If you did not catch the reference to Rent the musical in my last post, well this one is a bit more evident. When I started this blog, I said in a special note that I love the challenge to reference anything about musical theatre and I guess that amusement and challenge has not waned. In fact, while writing the last post, the song Seasons of Love came on the music station I was listening to and at that moment, there was more inspiration for this title.  

It is now time to reflect a bit on my Spanish IV Honors course and a few more take away moments from this year’s CI SUMMIT, which was hosted and sponsored by www.vocesdigital.com and www.teachersdiscovery.com and AnneMarie Chase’s three hour Assessment Spotlight Session. As my last post mentioned, the 24-25 school year was “pretty great” in terms of Spanish classes.  

I feel there is nothing better than teaching a Spanish IV class in my setting and I had a terrific year working with a smaller group of 17 students. In my environment, Spanish IV is a pre-AP class, and in the end, we test them using Avant’s STAMP 4s Proficiency Spanish Exam in order to potentially earn the Ohio Seal of Biliteracy (scoring at the Intermediate High level 6 in at least three skills and one 5) or the Global Seal of Biliteracy (scoring at the Intermediate Mid level with 5 in all four skills). I say that there is nothing better than this class because these students, during their junior year, are electing to take Spanish because they want to improve their skills and be able to communicate in Spanish in a way that late 1990’s high school Gary could have never imagined. I am sure that if I were to teach them in AP Spanish Language and Culture during their senior year that it would be equally as rewarding and fun but my fantastic colleague has the great opportunity to work with them and I will let her have the added stress of the AP exam. So level IV is perfect for me to watch the awesome process of them building proficiency as their messy intermediate Spanish grows and flourishes throughout the year.  

If you read my last post I talked about surveying students and I also do that in my level IV classes at the beginning of the year, at midterm, and again at the end of the year (here is an example of my midterm self-reflection survey and my end of semester survey). What I find out from my surveys in both Spanish II and IV is that co-creating stories with students is their favorite in class activity with playing ANY type of game as a close second (my last summer post will be about some new games I tried and will try next year). But at the end of Spanish IV, students also reflect a great deal about what we could have done in class or for homework to have improved their experience with the STAMP test. And every year, I look over the data from the STAMP exam and student feedback to make adjustments for the following school year. As a result this means that each year I remove some things, add things back in from my prior years, or make new activities and assignments to meet the “new” needs. I would like to think that each year it gets better but I do know that every time I try something new it might not be as effective as in years past, but again, through this process of massaging out assignments and ideas, I do think it does get better in the end. 

Let’s talk a bit about some OUTPUT

Each year I have students write and speak about a variety of my anchor topics that we are discussing in class. Even though last year my students did write and speak quite a bit on these topics, I feel this coming school year I must more consistently include presentational writing and speaking practice tasks using Speakable.io. This will be our second full year working with Speakable.io which, for a cost, provides students with realtime feedback via AI. As teachers, we create the lessons and tasks that we want students to do and then AI does the Feedback (it grades too, but I really do not care about the grade but the Feedback is what I want for the students). Speaking of AI, this summer I used  Magic School AI to help me draft prompts that align with my anchor topics that I can use for speaking and writing prompts. A sample of my prompt to help the AI generation was this: 

Create one prompt that helps non-native Spanish students show a range of ACTFL proficiency levels and a variety of verb tenses about THIS TOPIC: goals for this school year, their future schooling, and professional work careers. Do not include examples. Also include a grading rubric with ACTFL intermediate mid level responses as the target goal. Add a line in the rubric about using THIS LANGUAGE STRUCTURE FOCUS: variety of verbs in the future tenses and their family’s expectations and hopes for them as students perhaps using the subjunctive. 

And here is the generated result: 

Prompt:
In Spanish, write about your goals for this school year, your plans for future schooling, and your desired professional career. Include your family’s expectations and hopes for you as a student. Use a variety of verb tenses, especially future tenses, and consider using the subjunctive to express hopes or wishes.

Language Structure Focus: Variety of verbs in future tenses and use of the subjunctive to convey your family’s expectations and hopes.

