Rocket Verbs: Tracking Student Progress

I found a product on TPT for verb conjugation that really intrigued me.  Basically, it tracks student ability to conjugate verbs by having them conjugate verbs at differing levels.  Students all start at the same level, which is usually pretty basic.  If they meet a certain level of proficiency, the next time you do the activity they move on to the next level, which will be slightly more difficult.  Students who don't meet this level of proficiency remain at the same level and continue to stay there until they do.

I decided to try it this year with both my German 1 and German 2 students, each for a different topic: Stem-Changing Verbs and the Perfect Tense.

For German 1, we did it with stem-changing verbs.  The first two levels are regular verbs (plus haben/sein) ONLY.  This was especially useful as a review activity before we even got into stem-changing verbs.  The next two levels were ONLY stem-changing verbs, allowing students to focus on this set of verbs.  After that, there was a mix of both regular verbs and stem-changing verbs, making students actually have to think and correctly identify verbs before conjugating them.  

For German 2, we looked at the Perfect Tense.  The first two levels dealt ONLY with weak verbs that use haben as their helping verb.  Students then moved on to strong verbs that use haben.  There was one level that had both weak and strong verbs mixed before levels started to include verbs with sein as the helping verb.  

Some notes for implementation:

• No notes or reference charts!  Students have to do this to the best of their ability.  We do these activities in quiz-like conditions, but students know they aren't being graded for accuracy at this stage.
• You might want to time students as they do this activity.  Four minutes seems more than fair - some students will need more, some may need less.  You might need to adjust it as you go.  I ended up not giving students a set time limit, but because we did it at the end of class, I did need to get it back before they left.
• I mentioned that students needed to meet certain levels of proficiency in order to move on to the next level.  For my students, I required them to get 80% of their verb forms accurate.  This mean that out of 25 verbs, they had to conjugate 20 correctly.  Now... I did sometimes fudge this line a little for students who struggled and after multiple tries at a certain level were very close to this level.  

• I kept all of the versions students completed.  They didn't get the old copy back, but I had them all as a reference.

What I really like about this is the way it progresses in difficulty and is specific to each student.  Instead of having to move at other students' pace, each student moves at his/her own.  If a student needs to review regular verbs before looking at more complex forms, he/she gets that opportunity, whereas if a student is zooming ahead, he/she gets to do that.

Because it's so individualized, I found myself being able to give individual feedback.  On the new sheets, I would write notes to that student about the forms they need to focus on (ex: your ihr endings are incorrect, review forms of haben, don't forget the "ge" in your past participles, etc.).  If a student needs more specific instruction, I can write a summary of the topic on the back of the sheet.  Not only do I get to see how each student is doing as we progress, but I can sort out any problems much earlier than I would have otherwise even noticed them.

We haven't had quizzes for either of these units yet, so I'm not sure how scores will compare with last year, but I'm optimistic that it's helping.  

If you're interested in either of the sets I'm using, here's the Stem-Changing Verbs Set and the Perfekt Tense Set.  Enjoy!

- Frau Leonard

Was bedeutet...

This sums up my day sometimes...

- Frau Leonard

Sport für alle!

This year when Deutsch II was learning sport-related vocabulary, I decided to work with our Physical Education Department at Glenelg to give the students a day to play a sport of their choosing.  I got them the gym for a whole period on a Friday - they chose a game and we took it from there.

First I started with some Piggeldy und Frederick.  We watched the video on Schlittschuh laufen in which Frederick has to explain skating to Piggeldy.


After viewing and discussing this video, I divided the students into groups and assigned each group one of the following sports: Basketball, Fußball, Hockey, Volleyball, Baseball, Tennis, amerikanischer Fußball.  Each group needed to come up with a German explanation of the game for Piggeldy.  They had to find the vocabulary to describe things like how many players were on a team, different positions (ex: goalie) and equipment (tennis racket), and the different rules/actions involved ("don't touch the soccer ball with your hands" and "kick the ball").  Then each group reported out what they had come up with.

At this point, I revealed that they were going to get a chance to play ONE of these sports during class.  They had to pick which sport, though, based on how easy they thought it would be to get the materials necessary and if they could get a big enough team.  After some voting and finagling, they agreed on Fußball.

The next step was I gave them the option of "inviting" (read that as "challenging") Deutsch III and Deutsch IV to the match.  They whole-heartedly wanted to challenge the upper levels.

