SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone
Join Ben (he/him), Bryan (he/they), and Bill (he/him) as they Gaslight (reflect), Gatekeep (read research), and Girlboss (share successes) language teaching!
SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone
Ep. 16: SLAyyy Playful Learning with Amanda Beck
Gaslight
Judge, Jury, Executioner
What Are Our Goals?
Time Investment
Gatekeep - Amanda Beck, Central States Languages for All Regional TOY 2024
How We Invest Our Time
Guessing Games
Games as Scaffolds for Learning and Social Interaction
Games Provide Structure for Listening and Reading
Have Backups
Girlboss
Level Your Games
Use Templates
Novelty Makes People Curious
Predictions
Winning!
B I N G O
References
Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL)
The Unfair Game by The Comprehensible Classroom
Trashketball by The Comprehensible Classroom
Pop Up by Annemarie Chase
Quick Draw by Annemarie Chase
Text us about how you’ve Gaslit, or Girlbossed your language classroom.
Email us at SLAyyyForEveryone@gmail.com
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of SLA, Second Language Acquisition for Everyone. So today, we are going to be discussing the topic of games and play based learning in the world language classroom, and we've got a very special guest here with us none other than the amazing Amanda Beck who will be sharing her insights about it. This topic, and we will be discussing what we do that is you know, kind of girl bossy and, or perhaps gaslighting. And
Amanda:Okay. Okay. I'm
Bryan:So there is a teacher of Spanish and German that is recruiting or seeking materials that represent or include representations of LGBTQ
Amanda:to
Bryan:Specifically for the world language classroom. So if you have developed any materials like that, or are there any materials that you use in your instruction, or even if you just wanted to talk about how you approach this topic, in your classroom please go ahead and send those things by email to the following email address. It is pagarcia at ku dot edu. So, those materials are going to Paul Garcia, and once again, it is pagarcia at ku dot edu. It would be great if you could send those things
Amanda:Let's
Bryan:and, yeah.
Amanda:I'm going to let my stuff up there. Awesome. And And Yeah, so I'll go ahead and put that in a little bit. Yep. It's great. I really appreciate it. That was excellent. So, the first thing that I want to do is to go ahead and set up the team. And so, we have a world of different partners, different departments, different teams, but we also have you know, a very, very small community of I guess maybe 25 or 30 people We've asked them a lot of questions.
FishRod:States languages for all regional teacher of the year in 2024, made her a candidate for actual teacher of the year in 2024 in November. This, another shout out highlight your colleagues who are doing great things through this process. It is a great way to meet others and on your own accomplishments and for others to reflect on their accomplishments. So all that being said, Amanda back to the podcast. How are you doing?
Amanda:Wow, thank you for having me. It's been big kind of a long week. We are heading into spring break and everyone's a little tired and burnout and ready for a break. So I'm excited to to be here before heading on to vacation.
FishRod:Yay! And what better topic to get over the Spring Break blues than talking about playing just a little bit. Amanda, tell us a little bit. How did you become a teacher? How did you become the teacher and in the position that you are now?