Grading Rubric (Target: ACTFL Intermediate Mid)

Criterion	Emerging (Novice High – Intermediate Low)	Target (Intermediate Mid)	Exceeds (Intermediate High and above)
Communication and Details	Simple sentences; mostly present tense; limited detail	Can create connected sentences with some detail; uses present, past, and future tenses	Detailed, coherent paragraphs; smooth transitions; consistent tense variety
Vocabulary	Uses basic, high-frequency words; some repetition	Uses an adequate range of vocabulary related to topics in the prompt	Uses a wide range of vocabulary related to all topics in the prompt with some idiomatic expressions or descriptive language
Grammar	Has frequent errors that sometimes impede understanding	Has generally accurate verb conjugations and sentence structures; errors do not impede meaning	Has few errors; complex structures attempted successfully
Fluency and Cohesion	Has short, disconnected ideas	Has ideas that are linked with basic connectors; some flow between sentences	Has smooth, natural flow with varied connectors and cohesive devices
Language Structure Focus: Future time frames / Present Subjunctive mood	Minimal or incorrect use of future tenses and subjunctive.	Effective use of a variety of future tense verbs and appropriate subjunctive to express family expectations and hopes.	Sophisticated and consistent use of future tenses and subjunctive mood enhancing meaning and style.

In addition, I will also work on a reflective feedback focus form that requires students to reflect on one or two aspects of the feedback provided by the AI. As I mentioned I hope to incorporate one of these per week and that the reflection piece will help students think a bit about their work and the suggestions offered by AI. 

For the second year, students have been having real conversations with native speakers using Boomalang.co. This is a luxury for my students because prior to this, it was not easy to find ways for students to build their comfort level speaking interpersonally with native speakers. Even though I do provide both my students and the vetted native speakers questions to follow, their interaction through this realtime experience is something that I cannot replicate as easily in the classroom because talking with me and with their peers becomes the norm and the Boomalang changes it up in a super positive way as they build their confidence.    

Back to the CI SUMMIT 

I will continue with some takeaways from the magnificent AnneMarie Chase from this year’s CI SUMMIT. If you have not spent some time checking out her blog: www.senorachase.com you can now bask in the glory of so many amazing ideas, games, and activities that are all based on Comprehensible Input and building student proficiency.   

Every single year for the past 23, I have been working to improve my grading practices, assessment types etc. (if you do not believe me, read all of my posts that are tagged with Assessment). AnneMarie Chase also has been doing the same for those same 23 years (just on the other side of the USA).  

I had the great opportunity to spend three hours in AnneMarie Chase’s Assessment Spotlight Session and here are just some of my takeaways:  

• This is just a share called an interactive Question Trail, which is essentially a “Choose Your Own Adventure” walkabout activity or assessment but with correct answers. This would be one of those activities I pull out once or twice a year for novelty because it does seem to take time to generate. The Question Trail is a fillable template that you can purchase for $4.00 here (not even from AnneMarie). As the teacher, you fill in the template with multiple-choice questions and answers, and then you print out the question posters, hang them around the room, and you have an interactive like gallery walk assessment that students could do individually or in pairs. We participated in one of these at the CI SUMMIT, and it was very fun and engaging.  
• Just like AnneMarie, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way to approach assessment that eases stress and anxiety and actually helps students grow is by offering students the chance to redo assessments. Unlike AnneMarie, I have not often allowed students to redo listening or reading assessments but perhaps this is the year to change that. Pre-Covid, I used AnneMarie’s department’s quick interpretive quizzes. This practice is one that did not continue after the few years of virtual and hybrid classes for whatever reason. I think this should be the year that I bring back their template and their redo policy on interpretive quizzes. Plus the wise AnneMarie mentioned that when she is speaking to students for a listening task that is not another speaker, she records it and just continues to click play, instead of rereading it over and over for each class. By doing so, she can be grading as students are listening to the recording – brilliant. By the way, one of my student’s favorite parts of my class is the flexibility and grace that I provide students with regard to redoing some quizzes (not Daily Quizzes however). The compassion and empathy that I show with the policy is one way that I can connect and build trust with my students; the change has been way more positive than negative. I briefly talk about my reasons for my policy here (although I have tested leaving the word wall up and taking it down over many school years and I now am leaving the present tense word wall posters up all year). AnneMarie Chase talks about her redo policy here.  
• This summer, I started exploring the need to use a name randomizer or popsicle stick approach to call on a variety of students. I feel that too many of my students were still extra quiet this year because I most often would call on volunteers; this is only so true because I do cold-calling when needed but “non-hand raisers,” especially those who are just too lazy or tired to raise their hands, did not participate at the same level of those who did raise their hands. I have been reading about AnneMarie’s Magic Cards for years, and I think this is exactly what I need to train myself to use for this upcoming school year. This will take me some time to adjust to but it will provide both the randomness I am looking for a la popsicle sticks and will also provide more grades for students by easily marking a reading grade (when I ask a student a question about a class reading), a listening grade (when I ask a student a question about something we have heard), and a speaking grade (when I require a level-appropriate responses in Spanish, my class’s target language). Her blog post explains how she uses her Magic Card system at great length. 

Now 525,600 minutes later, I have finished. All the best to the new school 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