Multiple Points of View: During a three hour French experience, she managed to incorporate all of the various subject-verb points of view or perspectives in her INPUT (I, you, s/he/they, we, they, you all). There was never a need to just focus on for example the 3rd person singular / she/he/they form because she always made it clear who the subjects were. A few ways to brilliantly do this was by asking: Who Said? and then also during any of the movement activities she would ask: Did I say?, Did You Say?, Do We Say? / Do We Like?, Do they Say? / Do They Like? Again, it was always comprehensible, and if not, she would write it on the board for us.         

So How Do You Measure, Measure a Year? Even though my student’s end of the year surveys were very positive and it was evident that I was working hard to meet the needs of the many types of students in my classes, I still will continue to make changes based on this generation of students, as a whole and the individual needs of each class. I am still here to remind you all that we can continue to learn and grow as professionals. Before writing this, I had planned to write one more post but as of now, I see I have to write at least two more. The next one will be a quicker reflection (I hope) about my Spanish IV class this year. 

Gary

I now see that my last post on August 12, 2024 was my 50th post since 2017 – so as you see, I do not post a lot during the year. For this reason, I encourage you to please sign up for the email feature so that you get my few reflections a year in your inbox – I promise I will not clog it up.  Gary