Amanda:Well, it was kind of a early on thing I knew probably fourth or fifth grade that I wanted to be a teacher. At the time I thought I wanted to be a middle school teacher. Haha, joke's on me, that was not going to be happening. I like, I have a middle schooler right now and I love, love, love, interacting with her, but I could not handle a classroom full of that. And so, That was already kind of on the radar for me, and then by the time got into high school, I took German for the first time as a freshman, and was immediately in love, was like, have to do something with this, went on a trip, like just one of those old school EF tours, like 10 cities in 6 days type of things, and while I was there, I just loved it. I fell in love with Germany. I fell in love with German and I knew, I knew when I got back, I was going to do something with German. And my dad looked at me and said, well, you can do something with German, but you better be able to make like, you know, money and support yourself. And he, I was like, well So I went to Valparaiso University in Northwest Indiana, a couple hours from home. I loved it there. They had a fantastic and still have a fantastic German program, a little smaller than it was then. But I just, I, It just lit this fire in me, and I loved the studying of language and, and, and linguistics, culture, literature, all the things. I did a study abroad, I wanted to do a full year, couldn't fit it in, so a semester it was because I wanted to graduate in four years and not take on any more debt than necessary. So while I was there I also got to live in the German house. they have a an academic, it was the only one on campus at the time. And the first floor of the building is just like academic rooms and the second floor is a dorm. And you pledge to speak German the whole time that you're there. We ate meals together four nights a week. It was so incredible and it kind of gave me the immersion experience I didn't get because I didn't have the time to study abroad for a full year. So graduated from Belpo, took a job kind of on a whim. West Lafayette, Indiana at Harrison High School, and I was like, oh, in a couple years, we'll move back to Michigan because I'm originally from the Detroit area, and that was 18 years ago, and I'm still in West Lafayette, Indiana at Harrison High School. I'm one of those teachers that, like, found a home really quickly, and I, I just love it there. The, you know, students are great, the family's great, the community is awesome, and yeah, now my own kid is gonna be a freshman next year. She's taking German 1, which is pretty cool. But I'm so excited because like, you know, I get to, she's into my turf now and in my space. So it's been a bit of a journey, but it's been really amazing. You know, not only teaching, I've gotten involved in a lot of leadership within Indiana, and I just got elected to the central states board. So lots of things as far as language goes, it's really originally when I, I feel like when I first started teaching German was my passion and it still is, but I feel like the longer I've taught, Teaching has really become my passion and those two pieces together. So, that's a little bit about my journey, kind of long winded, but, you know, it's, it's all part of the, part of the story.
FishRod:when you were speaking about graduating with a degree in German, I really felt that. So what am I doing? What do we got going on here? So no, I appreciate that. I love that. Bill, you wanted to highlight some of Amanda's
bill:Yeah,
FishRod:state of Indiana.
bill:yeah. So that we got a fellow Hoosier here today. And if you are listening from Indiana you've probably seen speaking up very loudly for language education in the state of Indiana, along with. a wonderful group of advocates from the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association. and you've spoken up for the Certificate of Multilingual Proficiency. The version of the Seal of Biliteracy that we have here in Indiana. You've went up to bat. and spoke for the graduation requirements that ended up getting changed, and now for students in Indiana, like you told us before recording clarified that an honors diploma is the only one that requires language, and it's only two, which it was four three for an honors,
Amanda:Three for an honors diploma, and, two of two, and now it is two years only for the honors track, which is college bound. So it's really unfortunate. Other students can take it as a as an elective. And I think that that is still going to be the case for a lot of students. But I it's worrisome for numbers and enrollment. So, yeah, I have a big mouth. I really have a hard time being quiet when it's stuff like that. And I and I also have an incoming freshman, like total transparency. It was also a little bit self serving own child. But, you know, like what's good for my child is good for. everyone else's children to hopefully you know, we wanted to fight the good fight and I don't know that we fully got everything we wanted. But, you know, we were really vocal. The language teachers showed up big. It was really awesome. It was a little disheartening to see the other electives not really making an impact. So, you know, language teachers. We got the gift of GAP. It's what we do. So, make it happen.
bill:yeah, and it was like were trying to do something even more extreme, weren't they, the, was it getting rid of the requirement altogether or
Amanda:to scrap old language altogether. And we we thought that that was a really terrible idea for obvious reasons, but also for the simple fact that kids need language and we need multilingual citizens. And that was a fight that I think most of us were not willing to let go quietly. And, and they heard us, you know, I think that there was a lot of, a lot of interest in what we had to say. And we told stories from multiple angles. Some people kind of told their personal journey with language. Many people talked about their students, and then the students that have come back. We had a teacher, and then their student who became a fellow language teacher again, telling their stories. And I think that those are really important pieces to kind of hammer home that what we do really really is important. So, it was a lot bigger than I anticipated, but it was awesome to see so many, so many language people show up. And I know a lot of credit goes to Megan Worcester. She is really involved with JNCL really involved on our IPLTA team. She's currently the president of IPLTA and and a good friend of mine, Spanish teacher. And we just love her. And she, she really does a great job of inspiring people to get more involved with advocacy. I mean, that's really kind of where I got my start. She was like, Hey, Hey, they're doing this stuff with the diploma. You need to show up and speak. And so I was like, good, I'm on it. Let's do this. So, you know, she's, she's been really an inspiration. And it's, it's also really great to just see how many different language teachers showed up. We had teachers from all kinds of languages. In fact, this past Monday to get rid of the dual language immersion funding for our districts here in Indiana. And so that's also a stressor. And of course, I had just been gone for central states. I was like, I can't really take Monday off. I'm not sure my principal will be super thrilled with me missing like six days in the last, like, 10 school days, so maybe not. But we did manage to find the, actually, the superintendent of Lawrence Central. I believe that's who it was. But he won an award at Central States and we asked him at Central States to, well, I should say we I didn't ask him. Megan asked him to speak to the committee hearing on dual language immersion programming. I don't know if that's, the jury's still out on that one, but, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of strikes being put against language programming in Indiana, and I feel like when things happen here in a relatively conservative state, they oftentimes get replicated elsewhere. It's like a little testing ground to see If these types of legislative ideas are going to be palatable to the public and I'm, I think it's important when we show up and we say, no, they're not palatable. We need to do what's right by we need you right by students and do what's right for for our future.
