Time to share what you've learned - Flipgrid

As we rushed to shift our classroom into the cyber space, a lot of us had to learn to use a variety of new tools as we went.  It's mind-boggling looking at all the tools available to us.  I don't know if you do this, too, but I tend to find a couple of tools that work well for me and narrow in on varying its uses to serve my objectives.  In other words, I work them to death.  Years ago, when recording homework became popular amongst Chinese language teachers, I tried out Voki, Google Voice, Voicethread, Vocaroo... Now, a lot of people use Flipgrid.  They are all very similar, but I'd like to explore what we can do in addition to recording and presenting ourselves using these applications.  Again, it's not about the technology, but how we use them. One thing that I love about Flipgrid is that it has the capability to read aloud the prompts to my students.  So my prompt in the target language can be delivered not only textually, but also aurally.

Recently, I assigned a Flipgrid for students to present about one thing they learned to do since all schools went virtual.  They may show us "how" by doing that task, or simply talk into the camera.  I guess, other than getting the students to use the language, it also helped to shed light on the "silver lining" of this indefinite, unstructured period of time at home.  We all have more time at home to try out things we never thought of.

I love making demos to model for my students.  More than showing them how to complete an assignment, I also get to experience challenges just like my students trying to complete this task for the first time.



What can I do with my tens of Flipgrid presentations?  My students can now pick one thing they want to learn from their peers.  I can post listening comprehension questions.  I can teach them proper online etiquettes for complimenting someone's post so they can "react" appropriately to others' online feeds.  My students can also use this opportunity to appreciate the little things in their daily life.  The opportunities are endless.

Let me tell you a story - in our digital classroom

One morning this week, after working late into the night without having made my plan for the following morning, I was giving up being the creative teacher.  But some caffeine, a hot shower, and a deadline worked wonders in getting me out of the rut.  As I showered, I remembered a workshop I attended on teaching language through stories.  Before I knew it, I was telling myself a story about my little dog who did not like to go for walks.  I was able to use all the vocabulary words, language structures from the current unit, and it's a very believable story (other than the fact that there's a dog in this world who does not like to go for walks).

Straight out of my shower, in 40 minutes, I wrote my story, revised it, and put it into a presentation on Google Slides.  That first effort was pretty crude, but it got the job done.  The story spanned about seven slides, I made sure there was some nice photo on each slide.  It helped that I had many cute pics of my dog.  Then, I made my lesson plan around it.

Basically, the lesson was in three chunks:  1) I did the storytelling with a lot of Q&As that demystified the new content, sort of like TPRS, 2) My students read my story to each other in breakout rooms to reinforce their reading fluency and character recognition, and 3) They rewrote their own stories keeping the same structures and keywords.  It's sort of like MadLib.  A student got pretty silly and wrote about his good friend the "giant bus," who wanted to sleep all day.  Some more straight-laced students wrote about some of their friends or family who only likes to watch TV above all else.  They went to town with gifs on their own slides.  I think the key to do this online is to assign this on Google Classroom where each student has a copy.

I was reasonably happy with the process as well as the product, because they heard the new content, interacted with it, read it, used it in their own writing, and eventually came up with their own stories.  (Gradual Release - I do, we do, you do)  Their next task was to practice telling their own versions of the story for a followup presentation.  As for me, I made my original story into a video (now with even nicer photos) using Screencast-o-Matic, and then made it into an Edpuzzle to assess my students' understanding.  Can I use it again when we eventually return to the classroom?  O yes, you bet!

Seven years

What can one do in seven years?  Start a Chinese language program, see it grow, nurture it, and integrate it into a school's curriculum.  This year, I am saying goodbye to a robust, healthy, rigorous Chinese language program, which will probably be one of the most rewarding experiences in my working life as a teacher.

It is important to reflect on what worked and what contributed to the health of a language program.  Unlike other academic subjects, a school's language department is unique in that one can never predict enrollment in specific subsets of classes, if students are given the choice of languages to study.  Even when the teachers have done everything, there is no guarantee how many students will choose any language in any given year.  There are so many factors that contribute to the students' choice that are not within our control.  Some people put all their eggs in the fun and game, bells and whistles; some swear by doing the food-inspired cultural activities; some think it's about the easiness of the courses; some believe language choice has everything to do with global economy and politics.  I think they all seem like contributing factors, and yet nothing really stands alone in causing programs to fluctuate.

What can one do in seven years?  Build a lot of lifelong relationships, those with students, friends, and colleagues.  I started this post a while ago, and until now, I have avoided coming back to it because it took me down the memory lane of that first year when I was on all fours with my second graders on the carpet of my shared classroom planting sunflower seeds in Dixie cups, that second year when I went for a colorful autumn walk with my fourth graders collecting leaves, or that third year when I finally got to know all my middle school colleagues like never before.

In retrospect, it was really not about building the biggest and the most successful Chinese program in the area.  Learning a language is more than that.  It's about connecting with my students.  I often say to new teachers - If you want the students to speak your language, you've got to speak theirs.  My biggest hope and wish for all my students, past and present, is not for them to sit in my classroom and be good students, but rather, that they love learning languages, all languages, and all cultures that bring them outside of their everyday, in hope that one day they will be able to make their own connections.

In a recent conversation, someone asked me about the program, and whether I thought of myself as a "WOW" sort of teacher, and why I thought that.  It was very un-Chinese to talk about oneself this way, but I had to expand on it on that single occasion -- It's about the science and the art of teaching.  Anyone can learn the methods.  In teacher school, we learned how to incorporate backward design,  plan good lessons, implement differentiation, the list goes on.  But how about the art in the teaching?  It's the magic that happens when we interact with our students.  Can the art be learned?  Though I can't answer the question, I hope I brought the magic to my classroom seven years ago.

What can one do in seven years?  A lot of things I would say.

Thank you.