Technology Teach-In
Look at that cute little frog! Not only is he a cute little guy, he appears on a language practice website that is incredibly useful for French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese and Spanish teachers.
For my Technology Teach-In lesson my students will be utilizing Conjuguemos.com, a website with vocab, grammar, listening and most valuably, verb conjugation practice. Verb conjugation can be a tedious skill to practice however, conjuguemos.com makes it more game-like and students can compete against themselves and against each other to race against the clock and conjugate as many verbs as possible correctly in the chosen tense. Sounds like fun, right? (I think it is, but, I am a Spanish teacher.)
Students will soon be learning the imperfect tense in my Spanish 2AC class. This verb tense is awesome because there are only 3 irregulars so mastery of the verb forms comes swiftly unlike it's past tense friend the preterit that can take weeks to learn. In order to help cut down on the time that it takes for students to feel confident conjugating these verbs I am going to use conjuguemos.com. This is a valuable tool because students get immediate feedback on whether they are right or wrong and they can practice tons of verbs individually in a very short time. It is impossible to give such individualized feedback on verb practice without such a tool!
I will be checking out the laptop carts at Pioneer, praying to the technology gods that the laptops are having a good day and the majority of them are functioning, and giving students time to practice imperfect verb conjugation. This will probably be done on the day after the verb tense is introduced to students so they will have a basic concept of how the tense is formed but not significant practice with it. The other awesome thing about conjuguemos.com is that when you have a teacher account, students can send their scores for activities directly to you. Not only is there individualized feedback but students can be held accountable easily for the work they are expected to complete. I will probably give them a goal, such as getting 98% accuracy or more on 20 verbs in 2 minutes. Basically what I usually do is see how many I can do accurately in a certain time frame and then cut it in half. Impressive, I know.
This technology gives my mentor teacher and I the opportunity to let students practice at their own pace, receive immediate feedback on their individual work and send their results to us with the single click of a button. Boom! Questions? Concerns? Feedback? Help a teacher out! And if you are a language teacher, use this website! It rocks! (AND, it's free :D)
Hi Betsy!
ReplyDeleteI love your lesson plan! Having taken Spanish in middle school, high school, and college, I completely agree that verb conjugation is one of the most tedious activities to perform in the study of any language. I think the fact that student results are sent to the teacher is a way of using this fun activity, while also keeping students accountable. Conjuguemos.com represents a low stakes a way to get students to practice conjugations. Furthermore, there are always certain students who can perform it quickly, and with great ease. Not only does this website offer the opportunity for students to move at their own speed, but one might argue that this is a differentiated lesson plan.
The only thought/concern that I have is regarding the worst case scenario; if technology does not work, will you have an alternative plan? Can students use their phones to play conjuguemos.com? Could you possibly have an alternative plan that pairs similar students (so you don’t assume that everyone has a smart phone) to compete on conjuguemos.com in case the laptops do not work? Other than that, I think the lesson sounds great. I really wish this had been around when I was taking Spanish in school.
conjuguemos.com sounds like a marvelous tool, Betsy, and I can readily understand why you're excited about leveraging the tool. I think that Mrs. W's suggestion regarding having a "Plan B" is a wise one (I'm sure that you need no convincing on this point), but apart from the practical benefits of heeding the suggestion, I think it is especially germane to this assignment. I say this because in crafting your back-up plan you will, out of necessity, need to think about what aspect of the activity as planned is most important to try to replicate in back-up plan mode, and how you might do that, or at least try to.
ReplyDeleteHaving taken five years of Spanish I would have truly appreciated a tool similar to this one as I learned to conjugate different verbs. This seems like such a fun way to get practice in a very safe environment. I think that the suggestions from Mrs. W and Jeff are great in terms of having a “Plan B”! I find that every time that introduce a new technology tool to my students it requires significant scaffolding. How do you plan on introducing this tool to your students? Do you worry about all of your students being engaged? While I think that this is a great tool and it sounds like you have some great ideas, these questions/concerns come from challenges I’ve faced in my own placement. I can’t wait to hear your concerns or worries about this tool other than the use of technology itself. Please keep us posted on whether this lesson was successful and if your technology cooperated!
ReplyDeleteBetsy,
ReplyDeleteI am excited to hear about an online tool that makes learning Spanish topics such as conjugation more fun! I would have definitely enjoyed learning grammar from a tool such as this one during my elementary school years. I also like the immediate feedback aspect of the tool which allows students to assess their learning and their thinking processes as they play the game. I'm excited to see how this pans out!
Betsy,
ReplyDeleteI remember playing games like that on conjuegemos when i was in high school! At least, I think that was the site--I admittedly do not remember the cute little frog, but the site and its name sound familiar. In any case, I wanted to tell you that I think your idea is a good one as it is undoubtedly valuable for students to be able to conjugate verbs in whatever language they learn. Alas, this was my own downfall in Spanish class. However, I never thought about the feedback element that you described in your post. This, perhaps is more valuable. I relied mostly on written conjugating charts in my notebooks or filling out charts and blanks on a worksheet. It was slow, and by the time it was graded I had been speaking in English again for days. Feedback seems like it is is really easy to overlook in the classroom from what little experience I already have. Last week, I passed out grades for a project the day after it was submitted and the kids thought I had special powers (or no life, more accurately). If we want students to keep working hard for us, we should let them know how they are doing. I'm glad you found a tool that will allow you to do that in your placement. Keep on keeping on!
I have been recommending this site to my students all year, but I don't think that many of them have tried it out on their own time. I hadn't thought about using class-time to do this activity, but it sounds like a great idea! As you mentioned, they all get individualized instant feedback and work at their own pace, which definitely sounds like class-time well spent! In addition, unlike being cold-called in class, they don't have to feel bad when they get a wrong answer because it's private, but they still get personalized feedback. As well, it equals the playing field for those who don't have internet at home.
ReplyDeleteHow did the game end up going? I am thinking about using this in my classroom, too!