Of course, it's one thing to have your own class go to the gym and play a game during the period that they have you.  It's another thing to pull students from other classes for a game.  I told the upper level German classes about the match and gave them a permission slip.  It was really more of a way to let the other teachers know what was going on.

A lot of students wanted to participate but most couldn't get out of class that day (we had had several snow days in a row which undoubtedly had something to do with it).  It was definitely fun to get a few new faces.  I hope to be able to do this game again in the future - I want it to be something that builds up and the kids look forward to playing as a team against another class.

As an alternate activity for students who, for whatever reason, didn't want to play, I gave them the chance to take pictures of the game instead.  This is German, not Gym, after all and I didn't want to force the kids to play - it's supposed to be fun!

The game itself went well.  The Phys Ed teachers were super supportive - they gave us pinnies and equipment and (most importantly!) the space to play in.  I think next year, though, I would invite another teacher to help moderate the game.  The kids were well behaved, the issue was more that I'm not personally very familiar with the rules and game play of soccer.  I'm a hockey and football girl, so when we play a game I don't know as well I feel I should ask one of the school coaches if they'd be willing to ref for us.

Now as fun as it was to take a day off and play a game, there's no way we stopped there!  The kids had, after all, spent all that time looking up soccer-related terms and we had all these pictures.  There was a project to be had out of this!

One of our media specialists had talked to me earlier in the year about Animoto, a website that makes you put together videos from your own photos or video footage.  You can get a free account, which does limit you to 30 seconds of footage and you don't have as wide of a selection in animations, music, etc, but the length was actually perfect for what we needed.  Check out one of the student videos!

Sporttag was a lot of fun and I can't wait to do it again next year!

- Frau Leonard

Career Surveys

Came across some interesting activities at planet-beruf.de, all of which are great for a unit on professions!  These two are my favorites:

• Kennt Ihr Kind seine Interessen?
  This pdf is basically a list of different activities.  Students determine on a scale how much those activities (like repairing, organizing, cleaning, etc) interest them.  This survey actually has a lot of different discussions that could draw off if it: What profession goes best with each activity?  What is your current career plan?  Do your interests line up with the career you're considering?  If they're different, do you think that might influence your career choice later on?
• Mein persönliches Profil: Meine Stärken einschätzen (pg 18-19)
  Somewhat similar, this goes through a list of different skills.  Students rate their own ability in these different areas.  They can also rate a partner - leads into a great discussion on how we view our strengths/weaknesses vs what others think of us (Personal and Public Identities, anyone?).  It also seems like a good lead into their mock job interviews that we do in class, especially since one of the interview questions relates to their strengths/weaknesses.
  
  There are actually a lot of other activities in this pdf, but the survey is the one I currently plan on using with my students.  Some of the pages following the survey look interesting as well.

- Frau Leonard

School Superlatives: A Project

I talked a little while ago about class superlatives - an activity I do with students as we learn the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives.  I actually tried a new project this year that sort of spring boards off this activity... we did school superlatives!

This is another great idea that I can't take credit for - like the Stammtisch for AP, this was a project inspired by another teacher within my county who did something very similar with her students.  It seemed like a lot of fun, so we gave it a try this year.

Students worked in groups to come up with 20 questions with the idea of school superlatives in mind.  To give you an idea of the questions they came up with, here are a few:
- Wer hat das beste Auto? / Who has the best car?
- Wer ist am schnellsten? / Who's the fastest?
- Wer ist am größten? / Who's the tallest?
- Wer hat die besten Haare? / Who has the best hair?
- Wer hat die besten Augen? / Who has the best eyes?
- Wer ist am klügsten? / Who's the smartest?

The idea was that they would then interview other students to find out the answers to these questions - Who is the fastest in the school?  Who does have the best eyes?

To find out the answers, though, I had students from this German 3 class visit my other German classes.  That's right, German 3 came to visit German 1, 2 and 4.  I love activities where students get to interact with other levels.  It's good for them to see that other people besides their classmates are learning German and they get to see what other classes are up to.  For lower levels, it's fun to get a glimpse into the future at how well they'll be able to speak later.  For upper levels, it's somewhat nostalgic to look back at previous projects.

When they came to talk to German 1 and 2, they were obviously talking to students who hadn't formally learned the comparative or superlative yet and who may not have even learned some of the adjectives or nouns they were learning (for example: athletic and eyes haven't come up for German 1 yet).  I warned German 3 about this ahead of time - they might need props to explain some of these words and to get the answers they wanted.  Because of course no English was allowed during these visits!

