A French Affair: reflections on my teaching

What would you do (as a teacher) if you weren’t afraid?      So I read a blog post this morning (http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/sep/27/secret-teacher-parent-pressure-entrance-exams-grammar-schools?CMP=new_1194) , in which a teacher talks about what is wrong with education today.  It's about standardized tests, unrealistic expectations, parent pressure and children's unhappiness. All topics that are close to my heart.      Then I moved on to the comments and found myself face to face with the opinion of someone who clearly has no idea what he is talking about. This person claims that teachers are being paid to make the students pass the (standardized) test and that's exactly what they should be doing.  Never mind the fact that not every child develops at the same pace, has the same talents, the same support system or the same background. Or the fact that teaching is about passing on passion, encouraging curiosity, awakening creativity, push

How have you changed as an educator since you first started?   In the beginning there was... - the textbook - the blackboard - the tape recorder - the written test - the lecture      I even remember classes where there were no textbooks and I was the only language source available. Then I got swallowed up by the vortex of change and as my work environment developed, so did I.  I have become much more student-centered, I see myself often more as a facilitator than a teacher. Access to target level material is everywhere and students have so much more opportunities to be creative, to practice and to share what they know with the world.      Being an educator now is much more exciting, but also much more difficult. One of the most important things I have had to accept is that there are a lot of things I don't have the answer to. When I don't know I just tell the students we'll look for it together, because somewhere out there someone has the answer.      It also

Respond: Should technology drive curriculum, or vice versa?        This is the wrong question. I believe our tech director has got the right idea: at ASW technology needs to be ubiquitous, seamless and embedded in our teaching and the students' learning. It's not a matter of one driving the other. We have a curriculum of which technology skills and digital citizenship are part and at the same time the seamless integration of technology enables our students to communicate and collaborate, to critically seek and learn new information, and to gain knowledge through the creation of media projects.       Is is self-evident that our curriculum changes as technology plays a more and more important role in the lives of our students, but it remains equally important to understand that technology should be a means to an end and that end is learning.       If I look at this in a more concrete classroom situation, for example, I would say that in my classes language acquisition rem

What role do weekends and holidays play in your teaching?      Nothing special about my weekends. By the time Friday rolls around I am out of juice, so I use my weekends like most people, to do what I don't have time for during the week. Housework, the necessary evil, but also spending time with my family, cooking, reading, watching movies and of course, preparing for the next week of learning.     My holidays have a dual purpose: to explore new developments and materials for my teaching and to regain my energy for the school year to come. I spend most of my holidays in France, so I don't loose contact with the language and the culture. From time to time I go on a professional development course, or I travel with the family. Either way, my students benefit in the end, because they get me back re-sourced and full of new ideas.

What are your three favorite go-to sites for help/tips/resources in your teaching?        When you teach a language the best sites are often those in the target language. There are some excellent sites available for French teachers, but my number one site remains Youtube (and its French equivalent Dailymotion).  I select clips for my students, I can subtitle them, embed them in my website, share them via Google classroom, create videonot.es for them and they become a fantastic tool for learning. Many students already spend a lot of time watching Youtube videos and through selecting and sharing target language videos, they can discover new Youtubers and the target language.      The second site that provides a substantial amount of resources for French learners is TV5.org . This is a website that supplement the TV channel TV5, sponsored by the most important francophone countries. It has a special section for learners of French with audiovisual resources that are accompanied by ed

The ideal collaboration between students–what would it look like?      Some kids love group work, some kids hate it. Group work is a bit like society, you take a bunch of people and throw them together, you set them a common goal and hope for the best. In every group there will be workers, jokers, whiners, slackers and wanderers, just like in real life and to make it work you need either a miracle or some excellent rules of collaboration.      I have sat through my share of group meetings and have to admit that more often than not they are a complete waste of time unless the goal is very concrete, the team very focused and the rules of play very clear. The same, I believe goes for students.       So in my class, when we do group work, I make sure: - the groups are made up of students with different strengths and weaknesses. - the end product is very clearly defined, as is the process. - the work is evenly distributed and deadlines are clear - the norms of collaboration are pos

Which learning trend captures your attention the most, and why?  Game based learning. - because all of my students love a bit of competition. - because it presents students with a challenge based on real-life situations. - because games make it easy for any students to accept failure and motivate them to try again. - because games engage students and are seldom boring. - because they can interact and cooperate with other players. - because it can create situations and opportunities that can't be created in real life, because of geographical or social restrictions. - because games are fun.

