Cultural Maker Spaces: Medien in Deutschland

This year our department got the opportunity to revise our 7th Grade Flex curriculum. Instead of doing three 12 week rotations, we transitioned to four 9 week rotations. That means every students gets all three languages. (French, German, Spanish)... BUT we still had 9 weeks leftover at the end of the year to fill.

We decided to create three projects per language on the theme of Cultural Maker Spaces, one of them focusing on Media so that we could use our school's green screen and video/audio gear. While that didn't exactly pan out, we were still able to implement the project via distance learning and have students create some awesome projects while expanding their German vocab and cultural awareness.

Part One: Media Investigation
We started the project with a general look at media in German-speaking countries. I collected different examples of media - weather forecasts, news reports, gameshows, cooking shows, interviews, etc - for students to investigate. Here's the Padlet of the resources I collected for students!

They completed a Media Investigation Sheet to show what types of media they chose to look at, any major differences/similarities between German and American media, and they selected the topic they planned on pursuing for the rest of the project.

Part Two: Choice Board & Planning
Students now considered different media-related topics and decided which one they officially wanted to do for their project. They received a choice board with a variety of examples and decided on one that worked best for them.

Based on student confusion and questions that came up during our distance learning, I've added an additional part of this phase that I'll include next year. They'll at this point decide on their group members (3-5), their topic, AND what they think their final product might look like. I created this simple planning guide to help them make some of these decisions now so they could focus on that while moving forward.

(If you like this template, please check it out at SlidesMania and take a look at their other templates - they're really awesome and a great way to visually improve any activity!)

Part Three: Vocab Planning
We invested a lot of time in this next phase of the project. They know their topic and what they plan to create, and now they have to build their vocabulary to get them there. I had them brainstorm 15 new German words related to their topic that they thought would be useful. I also recommended they break those 15 words down into 5 nouns, 5 verbs, and 5 adjectives to make sure they'd have the right building blocks to create complete sentences and the type of descriptive details they'd need.

I also tried out a Jamboard to have students work together and help other classes brainstorm vocabulary for the same project topic. Unfortunately we had some issues with the actual Jamboard (we couldn't get the access working for students to add comments), so I had to the same idea but with Google Slides.

Here's a blank copy of the Slide Show. Each topic had its own slide and I tried to post some some images, links, and/or vocabulary phrases to help get them started. Students could post comments with additional resources and vocabulary they found to help support their classmates.

Part Four: Sentence Building
In previous units, we had worked on vocabulary but not a whole lot on the sentence building aspect. They had new words but what were they going to do with them? How were they going to tie it all together?

We did a NearPod lesson where we talked about creating basic sentences - the word order we'd use, the parts of speech we'd need (in direct relation to our vocab planner!), the verb endings, etc - and then practiced with familiar vocabulary. I did NOT do this (though I wish I had!) this time, but I also put in an activity where students write their 15 words on slips of paper and arrange those papers into sentences. This gives them a good visual on how to put things together, to double check that they're using all their words, and blank slips of paper give them the flexibility to add new words they discover they need!

Part Five: Project Time!
Students now had the tools they needed to create projects on their own or in groups. Because we were doing this via distance learning, I had check-ins every other day where students updated me on their progress and asked questions as needed. You can see some examples of student work on this Padlet!

When students submitted their final project, they also had to rate themselves in this rubric. They rated themselves in the Self-Evaluation portion and then I viewed their products and graded them in the Teacher Evaluation. Our scores combined to give them their final grade.

If we were in school doing this as a group project, there would have been a teamwork component to their grade or a separate rubric where they rated their team members. Since 95% of my students did NOT work with a partner, I didn't develop that rubric/rating sheet.

Step Six: Reflection
Their last piece was a Reflection where they considered what they learned and how they did with the project, as well as offering suggestions to me on how to improve it for future classes.

I wish I incorporated more reflection after projects and assessments in general, so it was a top priority to include it for this one! We've spent about four weeks working through the various steps, and it seems a fitting transition to consider their work on this unit before moving onto our next and final one this week.

Please note: I did not create the rubric or reflections from scratch. Our department head found them earlier this school year and I've since modified them for this project. If you know where they were posted please let me know so I can link back to the original!