bill:yeah and then just on that as a call to action, a really easy call to action is to be following the JNCL
FishRod:We'll
bill:on their website
FishRod:for sure.
bill:just put in your information and it will send an email to your representatives on your behalf.
Amanda:It's a really easy way.
bill:30 seconds.
Amanda:It's a really easy way to get involved. that doesn't involve having to take time off school and go to meetings because, I mean, while that may be fun and you can treat yourself to lunch afterward, taking those days off in the in May at the end of the year was a little bit rough last year, so choose carefully.
FishRod:Thank you so, so much for your advocacy. I mean, it's so, it's so important. And I think, you know, it can feel like there is so much happening all the time that you don't know where to start. And I think having places for language teachers to start, it can be really powerful and help build our kind of collective thrust towards, you know, something better for our students better for. Language education and education in the United States. So cool. Thank you for that.
Amanda:The last piece on that, just a little addition would be, make sure you're in touch with your state organizations or your regional organizations,
FishRod:yes.
Amanda:because I know we, in Indiana, Megan does a great job of keeping our website up to date with and it's super important to just at least be informed. If you're not showing up to these things, at least be informed.
FishRod:Yeah. Huge. You know, waffle throw down for waffle Washington, huge fan follow all their stuff, having a good time.
Bryan:I was curious, what is the situation in Washington in terms of requirements and things for world language?
FishRod:I believe it is that each kid has to take two years of the same language. But there are other alternative pathways like CTE career and technical education where the language credits can be replaced with CTE credits of that graduation pathway, but by and large, most students at my school, I would estimate that it's almost all students at my school are taking at least 2 years of the language.
Bryan:Yeah, because it's really interesting in California because it is not required to take a language, but you can use language, like 10 credits of world language for your, one of your elective credits. You either have to do 20 of art or 10 of world language. So but the difference is, if you want to get into the University of California system, you have to take two years of language, and they recommend three, and so most students who are thinking of applying to college take at least two to three years, and so it's like, interesting that it's like this university system that kind of controls Thanks. Oh, that's not like really much going on at the state house, but yeah, I just was curious about that.
FishRod:of Washington, University of Washington is similar in that, you know, we hear we hear rumblings that admissions officers see 2 years and then scrap the application immediately. Right? That they're looking for 3 or more years for kids to be competitive.
Amanda:It took Purdue University's president speaking up in August to get things changed. Like, they changed the requirements to two years pretty much after Mung Chiang decided that he was going to finally say something. And even then, Purdue and IU, our major flagship universities, are still requiring three years, and I think that in my community in particular, I'm five minutes north of Purdue University. My kids are going to likely take three years. It was kind of an odd thing, but they're allowing a third, students to count a third year of a language course as a world cultures credit, as a kind of a crossover social studies. They can either take world cultures through social studies or by taking a third year if they're in this like university bound path. Or I don't know if it's in the university bound path or in any of the paths. I, that one is not quite as clear to me because we're making, we're building the airplane as we're flying it. So, that's a good time. We're not really sure what credits everyone needs and how it's all gonna work out. So, so that's why we play in class. It's, it's still a pain of figuring out what all of this is supposed to mean.