Write about one way that you “meaningfully” involve the community in the learning in your classroom. If you don’t yet do so, discuss one way you could get started.      Like most international schools our school has a great sense of community. Students, parents, faculty and staff feel involved in school life and many venture out into the local polish community through service-learning or CAS projects. As a school we are doing a good job.      Involving the community in the learning in my classroom is another matter. It's great for the Polish teacher who can take her kids out to practice whenever she feels it is necessary and whose students can use their Polish skills when they go out to the orphanage, refugee camp or other local institutions we have ties with.      Not so much "involving" is possible when you are teaching French in Poland. We have very few members in the community who speak French fluently. If I could manage it, it would like to set up a service l

What does your PLN look like, and what does it to for your teaching?     This made me laugh. When I see the abbreviation PLN, the first thing I think about is the Polish currency unit so for I while I couldn't figure out what money could possibly have to do with my teaching. (Not a lot, as we all know.) Then I resorted to my old friend Google and came to the conclusion that PLN in this context probably stood for Personal Learning Network.      There are a lot of opportunities out there for educators to connect, but so little time. I am happy when I can talk and share with my colleagues at school, but during the school year I feel I have to scramble to really dig deeper into some of these apps, blogs and websites. Writing this blog is currently taking a lot out of me. Where do all these people who Twitter, blog and participate in forums find the time?     Maybe my age again has something to do with it, but I have never been a fan of Twitter, though I admire people who always h

Do you have other hobbies/interests that you bring into your classroom teaching? Explain.      Not intentionally. Although I do suppose that my interests are reflected in the ways I teach and the topics I choose. I love to read and so I believe reading in any language is vital for language development. Books and magazines make up part of my curriculum at any level.      Literature and the arts are what I know most about, so I bring these into my lessons whenever I can.  And then there is French cinema. Whenever I get a chance and I can find a place for them in my units, we watch movies together and have discussions and projects based on these. Serious movies like "Intouchables" or "Persepolis" and "Amelie Poulain", but also lighthearted comedies like "Bienvenue chez les chtis", can be treasure troves filled with French culture and great for listening comprehension.We are not surrounded by French culture, so these movies also provide my studen

How do you curate student work–or help them do it themselves?        Today's prompt puzzled me. I have not used the word "curate" for anything that has to do with student work. It makes me think of museums and serious exhibitions, but if "curate" means to show off student work, I will continue what I started yesterday and talk more about the electronic portfolio.       In my classes students mostly curate their own work, with a little bit of my help, when they showcase it on their Google site. For world languages the e-portfolio is ideal because all the different skills can be integrated. When I started my career as a teacher most of the work that was exhibited was written work. It was hard for students to share their oral progress without resorting to direct one on one communication. Now my students create screencasts, videos and podcasts. I film their oral presentations and make them reflect on so much more than their language skills. They feel that they

Name three powerful ways students can reflect on their learning, then discuss closely the one you use most often.      Students can reflect on their learning in many ways. They can look at standards, compare their work to the standards and draw conclusions. They can join forces with a partner, compare their work and see what they did better or worse than their partner. Or they can collect their work in a portfolio and at regular intervals look at the progress they made in different area.      I like the last proposition best and for that reason I started to create e-portfolios with my students a few years ago. It seemed a huge undertaking at the beginning, but as I move forward together with them, I find it a wonderful way for them to assess their own progress and reflect on their learning. Google sites are a great tool for creating electronic portfolios, because it's so easy to manage and in is integrated with all Google's other tools we already use daily. Students create

