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Triple A Learning IB Blogs
Language B: Welcoming our World’s Cultures
Welcome to the Triple A Learning blog for MYP Language B. The most recent blog posts are listed below and you can access the blog archive by following the appropriate link in the panel on the left.
November 24, 2011
May 11, 2011
This old school – episode 1
I am not sure if you have ever seen the PBS tv show “This old house” , most of the home in this home renovation show are from around Vermont…hundred year old houses…with lots of things to fix. Looking at the last classroom I taught in :
Why I chose this is that it looks exactly like my late classroom in Quebec, Canada circa 2009! Except we didn’t have nicewood floors…but the rest, green chalkboard desks in rows etc etc all the same….except for the cleaning rags…that would be a definite improvement to our old class… I visited my old school this week and saw this same classroom…BUT we are renovating…YES this old school is getting a facelift..actually it is already started….but for me it is starting now as I am returning to the classroom and have been given the mandate to design a WEB2 learning classroom. 
Stay tuned for more.
back in the swing of things and some thoughts on personal project
Well …
I guess that is the way blogs go. Sometimes there is a lot to say and sometimes not. I feel like a student who has not written in his DW for a month…Has the creative process stopped? We use to call this the “incubation” period in the original personal project…a vague and nebulous time that student and supervisor entered…and many got lost in. We no longer call it that…and gladly the “Creative design cycle” does not have “incubation” as one of the explicit points in the wheel….is it still there? I think yes…it is the student in the middle that is in a thinking/reflecting/holding pattern….sometimes stuck…sometimes waiting for an entry point…sometimes lost in questions….and as a supervisor we can remind them how to step out into the outer circle of the cycle and simply take note of a few things (observe) or make one simple goal (plan) even spontaneously put that first line on the paper(create) and then see if we can get cycling again. Well a bit of a tangent to thoughts about personal project here, but these are my own feelings and reflections on having taken a long pause…now to blogging!
March 2, 2011
Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture to Beginning Language B Students
I read a very interesting report in CALICO journal today.
Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture to Beginning Foreign Language Students – CALICO Journal. (warning this is a nerdy report for those who like to read a lot 
)
Idea 5 – Giving instructions – Being an expert
Well here is another entry towards my 101 idea goal for the year!!! You will need to check back for more, but as you know if you have been reading ideas 1-4, these are all classroom tested ideas that I find both motivating and easy to adapt.
Can you do this?
February 28, 2011
Brainpop and Language learning
Brainpop has been around for quite a while, yet I still find it amazing to bump into teachers that have not used it in their language classrooms. If you have not seen this product before please check it out at www.BRAINPOP.com, They have even come out with a new ESL specialized branch.
In an IB school the reasons for using it are clear. It provides interdisciplinary content in both English and Spanish. Even if your school or district cannot afford to get a subscription, there are more and more FREE examples of Brainpop available each day.
January 30, 2011
Online stories for children/teens in many languages
Back in Novemeber Maria asked me for some more basic level online books for students in beginner Spanish. Well I have finally gotten around to finding such a resource. My criteria was really to find something that would be useful to many levels and languages, while giving story topics that really felt international. Another criteria is that the site had to work well even on slower connections etc.. My best pick so far is: which has hundreds of titles, and has a great search function where you can choose the language, age level, topic type, etc and then read it directly online.
You can also contribute stories. For Maria, the site is also available in Spanish 
check it out!! I will make another post regarding how I think this could best be used with older students.
January 29, 2011
Measuring student interaction in a second language.
I have a great interest in measuring natural usage of the language in student interaction. Over the years I have found that this is a VERY subjective thing. I have also found this in assessment, both with my colleagues as well as with the moderation process of the IB. Writing a reading comprehension or production etc is quite straight forward…well maybe not the reading comp…that too can get a bit messy – but lets save that for another day! Getting back to the talking part…I have actually taken video recordings of students in natural discussions, the kind of setting they would use in the real world… and I have been quite surprised both by the patterns of speech that emerge as well as our(teachers) inability to agree on levels of performance for the students. I have found this also to be the case with the IB moderation process, which has chosen to have students be interviewed one on one with teacher if possible (not so day-to-day natural, but very similar to job interviews etc, so in some ways quite natural). I think the IB criteria do in fact have the strands needed to evaluate, but the WAY we do this as teachers is what I see to be the real problem point. I really think we are far more subjective when it comes to this area….a clear pronunciation or correct usage of a troublesome grammatical form can cover other areas and our judgment, and the reverse is of course true even more. Perhaps we will someday get an automated program to quickly evaluate speaking levels…quite believable with the present pace of voice recognition technologies…but for now…I long for a quicker fix in this area…some game of sorts…that would be better than my big spreadsheet of broken down strands of speaking and interaction.
Idea 4 – alibi
I have seen this game in various forms over the years and it is always a success with my students. The basic idea is simple…you choose some crime that several students have committed and then give them some time to cpm up with an alibi. You then have them come back into the class one by one and the class questions them. The questions can have prompts or not to help depending on the level, as can the coaching of the alibi. After a set number of questions the first person goes to sit at the front while the next is brought in to the class and is sat in fornt of the first student, so that he or she cannot see the expressions on the face of the first. A second round of questions tries to discount the alibi. Then the third is brought in. Usually by then the class is having fun asking hard questions, and enjoying the reaction of the first two in the alibi, who usually laugh or give up in exhaustion. I have even used this as an evaluation activity since it is quite focussed and I have time to note the question and answering ability of individual students quite easily here.
January 10, 2011
IB-approved MYP online workshops
Triple A Learning is an IB-approved provider of MYP online workshops. Our cost-effective workshops count towards a school’s IB authorization process and are also fully recognized as part of a school’s IB programme evaluation.
Registration for the following workshops in all 8 MYP subject groups is now open
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