FishRod:education in the United States renowned for its clarity and uniformity on a more playful note, perhaps we we Amanda reached out with an absolute awesome list of ideas that she could talk about and is clear it is absolutely spot on to hear her say that she has grown a passion for teaching based on this list that we saw. I was like, Oh. This person really likes teaching so, but we're here to talk about play and games, which I really love and appreciate. So So, playfulness in class, in games we usually start by gaslighting. Where, where has this gone wrong for us? Where have you, where have you tried to play a game or tried to incorporate playfulness into your curriculum and it has fallen flat?
Bryan:I'll start. When I was a young, young teacher back in L. A. I made my games way too complicated because I was thinking like, if I just do the correct formula to get the students to use the grammar, but pretend that it is fun, it will work. And I found that like, You just have to keep it as simple as possible, like, of course you still want them to have it be communication but I just look back at some of those materials I created and I was like, man, what was I thinking? But, you know, we live and we learn that's my advice to you, just keep it simple
bill:you ever end up with Cones of Dunshire?
Bryan:You want to explain that?
bill:I,
FishRod:Me
bill:Amanda is laughing hysterically because
Amanda:We
bill:I
Amanda:just watched like all the seasons of Parks and Recreation because honorary Hoosier in me is like, Yes, Indiana highlighted in a fun and kind of wacky way.
bill:In one of the later seasons Adam Scott's character creates a game called Cones of Dunshire and it's like Risk, but much more complicated. And there's like three foot cones involved. It. Yeah,
Amanda:love it so much because it, because it's so complicated and unnecessarily, like, you know, all these things that you have to do. It's beautiful.
FishRod:too complicated. Too complicated games. I think for me, what I like, trying to charge through a game or game moment because it was part of my plan and not having a backup, even if The wheels were coming off. I think like I don't know when you're like trying to know program retention is a real thing We want kids to stick with the program because they're having a good time and because they're you know It's social and all that sort of stuff And so sometimes I would play in games and I'd be like the plan for today is the game and then the game was either Not going well from like a gameplay perspective of the kids were being you know Poor sports or just making it very not fun very quickly And not me, not as the teacher, not having a backup of, like, something we could do to replace that. And get the same sort of language into their brains and get them interacting with it. I think that was a fatal flaw to a lot of my early game attempts. And I think the first time that I cut off a game in the middle of the game, was like, I am the, like, I am the evil witch of this school, actually. And everyone hates me now because I cut off the fun game that we were
Amanda:Okay. very much.
bill:I don't know, I
Amanda:Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
bill:and sometimes, oof. Working on ways to make sure that they stay, you know, engaged and actually learn something.
Bryan:Bill, excuse me, I raised my hand first, why didn't I get a teleport? And then, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
FishRod:I
bill:exactly.
FishRod:Yeah, you end up to, yeah, you're
bill:Oh.
FishRod:I'm the referee, I guess, for some weird arbitration that you didn't sign up for. I, my, my student teaching advisor, my mentor teachers JJ Melgar a former Southwest cold teacher of the year and also German, excellent German educator. She said she would always call herself judge, jury and executioner. And I started stealing that line because sometimes. He's got to cut it off.
Amanda:If that's the case, like we're, we're, we're going too hard here.
FishRod:Yeah, we need to, we need to do a quiet activity now. I think Brian kind of touched on something too, related to games, which is like, what, what were we doing with the games? Like, what were we pretending to learn with the games? Or like, what was the kind of like, subliminal or goal behind the game? If like, You know, it was just like, oh, like, can I do the correct ending is the game? Like, like, I don't, I don't know, man. I don't know if that contributes as much to their language acquisition as I would want it to, and there are other ways to get more out of a game in terms of comprehensible input or in terms of, you know, a more authentic interaction within the context of the game. And also, you know, like who doesn't play a vocab game of just like, what's the definition of this word, this word, click on the correct definition, correct points, you know, that sort of thing. I think, you know, in
Amanda:Okay. Okay.
FishRod:days too, it was just like, like Brian said, how can I get this grammar form? But, but game and
Amanda:Okay.
Bryan:if you're interested and you're listening, reach out to us. GimKit, I love, because they have the ability for students to submit their own questions.
Amanda:Okay.