How do you incorporate projects and student choice into your units? How often do you use choice boards for projects?

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! ❤️ Hope everyone's having a good end to this chaotic school year!

- Frau Leonard

Early Finishers Table

As is usually the case, I saw something on Twitter that I thought would be a great addition to my classroom!

I had an extra table in the back of my room that didn't get a lot of use, so I put out a bunch of German games and activities that we don't necessarily get to use in class. Any time a student finishes all of their work and there's still time in class, they can head over to play one of the games or do one of the activities.

I dug through my cabinets to find as much as I could to tempt students, including...

Uno! Complete with vocab help so they can play auf Deutsch.

 

Card games we sometimes use in class including: Pit, Apples to Apples (food vocab), Was memest du?, Trumpfspiel: German cities. The orange cards are a vocabulary game I got a while ago from Teacher's Discovery (on clearance, so no link).

Some authentic German games I have: German Scrabble, Black Stories, Werewolf. 

 

There was unfortunately some graffiti on my walls by this table which I couldn't remove, so I put up some construction paper where students can write on instead. 

German books that students can look or read through. 

I also found and printed out some German-themed coloring pages. 

Students also have access to Duolingo and Gimkit assignments if they would rather do a computer based game instead.

Do you have any activities in place for students who finish their work early? 

- Frau Leonard

Carousel Review

One of the Spanish teachers in my building told me about this activity and it seemed like the perfect way to start out the year in German 1! I structured it as a review of the material we'd covered last year in 7th grade Flex.

Process… 

1. Choose the topics that you want students to brainstorm. Our beginning of the year review included the topics: Germany (geography, history, culture, etc), Greetings/Farewells, Alphabet/Pronunciation, Numbers, Calendar, Cognates/False Friends/Loan Words, Survival Vocab/Polite Expressions, Holidays
2. Write each topic at the top of a piece of paper.
3. Split students into groups of 3-5.
4. Make sure each group has a writing utensil. I use different color markers for each group so it's easy to identify who contributed what.
5. Give one topic to each group. I put my papers around the room on the wall and sent each group to a different topic. They rotated around to all the stations, like a carousel.
6. When you say "Go!" each group has 2 minutes to write as many things as they can about that topic. This could be vocab words/phrases, cultural info, facts/trivia, whatever they remember.
7. After 2 minutes time is up, they rotate to the next topic.
8. Groups can make additions OR corrections to what previous groups said.
9. Repeat until all groups have gotten to all topics.
10. Review their answers at the end as a class, making corrections and additions as necessary.

This is a good way to see what the class as a whole remembers or what they might need to work on. I was not terribly surprised to see they remembered numbers really well or that they need to review spelling, but I was shocked they remembered so little of the holiday topics we'd talked about! 

I also asked students a few follow up questions as an exit ticket...

1. What topic(s) do you remember the best from last year?

2. What topic(s) do you remember the least?

3. Was the review in class helpful? Why/why not?

Overall students said they liked the activity because it helped show them they do actually remember more than they think. A few students weren't happy about their groups when they rotated and some pointed out there were errors (like saying Poland spoke German but Switzerland didn't), which is definitely why the review at the end as a class is essential to clarify those big errors.

- Frau Leonard

First Day Activities: UNO spielen

I don't remember where I got this idea or where I heard the suggestion from, but I remember the idea very distinctly: Don't let the kids walk out of Day One without a chance to use the language.

Not a terribly difficult task for your upper level, returning students. For day one of level one? It's a little trickier to give them something that's practical and engaging.

The suggestion/idea I came across years ago was UNO. Most students are familiar with the game, the rules are pretty straight forward, and the language required is pretty basic. Numbers 0-9, four colors, and a few other phrases, and then students are playing and actively using the language.

This year for my Deutsch I students, I made vocabulary sheets to help them with these words (including pronunciation notes) and divided them into groups to play. They were super excited... and were absolutely aghast when I mentioned the punishment for any student I caught using English. I gave all of the student groups one of the black boxes of cards, but kept a red one for myself - they have different backings but the same shape; the punishment for speaking English was I would give them an additional card.