Create a metaphor/simile/analogy that describes your teaching philosophy. For example, a “teacher is a ________…”      Teaching is like gardening. Not very original, but, at least to me, very true. Every year at the beginning of the year I plant the seeds (of knowledge), and all year long I water them, care for them, make sure they don't die, but in the end I am still not sure what the result will be.      Some of the seedlings will grow really strong just by themselves. I just need to make sure I keep an eye on them and provide them with the necessary nutrients. Others need more support and extra nourishment. Some refuse to grow until you start coaxing them and others may have weaker and stronger branches. I am very proud of my whole garden. Not just at the end of the year, but throughout all the seasons. Growth happens in stages and sometimes I may want to give up on a tiny plant that has not shown any change for a very long time, but  I have found out eventually even the

What do you think is the most challenging issue in education today?      Education today holds many challenges. This has always been the case, but nowadays we are so much more aware of them, because we are all living in an interconnected world and are constantly comparing our experiences to those of others.       This prompt does probably not want us to address the fact that the biggest challenge for today's governments and organizations is how to make sure that all those children who are not in school at all because of wars, poverty or other upheavals, would get an education. I suppose it wants to push us to examine more closely the "education" we deal with every day.       For me one of the more challenging questions is whether we are teaching our students in the right way to prepare them for their future lives. Sadly, I believe we are not. Working mostly with High School students has thrown an interesting light on a few issues.       First of all, it's still

If you could have one superpower to use in the classroom, what would it be and how would it help?      Seriously? Who comes up with these questions? Just teaching three 120 minute blocks in a row and doing cafeteria duty right after requires superpowers. But alright, I committed to writing this reflection blog, so I am going to have to come up with something.      I would like the superpower to design a game that would make language learning exciting and fun for everyone. Fun is what is expected by a lot of students nowadays. They come to school to be entertained and socialize. Hard work is at best a side-effect they have to live with. I do my best to create opportunities for all of them to enjoy learning, but unfortunately a lot of language acquisition will not happen by itself. It requires a tedious amount of repetition. Students like repetition, just look at most console games, only not when they have to do it for school. So I wish I could develop a game like Minecraft that is s

Name three strengths you have as an educator.     Whenever I have to talk about myself as "an educator", I sigh deeply. The person present in the class room each day is not a separate entity, so when I talk about my strengths, they are an integral part of my personality. I don't change when I walk into school. My strengths as an educator are embedded in my character.      So here we go. I am passionate about everything I do. Otherwise I don't do it. I want to pass on my passion for languages to my students and I believe that for the most part I succeed.  I love sharing that feeling of wonder when you realize that there are many ways of seeing and communicating, the power of words, the beauty of language and literature and all those things that make me tick.     I am patient and persistent when dealing with students, that's another one. I just won't give up and neither will my students if I can help it. I wasn't always like this. It took me years of se

What is feedback for learning, and how well do you give it to students?        The obsession with giving students feedback is a fairly recent one. Not that I never gave feedback to my students before. It's always been a vital part of being a teacher, but somehow recently it has become the number one priority on everyone's list. Not only do you need to gave feedback, but you'd better have the evidence to prove that you do.      Most of my feedback has always been person to person. After an oral I will talk to the student about how they did, make suggestions for improvement and set goals.  Written work gets handed back in less than a week after it has been handed in, with the necessary comments and if need be I will also go to the student to talk about it. This seems to work well, but to be sure you will have to ask my students.      I have found it much harder to deal with giving students feedback on their "approaches to learning". Very often these concepts a

Name the top edtech tools that you use on a consistent basis in the classroom, and rank them in terms of their perceived (by you) effectiveness.        Our school prides itself on its tech integration. At the beginning of the new school year our enthusiastic tech director left professionally printed cards in our teacher mailboxes to remind us once more of the fact that at ASW technology should be ubiquitous, seamless and embedded in teaching.      Most of us by now don't need reminding. We've been integrating for years. Tech is clearly ubiquitous, but the seamless and embedded I, among others, sometimes wrestle with.  Over the years I have tried out a lot of tech tools, some of them more useful than others and the ones I use most are not necessarily the most advanced ones. These 5 are just the tip of the iceberg. Quizlet (www.Quizlet.com) One of the most important skills my beginning language students have to acquire is vocabulary revision. The tool that helps al