After compiling all their data, students had to create a Power Point highlighting six of their twenty winners.  They needed one slide per winner, making sure to include the person's name, a picture of them, and a sentence in German explaining what they won.

I gave them time in class not only to put together their Power Points, but also to visit other classes to find these students and get their pictures.

I also talked to our media specialists about getting these Power Points either in our morning announcements or on our daily scrolling announcements.  They were super supportive and helped out - my students got to see their projects all around the school :)

Pros and Cons:
- Pro: This project involved the whole school - all German classes participated and students had to talk to other classes to get even more data to pull from.
- Pro: The scrolling announcements have German in them now - great way to broadcast the language!
- Con: This can be tricky - students have to get permission to leave other classes in order to visit other German classes AND they needed to visit other classes to get the pictures they needed.
- Con: I fell into the trap of giving the students too much time to do this project.  They wasted a lot of that time because I wasn't sure of the deadlines (since it was my first time doing the project) and we got somewhat behind.  Next year this should be easy to fix though.

I will definitely be doing this project again next year.  It ended up being a lot of fun and is a practical use of the superlative.  I would also do this project with my French and Latin students... I'll just have to wait until the next time it works out that I teach the comparative/superlative in those languages!

All the rubrics and handouts I used for this project are available on TPT - just click here if you're interested!

- Frau Leonard

Jenga as a Review Game

Is it terrible that I saw this online and can't remember where I got it from?  If you know someone who has posted this game, let me know so I can link to them!

This is a new game I tried out this week as my students prefer for Midterms.  Basically, this game is Jenga with content questions that students need to answer each time they place a block.  

Materials

Obviously you'll need some Jenga sets.  I purchased six sets with the idea that groups of 3-6 could play (covering up to 36 students).  I shopped around and found out that buying six sets of Jenga was actually somewhat expensive...  But then I found Pavilion Jumbling Towers at Toys R Us.  They're about half the cost of actual Jenga sets, though they don't actually line up correctly.  Even so, they work well enough for what I need (and were even on sale when I happened to get them!).

They don't quite line up....

After you get the Jenga sets, you'll need to mark each piece with a number.  I gave each block a different number (1-48).  I had toyed around with the idea of repeating numbers because I was worried about having to come up with 48 questions.  Once I actually started writing questions, however, it ended up not being a problem (especially for midterm review - there are SO many topics to cover that they each only ended up getting about four questions).  

Number on one side, color coded on the other

I also color coded my sets.  On one side there's the number and on the other it's colored in.  I thought I might need to be able to keep sets separate in case they got mixed up.  This extra step was actually the most time consuming, but I think it'll be helpful in the long run.  

Game Set Up

I'm not going to lie - this takes time to set up.  You'll need 48 different questions... AND the answers.  I typed up all the questions and answers and printed them out (front and back).  This takes 3 sheets of paper per set.

I folded each paper in half and cut along the question side.  This way students could fold up the sheet to see the answers... but only to whichever question they were answering.

I was extremely thankful for having two student aides to help cut these out.  I might even go so far as to use card stock and laminate these before cutting them out next time - I did re-collect them and will store them for next year's midterms just to avoid setting them up again.

I also recommend using different colors if you have multiple class sets - there's a lot of paper (3 pages per set, up to 6 sets per class, and for me 5 different subjects) and it's just an easy way to keep it all organized.

Game Play

Basically students pull a block of their choice and answer the corresponding question.  If, for example, I pull out the block labeled 6, I then must answer question 6.  

Students use their score sheet to keep track of group points.  They get points for removing and placing blocks without knocking over the tower.  They also get points for answering the questions correctly, but lose points if they knock over the tower.  This makes it fun even for students who may not be able to get as many questions right - they can earn points no matter what!

There are actual rules for Jenga (such as only using one hand, not taking blocks from the top three rows, etc) that might need to be explained.  Most groups seemed to have someone who knew how to play and would enforce these rules - for the other groups I would just explain them as needed.

Reflection

All of my classes, from my 33 students in Latin 1 to my AP German students, played this game this week.  While I like this game as a review activity, there are definitely some things to keep in mind for next time. 

Some students are more interested in playing Jenga and not in reviewing.  Some of them even tried just building random structures.  This was more true for the larger, lower level classes - it only happened in Latin 1 and German 1.  I had given the classes a lot of time to play, but I think to eliminate this problem it should be limited to 15-20 minutes for these classes.  My upper level students, however, played for 50 minutes and were able to balance playing Jenga and answering questions.  