The different colors helped me keep track of the sets, so I could easily put my red set back together at the end of class. It also made a manageable punishment that would only really matter if it added up.

I also like this activity because I always find the pacing of the first week can be hard - you can't account for all the interruptions with assemblies, you don't know the pace of this specific class during this time slot, etc - and after they learn the routine of playing the game in German, it's an easy way to fill the last few minutes of class.

What first day activities do you do that help get your students speaking the language ASAP?

EDIT: For anyone interested, you can get my copy of the vocab list here!

- Frau Leonard

Wizer Me vs Google Classroom

Towards the end of the year, I started using Wizer Me to make digital worksheets for students. I work in a district that is 1:1 and had been previously been using Google Classroom and Google Docs to assign similar types of assignments. I think next year I will use a mix of both, as they each have their strengths and weaknesses. Here's what I've found out so far :)

Wizer Me vs Google Docs

Wizer Me: Pros Gives instant feedback to students for most question types Has a variety of question types (matching, sorting, tables, multiple choice, etc) Allows me to add videos into the worksheet Easy to see how well students did - I can see a list of names and their scores on the worksheet, then go into individual worksheets and see a specific student's work if necessary. There are questions that allow for more variation than just right/wrong - they have short answer questions and drawing questions! The drawing questions especially can be fun :) (Keep in mind, for these questions, students do not receive points until you manually go in and score it.) You can leave feedback on each individual activity. Looks great! They are visually very appealing. There's a Wizer Me community, so you can easily share your worksheets with other teachers AND find ones that others are using!

Google Classroom: Pros I can easily see who did/did not turn in the assignment I get notifications via email when students turn in assignments late Students can view their work, missing work, and deadlines easily and in one place You can view student work even if they don't turn it in I'm already using Google Classroom and the students are as well for all of their other classes - it's familiar, it's expected. Adding outside things (like Wizer Me) makes it harder for both me and students to keep track of.

Wizer Me: Cons Although it looks pretty, it's not always easy to find the worksheets I want. Lots of scrolling, lots of clicking. From my limited experience, the student side is even worse, with just a list of all their assigned worksheets with no real way to organize them. Connecting to your Google Classroom requires a paid account (along with other features). Some of the question items are difficult to figure out how to incorporate. Tables, for example - I tried to find examples of this in their online tutorials but never could figure out how it was supposed to be used. Since then, I've tried it out and played around with it and found a way to make it work for me. To see an example, click here - the first exercise uses a table. I have to manually go in and check for student responses... no big deal if students complete their work on time, but checking for late submissions can be tedious. If you don't have a paid account, your worksheets are automatically made public to everyone once you assign them to teachers. Keep track of your copyrights!

Google Classroom: Cons I have to load each student's assignment individually to see how they did. It's either that or assume they did the work because they turned it in. No automatic feedback - to give students answer keys, I leave notes in the comments... But I find students don't go back to actually look at the comments. Very limiting in the types of questions/activities. It has to be something students can type answers to, and often requires me formatting it in a way that makes it a.) easy for students to type their answers (i.e. lots of tables where on a traditional worksheet I could put a __________) and b.) obvious when students have put in an answer (so again, using tables or already setting the font to be bold, italics, a different color, etc.) If I notice a typo/mistake in a file but have already posted the file to the class, too late - even if I fix the file, students will automatically have the old version unless I take the file down and attach it again.  If you assign a PDF, prepare for the struggle of "It won't let me edit it" and "How do I attach a Kami file" etc.

Please do not look at this table and assume because the Wizer Me side is longer that I automatically like/dislike it more! As I said, both have their uses - it's just that since Wizer Me is newer to me and might be less familiar to readers, I have longer explanations. 

If you're on Wizer Me or are thinking about it, feel free to take a look through my worksheets. Not everything I've made is there (they will be... but it's hard to post things to your profile if haven't assigned it to students yet), but it can give you an idea of how I'm using it and what worksheets look like when they're completed.

If you use Wizer Me, how have you incorporated it into your classroom? What do your students think of it. If you haven't, do you think it's something you would consider doing?

- Frau Leonard

The Amazing Race!