How do you envision your teaching changing over the next five years?      You can't stop progress. There it is. Do I want to? Yes, sometimes. The breakneck speed at which things move in the world today can really scare me. Maybe it's because I am turning 50 and I can't figure out where all those years have gone. Or maybe it's because a new app for a new thing comes our every five minutes (or every minute). Whatever the reason, my teaching has been changing along with everything else.      And it will continue to change. I had an interesting discussion with a student today, when I asked her whether technology encourages or kills creativity. We went back and forth and ultimately decided that, of course, it depends on how you use technology. Clearly technology will never go away, so in my teaching I should continue to embrace it and find ways in which students can use tech to learn more, be more creative and waste less time.      Google classroom will have a huge impa

What is your favorite part of the school day and why?      Having always been a morning person, my favorite moment of the school day is before class starts. I usually swim in the morning and that gives me about 45 minutes between getting out of the pool and starting class.       During those 45 minutes the deserted hallways slowly fill up, as one by one students trickle in more or less ready for another day of learning. I have time to chat to some of them, just informally, about all kinds of things. Sometimes I pop into a colleague's class, because we often have no time to connect during our busy day or into the library to see if there are any new exciting books.      I make it to my room, leaving the door open in case someone has a question or wants a chat, and make myself a cup of tea. I'll go over the day's classes in my head, making sure that I am prepared for all eventualities. Students will make it to my room in twos and threes and the silence is soon replaced by

The bucket list It was inevitable. The bucket list is without doubt one of the most popular things to come out of our social media culture. So here we go: Share 5 random facts about yourself: 1) I love my son Felix and think he's the best thing that ever happened to me. 2) I don't like mobile phones. I don't understand what people have to talk or SMS about all day and I much rather talk to the person face to face. They should be for emergencies only, or for people who are abroad and have no other options. 3) In my opinion the power of laughter is underestimated. When I have a bad day, the only thing that saves me is a good laugh and I feel very lucky that I am working in a school. One of the kids will make me laugh, so few days go by without having laughed at least once. 4) My favorite place in the world is our house in France. On the terrace in the summer with my family, my dog and some of my best friends. 5) I am one of the very few people (at least accord

Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care)      This is the hardest prompt we've had so far. Just like I don't dwell on my failures I tend not to ponder on my accomplishments. I am a one day at a time person and my days are made up of hits and misses.     To single out one accomplishment I find extremely difficult, but if I must, I guess it would be the fact that I have made a lot of students actually like French, even some that were previously unsuccessful and reluctant. I see this as my greatest accomplishment because it is easy to work with eager students but to inspire those who never saw the point of learning any new language is hard work.       It is impossible for students to learn if they don't want to come to your classes, so I feel it's my duty to create a learning environment that is welcoming and has something to offer to all who want to learn. I try to make them love French, France, the cu

What's in your desk drawer and what can you infer from those contents?      Not a good question. I have about 5 desk drawers and for most of the time I just throw random things into them that I don't want to see on top of my desk. You could infer from that that I am a slob, but that would not be entirely true. I like my desk to be organized in a way I can find the things I need. Anything I don't like or need has to go in the drawer, out of sight.      I also don't like throwing things out. Just in case. This dates back to my time in Russia where everything was a commodity and you never knew when that pen, piece of paper, card, ruler, cream... could come in handy. You could be sure though that whenever you needed that something, it would definitely not be available in the stores at that particular time. Hence the repository of weird stuff.     Now I do force myself to throw things out from time to time, but it's not a priority. The drawer is a bit like myself, n

Who was your most inspirational colleague and why?      I've been teaching for over twenty years and in all that time have met many great educators, but the person who has had the biggest influence on my career would be Henry Searle. He got me when I was still very green and education was just something I had rolled into.     To understand this better, a bit of background is needed. I found myself in Moscow at the beginning of the nineties after having finished an MA in modern languages, one of which was Russian. I arrived in the Russian capital in 1988 when the words Gorbachev and Perestroika were on everyone's lips. It was an exciting time, freedom finally became more than just a vague possibility and for a couple of years I worked for various news agencies in varies capacities, but exciting though it was, it was never really my thing.      Foreigners flooded to the Russian capital in search of new business opportunities.The only International school in Moscow in those