I had a few students - actually, just one - who was unable to play at all.  He for some reason compulsively just knocked over the whole thing when it was his turn.  There were other students who  Somewhat surprising since these are High School students, but oh well.  In the future I think I'll need an alternative activity ready for students who - for whatever reason - can't handle this activity.

Overall it was a lot of fun and gave me a chance to step back and support them as opposed to lead them in an activity.  It still needs some tweaking to get the activity where I want it to be.

If you're interested in any of the materials I used to play these games, they're available for free on my TPT account - just click here.  

- Frau Leonard

Stammtisch: Class Lead Discussions for German AP

During our World Language Inservice Meetings we sometimes have “Swap Shop Workshops.”  I love these workshops – you bring in several copies of one or two activities you do, sometimes related to a theme like speaking activities or writing activities, and trade ideas with others in the shop.  It’s a great way to get activities and new ideas, and usually there are people from multiple languages so it gives you ideas you may have never thought of otherwise. 

Last year at one of these Swap Shops, one of the French teachers at Mt Hebron High School, Christina Crise, introduced a speaking activity she does with her AP students.  I immediately fell in love with the activity and vowed to implement it this year with my AP students.  Over the summer I spent time modifying the material she had given us for German.  The end result was Stammtisch.

So… what is Stammtisch?  Well, a German Stammtisch is a “regular’s table” where friends come together at a restaurant or café and discuss different topics.  With this set up in mind, German 4 students prepare and discuss a topic in a relaxed “café” setting.  By café setting, I mean they’re allowed to bring in food. 

We start with a list of topics.  There are serious topics on there like, “Should doctors be allowed to help their patients commit suicide?” to more trivial ones like, “Who would win in a fight – Darth Vader or Voldemort?”  The point is that the questions don’t have a clear cut answer – everyone has an opinion on it (sometimes very strong opinions), and it’s unlikely everyone will be able to agree. 

Students work with a partner to prep a topic.  They pick from the list of questions (or come up with their own).  Their job is to find new vocabulary words related to that topic that they think will be necessary to discuss the topic.  For example, for the topic of “Should doctors be allowed to help their patients commit suicide?” words might include suicide, patient, doctor, and terminal.  They submit those words to me for approval/correction, then the rest of the class has time to work with and learn them.

On Stammtisch day, students first take a short vocabulary quiz.  Then we re-arrange our desks into a circle and start discussing the topic.  The students leading the discussion can bring in food – not a requirement – and have to actually further conversation.  Each student represents one side of the issue, either pro or contra.  They need to have questions ready that will help re-open discussion if it fizzles out, but the idea is to let the conversation evolve naturally when possible.  Obviously some topics with some groups will get more discussion than others.

Students get graded for both parts – when they lead a topic and when they participate in someone else’s topic. 

I didn’t want to overwhelm them at first.  This was something totally new.  I didn’t introduce the idea until towards the end of 1^st Quarter.  I told them what Stammtisch was and what they’d be doing, but I started with an example that I ran.  Our topic was “Should there be school uniforms for students?”  I gave them a list of relevant vocabulary words and lead the discussion, representing both the pro and contra sides.  After the discussion, I gave them a copy of the questions I had used as examples.

So far it’s been a huge success – the kids enjoy it and look forward to it.  Often I’ll ask a question in class and after brief discussion they’ll decide that it’s a “Stammtisch question” that we should discuss in more detail later.  We do one every two weeks, usually on a Friday or a shortened day.

My favorite parts so far have been:

• It builds off the Socratic Seminars they’ve been doing for the past two years.
• It’s teaching argument forming, which is a skill they need for the AP exam. 
• It emphasizes impromptu speaking – there are no scripts, no notes, just the words they learned and what they already know/feel about the topic.
• It builds vocabulary for topics we don't normally cover and that are interesting to the students.
• It’s more informal than other means of assessment.  I like performance based assessments, and this feels really natural as a task – what’s more practical than knowing how to argue!
• You really get to know your students better and they get to know each other better.  It’s really interesting to see what they think about some of these topics, and to see students who normally don’t interact with each other team up on an issue. 
• Best of all… it tricks them into building vocabulary and speaking skills while having fun!

It’s been so successful with German 4 that I plan on introducing it during 4^th Quarter with German 3 as a fun way to end the year and to prep for German 4 next year.

If you’re interested in trying Stammtisch with your German students, my resources are available on my TPT account – just click here.

- Frau Leonard