Small Groups, Music, and Reading in the World Language Classes: My Takeaways from FFLA23

This week, I want to share a recent, top conference takeaway along with activities and a fun tool I learned about. I love conferences! I love to learn, always sit in the front, take notes, and love to talk about my experience. I’m just kind of obsessed. It really motivates and inspires me every time I go to a conference. Recently, I went to the Florida Foreign Language Association (FFLA) in Daytona, Florida. There were more than 300 teachers at the conference, and each session was better than the other! In this post, I’m going to share my takeaways from FFLA. 

Conference Takeaway: Practical Strategies and Activities 

My first conference takeaway is to have more groups. Stations were discussed in a session by Elizabeth Maldona. Last year, in Episode 31, I shared how I was never a big fun of stations or small group rotations. But last March, I was feeling the exhaustion and needed to have a change which led to me having conversations with small groups very much like the teacher table in elementary school. I did, and it worked! So, I was excited about this session.

In the session, I learned two “magic tricks”. They are really just activities that you can have in your pocket, ready for any moment. It really doesn’t require much prep. To start, I like to have groups that are not bigger than five, maybe six the most. The stations have to also be timed. I like to display a big timer in the front of the class and have a student help me with that. Don’t forget to be clear with our expectations and model how it’s going to look. 

Questions and more questions

For the first conference takeaway about small groups is to create as many questions as small groups that you have. The questions should be related with the theme, novel, main movie or clip, song, or the story you are working on with your students. Each question is put on a piece of paper inside a folder. Next, give each group one folder, and put your timer on for five minutes, six minutes, or whatever you think. Then, you say, “Go”. Each group is going to open the folder, read the question, and then students will take turns to answer the questions. When time is over, then you move the folder around to another group. I will use some of Calendar Talk questions. You can check those out here. I have a few other suggestions that I share in episode 58. 

Variation of Picture Talk

The next idea is like the activity Picture Talk. Elizabeth collects pictures related to the topic or the unit that she’s talking about. Then, she puts about eight different pictures in a folder. If students need it, on the other side of the picture, you can put some scaffolds on vocabulary for them to use. She gives each folder to a group, and then she sets the timer and have the students talk about the picture, which is great activity. When the timer is up, you move the folder to the next group. 

As a teacher, you can listen to the students, see where they are, see what they need, see if they’re doing a good description, and see if they’re ready. I also love this activity for stories. I think it’s super important that you walk around the class listening to your students, that they see that you are present, that you’re listening, and that you’re paying attention.

Conference Takeaway on Reading

I had the pleasure of attending part of a session by my friend Diego Ojeda, and I learned a great deal. Diego introduced many engaging activities that we can incorporate while reading. I was particularly inspired by his emphasis on bringing fun and joy into the classroom during reading. He shared very simple games. One game he explained is called “Encadenado” or “Chained”. 

It’s a challenging but effective exercise that enhances word recognition and spelling. Again, divide your class into groups, groups of five to six, remember, always try to keep a small number of students inside the group. Next, set a timer. Timers are key. Set it for three to four minutes. Students work in groups to chain words from the text, using the last and first letters. After the time is up, you can count the words and then ask follow-up comprehension questions. I got to play this game during his session. Listen to episode 58 to hear all about it.

Roxxem

The next idea I want to share is from my friend Bertha Delgadillo. I missed this session because I was presenting myself but she shared with me what she talked about during dinner one evening. First, you should know that Bertha loves music. So, it was no surprise that she was talking about music in her session. She uses music in her classes. Bertha talked about a tool called Roxxem.

Roxxem is a tool to help you find songs for your class based on proficiency level and content rating (PG or R). Students can listen to the songs individually and engage in various games. This makes it so much faster to find songs to use. I share a few of the games in the podcast episode if you’d like to hear about some of them. One of them is a Quizlet live-style game with the lyrics. It also has speed ability where you can slow down songs. They have a free and paid version. If you add the pro option, you can use the code DELGADILLO25 and get 25% off!

Biggest Conference Takeaway

Finally, I want to share the biggest takeaway from this conference. It came from the keynote session with speaker Dr. Krashen. Dr. Krashen was talking about reading and language acquisition, and it really made me think about the activities that we do in class, and the strategies and gains. The activities I learned are great, but remember that these activities should complement our most critical strategy: reading or listening and reading.

Here are some of the insights I gained from Dr. Krashen about the importance of reading. Do we allocate enough time for reading in our classes? If not, can we make more time for it?

As teachers, we often feel the pressure of covering vocabulary and grammar, but Dr. Krashen reminded us that we acquire grammar and vocabulary through reading messages that we understand in context not by direct instruction. So, dedicate as much time as possible in your classes to reading or listening which will support our students in acquiring the language, even if you don’t play all the games or activities. Sometimes, we get distracted and overwhelmed by the activities and forget the foundational strategy that Dr. Krashen reminded us at the session of: reading and the power of reading for our classes.

Hear more in episode 58 of Growing with Proficiency The Podcast.