This week's #langchat topic: How can we improve #langchat?
What an amazing Twitter experience! From home or from your phone you can discuss with teachers across the country all of your little tricks in the classroom. And the best part of all it's only once a week and for an hour. Beat that Professional Development Day! I have the opportunity to better myself every week.
After attending my first #langchat (very exciting), I did expect more. As a second year Spanish/Special Education middle school teacher, I am looking for what is practical to use in the classroom. I need #langchat to help me plan a full 1,350 minutes a week of fun-filled, practical, hands-on, communicative, technology-integrated, meaningful, and authentic activities.
Let me break it down for you (Calle 13 style),
- One: Stay on topic. We expect our students to stay focused for a full 43-45 minutes in class, as educators let's do the same. The topic, "Top Ways to get Students Speaking Productively in Class," what I got from #langchat: L1, L2, TL, TL1, TL2, ET phone home, R2D2 (you get the picture). Case in point, focus on what is productive. Give concrete, detailed, and outlined strategies. After reading #langchat summary, I felt bombarded with ideas and unfortunately I had no clue how to use them in the classroom. What I want to know is what really works and how it is being implemented. I can interpret the brillant ideas that my colleagues share on #langchat summary in a completely different way. Be specific and share. We have one week to prepare, so lets share what we actually use in the classroom. Examples: rubrics, presentation outlines, student work, thematic units, key vocabulary lists, games, videos, behavior strategies, charts, infographs, etc. (depending on the topic of course). As I learned in college, "we never steal, we borrow."
- Two: Let's group ourselves. First and foremost, a BIG thank you to @SECottrell, @Diegojeda66, @Calicoteach for moderating these chats and summarizing them every week. With no surprise, #langchat has blossomed into a popular weekly event, which has created a traffic jam of information. Let's relieve our speedy weekly chat by grouping ourselves. It would be very helpful if I connected with other World Language Middle School teachers. I'm positive someone who is teaching AP would not benefit from my ideas and a teacher who is teaching AP would think what I'm doing in my classroom is too elementary. (Proof: my older sister, @senoralopez) This may prevent all of the "offensive" comments that our colleagues percieve as well. I suggest breaking the #langchat into the following groups: #elemlangchat, #MSlangchat, #HSlangchat, #APlangchat. If #langchat administrators are willing to move in this direction, I would love to help in anyway possible in moderating #MSlangchat. I don't think anyone anticipated #langchat to get this popular! It is fantastic to have so many participants. Let's reward ourselves by making #langchat easy to follow, informative, and pleasant for ourselves.
- Three: Postive environment. Once we are in our groups, let's make an effort to support eachother. Never discourage your colleague and always maintain your professional demeanor. Remember, as professionals it is our job to share our activities, worksheets, outlines, etc. I've read many opinionated tweets. If we keep pedagogy out of #langchat and focus on strategies/activities being implemented in the classroom that are functional and successful, then there are less opinions and more actions! There is a big difference between the ideal classroom and what occurs in your daily activities. Theories are excellent to discuss in graduate classes. In essence, theories are ideal but not practical. If you are looking for topics of pedagogy then there is a simple solution; create a #theorylangchat.
I support #langchat 100%. Hopefully, I have written some positive input. I am encouraging my colleagues at work to get involved in our "cyber professional development" world. Coming soon to you presented by @senoritaalopez (in collaboration with @senoralopez): "How to use Twitter as a Professional Resource and in the Classroom."
