Day 43 - Crazy about Categorizing! - MSMS Foreign Language Teachers

This post first appeared on the Burlington Keys to Literacy Blog

Here in the MSMS Foreign Language Department, we have been using categorizing as a KTL strategy throughout the year. Categorizing requires students to use main idea skills. Students are learning level 1 vocabulary for a foreign language in middle school. It can be beneficial for students to categorize this new vocabulary in a variety of ways to help with memorization and usage.

Students enjoy the “labeling the bucket” activity in Ms. Mirabella’s class. Depending on the section of vocabulary, students can categorize their vocabulary into groups, either by topic or parts of speech. 7th grade Spanish students in Ms. Mirabella’s class were introduced to the gender of nouns recently, which operates differently than it does in English. All nouns, living or nonliving, have a gender in Spanish: masculine or feminine. Students were taught how to properly identify the gender of nouns, and even identify exceptions to the rule.

Ms. Mirabella gave each pair of students two cups (in place of buckets) and a ziploc bag filled with nouns on individual cutouts from cardstock. Each pair had to work together to put the feminine nouns into one cup and the masculine nouns into the other cup. When all pairs had completed the activity, students emptied their cups and shared their findings. Students were required to explain why they put a noun into a certain cup using the rules that were previously taught. This activity promotes collaboration and recall, and is a multisensory way to reinforce an important grammar lesson in Spanish. (Pictures below!)

Mrs. Barkley’s Spanish classes are also categorizing. Her 8A and 8B classes did a KTL lesson using bucket sorting and top down webs!

First, each student was given 2-3 Spanish words on a piece of yellow paper. They all got up and were asked to sort their vocabulary words by placing them in the correct buckets (la casa- house vocabulary, la familia- family vocabulary, verbos- verbs from their vocabulary, & extra- words from their vocabulary that didn't fit into the other 3 categories):

Then, volunteers came up to help organize all of the categories onto a Chapter 6 Vocabulary Web:

Mr. Walsh uses categorizing in his Latin classes. Both 7th and 8th grade students took part in a group activity to sort new vocabulary words in different ways. First, students were divided into two teams. Each team was given a pile of vocabulary words, which they had to sort into three piles based on parts of speech.

Once the teams agreed on their piles, the students copied their lists into three columns on the whiteboard - NOMINA (Nouns), ADIECTIVĪ (Adjectives) and VERBA (Verbs). The teams then checked each lists for any mistakes.

Finally, once the teams agreed on the parts of speech, they had one more task. The students took the nouns and adjectives and separated them by gender. The three new categories for this round were MASCULINIUM, FEMININUM and NEUTRUM.

Day 14 - Using Buckets and Top Down Webs for Review - Senora Barkley - MSMS Foreign Language

This post first appeared on Mrs. Barkley's Blog 

I attended a workshop in August on using Keys to Literacy in my classroom, and I decided to put some of the techniques to work in my 8th-grade classes.

First, each student received 3 review vocabulary words to sort into topic "buckets:"

Then, we created this Top Down Web as a class using the words in each bucket:

Both activities went really well! Sorting and making the web got the kids out of their seats and helped them focus on each vocabulary topic. It also helped to identify some review words that students were having the most trouble remembering. I am looking forward to using this technique again in the future. 

Day 28 - Learning About Language and Culture in a Variety of Ways - MSMS Foreign Language Department

This post originally appeared on the Marshall Simonds Middle School Blog

7A Italian students are using Quia.com on their iPads to learn days and months vocabulary for an upcoming quiz.

Foreign language students use Quia.com and Quizlet.com to practice vocabulary. They use iPads as white boards to reinforce vocabulary and Google Earth to visit places in foreign countries.

Seventh grade French students are learning the numbers from zero to sixty. They can carry on a short conversation introducing themselves, giving their nationality and stating how they feel. While in eight grade, French students have learned how to use a large group of regular -er verbs in order to express activities that they do. They can also use adverbs and make sentences negative. Students can tell what they like, can or must do.

Eighth grade Italian students can now use possessive adjectives, many verbs to express their activities and are beginning a unit on the house. They will be able to tell where they live and to give a description of their house or apartment.  The seventh grade Italian students below have learned the numbers from zero to one hundred and how to tell time. Presently they are learning the days, months and how to say dates.

7A Italian students are practicing telling time with clocks.

Sixth grade French class is just getting started learning phonetics, pronunciation, and simple vocabulary. Students will be learning French numbers, colors, and days of the week. To their surprise, students will become aware of the many French words used in everyday English!

Seventh Grade spent this week reviewing for their preliminary exam that they will be taking Friday before we begin chapter one in their textbook, “¡Buen Viaje!” Because the preliminary exam covers many different topics, students are reviewing with”Jeopardy” Wednesday and Thursday in class. The four categories are: greetings and good-byes, days of the week, months of the year, and dates and seasons. Students in this picture are broken up into two teams, and are competing for bonus points on their future test! ¡Buena suerte en el examen! (Good luck on the test!)

Eighth Grade is also reviewing this week for their “Examen del Repaso” (Review Test). Students have been brushing up on their 7th grade Spanish knowledge, and will take a Review Test Thursday andFriday this week on important topics covered last year.

The foreign language department has a Quia.com subscription, which allows us to create activities, quizzes, games, and flashcards to practice and review vocabulary and grammar. Students are very engaged when they are working with Quia, and teachers can track their performance on the website as well. In these pictures, students are working in pairs on practice quizzes to prepare for their review exam. ¡Bien Hecho! (Well done!)

In Latin…

6th Grade:

We’re reading stories about Roman and Greek mythology and famous people. We are also learning to count, name days of the week and months, name some food, colors and parts of a classroom in Latin.

7th Grade:

We are learning Latin vocabulary and grammar based on stories about a Roman family that lived around Pompeii. We are also learning about Roman life in general.

8th Grade:

We are furthering our knowledge of the Latin vocabulary and grammar based on stories about a Roman family that lived in Roman conquered Gaul. We are also learning about life in Roman conquered lands.