ACTFL 2019 Takeaways

I am feeling so invigorated, refreshed, inspired, and grateful after ACTFL! ACTFL is so big and so overwhelming and if you don't have a focus before you go, it can be tricky to get the most out of it.  So, I decided to focus on Social Justice at the conference this year. This is something that I thought I was addressing in my class and the good news for me is that I am doing a decent job... however, I can do much better! So, I am going to share some of my takeaways and some resources that I hope to explore more.

On Thursday I went to the full day workshop: Teaching for Social Justice in the World Language Classroom with Cassandra Glynn and Beth Wassel, two of the authors of the book Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the lens of Social Justice.

The benefit of the pre-conference workshops is that you get to spend the full day delving into one specific thing. I am excited to update, revise, and refine some of my units to really have a Social Justice focus. But more importantly, I am hoping to have the lens of Social Justice for all of my units. 

One big take takeaway from that workshop is the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards:

I am going to start to look at my units to see if and/or which ones I am including in the unit. For instance, I hope to update and refine this #cacerolazo unit. These are the standards I am going to try to include in the (future) revised unit:

I also hope to develop a unit around the movie Campeones. So, far, I have compiled some ideas in this doc with ideas, this presentation, an article, and the playlist of videos below. We'll see if I have time to pull it all together!

On Friday, I went to see Leslie Davison present "Take a trip! Geo tools for an immersion experience".  Leslie is so smart and an excellently engaging presenter. She shared four tools for maps: an app called Street View, Google's Tour Builder, Google Earth, and My Maps. I am super excited about My Maps because you can use Google Forms and automatically import data into a map! Also, students can keep track of a variety of things using My Maps... I will be sharing more with this in the future! I also want to use Tour Builder more, in particular with books and/or movies that I use. Here is an example of what I did this past fall for my Ecuador unit.

On Friday, I also went to Latino/a, Latin@, Latinx, Latiné, Latinae: An inclusion and social justice approach. This was presented by Marialuisa DiStefano, William Yepes-Amaya, and Abelardo Almazán-Vásquez. This was very informative and eye opening. I love how we started with a dance - and that I got to dance with Emilia Carrillo, someone I have known on Twitter for years and finally got to meet face to face! There is a lot to unpack from this session, but my big takeaway is that inclusion, representation, and recognition of all identities are super important and I need to be more intentional about those things and I need to recognize who I am including and who I am excluding with the language I use and resources I choose. but I'm just going to share a couple of videos from the session:

On Friday, I also went to my good friend Arianne Dowd's session "Scaffolded Film Through the Lens of Social Justice with AP Tasks/Assessment". Arianne's session offered a ton of amazing ideas and resources! Check them out here and here. There is a lot to unpack from that session too! One of the movies she presented about is Anita. Here is the trailer:

On Friday, I also presented about using the TV Series Go! Vive a tu manera in the CI Posse booth. That was a different way to present with a small group, but I hope they got some good ideas to use! 

On Saturday, my first session was about using the song Latinoamérica by Calle 13. I have used the song and the video in the past, but I haven't in a few years. I remembered how much I love the song and how many amazing products, practices, and perspectives are in the song and video! Here is what I did the last time I used the song.

I love comparing that song to this song/video #NewHampshire #LiveFreeOrDie #MyState #LoveIt

Saturday, I also went to see Martina Bex talk about Proficiency Oriented Language Instruction. Martina is an amazing presenter, a very smart woman, and an engaging teacher. There is too much to say about this session! Here is an amazing post that I will just link here.

Finally, I presented with Erin Almeranti (head of the Nuestra Historia project) and Gary DiBianca (co-author of the Nuestra Historia Aprender y Preparar) about Nuestra Historia. Gary and I are very proud of this book and we can't wait for more teachers to 

And I also love my delicious dinner at Jaleo with some wonderful people, some of whom I have "known" for years, but never met face to face.

And I loved seeing so many "conference friends" and meeting so many new people too!

La Lotería de Navidad... versión 2019

Oh how I love teaching with stories! And I particularly love the seven stories that I can now choose from for my La Lotería de Navidad unit!

Last year, I used four stories, but this year I am adding three more. Wait... can I do that? Will I have time? I think I will! I have decided that I am going to spend the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break to do the unit.

To start and introduce the la Lotería de España, I am going to use this Edpuzzle (or here is Novice version). Then, we will do a running dictation to review the information (in TPT product). I might have them look at two infografías and do these (free) activities. Then, we will do this BVP style Task. That "Task" is designed to give students input, so they can output and we can discuss the preferences of the class.

Then, we will get into our stories! I will probably start with Justino (thank you Martina Bex!), then 250th aniversario, then 22 otra vez, and then Carmina. And, then we will do the three stories from this year's ad campaign. Finally, (time permitting) we will do Danielle. This TPT product has resources for the 250th aniversario, or Carmina, Danielle, 22 otra vez and this year's 3 stories: Pilar y Félix, Emilio y Gloria, and Ramón y José.

So, this year's stories are unique from all the other stories, in that no one wins. In all the other stories, there is a winner (well at least Carmina thinks she is a winner). The lema for this year is "El sorteo que nos une" and the hashtag is #UnidosPorUnDécimo... so the message is not really focused on winning lots of money, but rather on sharing.

There are actually four stories in this ad campaign, but I am only using three, because the fourth one, Carmen y Víctor, is a bit too sad for me to use.

This slideshow has a preview of what I am planning on doing with the three stories. If you would like to use the entire unit, you can purchase it here on TPT. Or buy resources, activities, and readings for a whole bunch of Lotería de Navidad stories here on TPT.

I set the slideshow up with Peardeck slides, but you don't have to use them. But for those of you who do use Peardeck, how convenient!

Pilar y Félix

Emilio y Gloria

Ramón y José