What does a good mentor do?      Traditionally a mentor is  someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with a less experienced colleague. Throughout my career in education I have not really been mentored a lot, really just once, but I am keeping that for tomorrow's post, because that mentor had a great impact on my development.      What does a good mentor do? A good mentor has to be available, honest and ready to share his own successful and less successful experiences. As a department head I have mentored (or tried to mentor) some of my younger colleagues and I can confirm that it's not easy to add this to an already busy schedule.      Sharing is the easier one, but I feel I have let people down more than once when it comes to availability and honesty.  Within our department we generally share materials and expertise and everyone knows my door is always open, but I can't guarantee I am available at all times. As for honesty I am usually an honest person, but

It's all fun and games! Post a picture of your classroom. What do you see? Since I don't have any photos of my room, I took out my phone today during class to try and secretly make some. Yeah, stupid of me. Forget about the secretly. As soon as my students saw me taking out the phone, the selfie spirit in them took over.  Well, I guess at least it shows they feel comfortable enough in my French IB class to show off a little. I am sure that's not what the prompt was all about, but it's a cute pic, so I posted it anyway. I also did manage to get some a little after that, when they went back to work.      They were all doing an assignment I had put on Google classroom in an attempt to reduce the paper mountain that builds up on my desk at regular intervals. I thought I would be doing them a favour, but now I am not so sure of that.      They started the assignment on a Google doc and after 10 minutes some of them raised their hand and asked if they cou

What I love the most about teaching. Fortunately today's prompt is a little more inspiring than yesterday's and easier to answer. The two things I love most about being a teacher are " the unpredictability and the endless possibilities".      When I tell people I am a language teacher, the comment I often get is: "That must be nice for you, all those holidays." Then they quickly change the topic of the conversation. I see them think: what could possible be interesting about a bunch of (pre-)adolescents in a room, mangling a foreign language? Being a lawyer, a CEO, a doctor, a journalist, how exciting! But a teacher?      Still I wouldn't trade my job for another one, ever. In a way teaching is one of the most unpredictable and exciting jobs you can get. Anything can happen in my class, adolescents are in a constant state of change and no day is the same. I can plan a great lesson and it can bomb, and when I feel disappointed I will suddenly get a gr

Discuss one observation area that you would like to improve on for your teacher evaluation    Today's prompt does not really inspire me. For a start, who is supposed to be evaluating me? The administration? With all due respect, but many of my superiors haven't taught a class for years, if at all, let alone a language class. Most don't even speak another foreign language. In the past, they have wandered in and out of my room, often unable to understand a word of what was said, and have given back some generalized feedback in the style of "your students seemed really engaged and interested" (Well I sure would hope so!). More often than not, there was no real feedback at all.     Don't get me wrong, I do understand the situation they find themselves in. The day to day running of a school with all its demands from school boards, parents, students etc. must be exhausting and probably takes away any enthusiasm a principal or director may have to go and sit in a

    Write about one piece of technology that you would like to try this year, and why. You might also write about what you’re hoping to see out of this edtech integration.      One tool I hope to use next year is Google classroom. In many ways it seems the ideal solution for those who are interested in flipping the classroom. As I mentioned in my last post, the thing that worries me most about flipping is making sure the students use their time wisely and provide me with evidence of their learning. Ideally all of this evidence should be found in one place.      I have yet to try Google classroom, but it looks really easy to use in the little Youtube clip I watched (but then on Youtube everything looks easy). Reality may be different. And it's yet another thing on my long list of things to accomplish at the beginning of the school year. One I will have to prioritise if it really does all the things it promises to do.      I will see how it goes and give feedback when I see ho

To flip or not to flip?       All last year I tried to motivate my students to reflect on their work, their language learning habits and their learning style. Some grumbled, some procrastinated, some took it seriously, others dutifully filled the space.  They posted their reflections on their Google site and it gave me a better insight into their progress, their difficulties and their perception of what  I was teaching and they were learning.      Now that September has rolled around once more, with it comes the inevitable task of goal setting. As always there are too many goals and too little time. Reflection, but this time my own, should be one of my goals, hence this blog. Reality, however, is forcing me down a different road. Both my 9th and 10th grade advanced French classes have 18 students in them, so in order to accommodate all, I will have to become really efficient.       Making sure every student gets enough of my attention will be my priority and modifying the way I r