Today my German 1 students played The Amazing Race. It's a fun review activity to wrap up the year, review for finals, and take advantage of warm weather. It's an activity I purchased a few years ago on Teachers Pay Teachers (Spanish version), so while I can't share the version I use, I'm going to talk about it and encourage you to check it out!

Basically it follows the premise of the reality show - students are competing in teams to accomplish various challenges. Accomplishing a task earns them the next task and so on until they're the first group through the "race." Each challenge reviews a specific vocabulary, culture, or grammar topic we've done this year.

Materials I need:
- Challenges printed out and ready to go (this year I color coded them for my own sanity)
- Sidewalk chalk & sidewalk space to write
- Outdoor space large enough for the whole class to spread out but small enough you can easily keep track of everyone
- Envelopes to organize each group's materials (not necessary and something I tried out this year - I included a pen and a pencil plus their first challenge, this way students didn't need to bring anything outside with them; I also asked students to put their completed challenges in the envelope so there wasn't any loose paper flying around
- Clipboard and pen

Students reviewed: verbs, the alphabet, geography, school/classroom vocab, numbers, and plural forms. Some of their challenges involved running, drawing, jumping jacks, and push ups.

All in all, I think it was a fun day :) Students got to run around outside while getting in some review, and it allowed me to see areas where the class struggled (the alphabet, geography, and plural forms were HUGE problem areas for the class as a whole, whereas they breezed through the verbs and school vocab). I found a few areas where I could make some tweaks to hopefully get a few more successful teams next year!

- Frau Leonard

Ostern in Deutschland

This year as I continue to adjust to my new role as a middle school language teacher, I've been taking a cue from my department members and use holidays and crafts to engage student interest. The latest installment: Ostern!

I started with a bulletin board at the beginning of the month. I included some Easter egg decorations ad well as some facts about German traditions. And of course, all the decorations are "hanging" in an Osterbaum :)

As we got closer to the holiday, I had activities for both my 8th and 7th grade classes. I only did one day worth of activities for the 7th graders on our last day before break. For 8th graders, we did two days.

Eight graders learned about Easter traditions in more detail (using the bulletin board, a Kahoot, and a Deutsche Welle article), and then decorated some Ostereier.

Students then hung up their eggs around the classroom. I did initially give them relatively free reign, but that just lead to lone eggs, which doesn't really convey the whole Osterbaum idea. I ended up moving them to two main locations and in the future I would give students one specific area. My original plan was to have a tree made out of construction paper hanging on the wall outside my room, but I'd recently hung up some student work and didn't have the room. Next year!

All classes did an Easter egg hunt on the last day before our break. I broke students into groups, each with a color assigned. I bought about $4 worth of plastic eggs from Target to use - I think I ended up with six different colors, eight eggs each. Groups took turns looking for their color eggs around the room, collecting them at their desks.

Each egg had a slip (or a couple slips) of paper inside. For 7th grade, they had spring related vocabulary words - they had to match the vocabulary with pictures; for 8th grade, they had sentence fragments that they had to put together. When a group had found all their eggs and used all their words correctly, they brought up their finished work to trade in for candy.

I color coded student papers so each group a.) knew who was in the group and b.) knew what their color was. I didn't want any issues with students not

When students were done, they helped fill the eggs for the next class. They also got to hide them for the next class, a task which they very much enjoyed! Their only guidelines: the eggs had to be in plain sight, somewhere people could see them without having to touch anything, just by walking around the room (i.e. not under things or inside cabinets). I had my last class of the day hide them for the first class a day ahead of time so no group was left out.

I also like to have a Selfie Station for holidays. I have a holiday-related decoration up on my door window. Students stand inside the room and look outside, then someone outside the room takes their picture - this time students would look like the Osterhase in their pictures.

Note: I will have my materials available via Teachers Pay Teachers within a few days! I know that will be too late for this year, so I wanted to post early enough that anyone with classes later this week could try to incorporate some of these activities. I should also have more pictures up soon! (I also tend to post more pictures on our class Instagram account!)

What holiday celebrations do you bring into the classroom? Do you do anything for Ostern?

- Frau Leonard