Bryan:And so often what I will do is I will give students a text that we've looked at together during class and I ask them to, for homework, you know, create three different kinds of questions that require understanding the context of the language that is used in that text. And, I mean, it's like an upgraded version of the, you know, what does this word mean kind of game. Where like, you can still, it can still be pretty fast paced and fun, but like it still requires like reading and understanding the input that you're getting. And so, and also I don't have to make it because the students are the ones doing it. So, if that sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend GameKit.
bill:yeah, like you said, like making them meaning based rather than just just recall, like, which I still do because I want to. And, but like also like, I like Who said this so like maybe you're or who did this kind of questions so like you have to read the statement and based on something else that you've Already read or talked about in class Decide who of the four choices did the thing
Amanda:I'm a little bit more translating time. very much.
bill:and do like sentence matching. So like I give a I
Amanda:Okay. Okay.
bill:This person has this problem, which, what do you recommend?
FishRod:Lucky us. We invited just the woman to ask all about all this game based inquiry, game based learning and play in the classroom. What effects it has and what are, how can we girlboss into, not into the sun, girlboss away from the sun girlboss towards success. So Amanda, we are ungatekeeping you for our listeners. Share with us what have you learned about using games in the classroom that you think is worth sharing with others?
Amanda:when it comes to games, and I when I first started my career I think I've got a real like, I like to win streak in me. Yeah. And I think, for me, when I started learning a language, we did a lot of games, and they were really decontextualized. And that's not a knock on my teacher, I think that that is, that we as a profession have grown in how you know, how we structure instruction for students. For me, a lot of, really what I like, my credo as a teacher is work smarter, not harder. And I like to have you know, for me, having games in place allows my students to have some fun to loosen up because that is where kind of my in is to pump them up to the next thing. I, when, when my classroom feels kind of like a homey space where they know, like, I'm going to get to laugh with my friends today. I'm going to get to talk with people. You know. They get to be a little bit silly. They get to be a little bit like elementary age children. I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing. I think in a world that puts a ton of pressure on young people today, they need an outlet where they can come to a place and do something fun and walk out. That's, that's what I hear a lot of my kids say is, man, I really had fun today. For example, they did a geocache. I teach dual credit. I have to use a specific textbook. To take some less enjoyable activities and make them a bit more enjoyable they had various tasks that they had to complete, and then they come over, I look over what they've, what they've, and there are a variety of tasks, there were some true or false, there were some where they had to kind of yeah, as you mentioned, Bill, where I had the sentence start, and they had to Pick the logical ending. If they had the right ones and they had all the pieces in the right places, they got coordinates and then they got to look at a map and I had hit some geocaches around the building that they got to go and search for. it took something that would probably been pretty dry and boring. That's required really for my dual credit curriculum. And I don't knock that I don't say that to knock my dual credit. You know, school that I partner with. Those are just things we have to do. And making them fun, making them playful, made my students, they were like, can we finish this tomorrow? Because they didn't finish them today. And I said, well, tomorrow we kind of have some other things we need to work on. So they're like, where are all the caches? And they were all into it. They were so engaged. And I think that that is a big. piece of the puzzle for me is that when I was a beginning teacher I wanted to, I knew that games engage me and I wanted to engage my students and get them excited and pumped up. Which I use, for example, I'm really big on, okay, the Monday after break, I know I'm going to have to plan something that gets that energy flowing because otherwise they're all going to be like, So I anticipate March 31st, we'll be playing some games at my school simply because I know that that will bump that energy back up and get them. Oh, yeah, this is what we do here and how we do things. I love to do we were talking a lot about keeping things simple. And I think that that's a really, really important piece of it, because it should not put so much work on our plate for a 20 minute activity, it should not take us. It takes, you know, an hour and a half to put things together. I will admit a geocache took me a little bit longer, but I have materials now that I can recycle from year to year, and I do, obviously, adjust them. I, I notice problems that students have, and I try really hard to make sure that, you know, okay, next year I'm going to do this and make those notes. Because the time you invest in putting these things together should ultimately recouped when you're able to use it again down the road. I also really like to use things that I can use multiple times. As you, as you guys were talking, I was taking, taking some notes and I do a lot of guessing games students guess what comes next. Or I, I will take a video kind of like a movie talk and I'll take some still shots. Like for example, there's a really great series called Easy German. then I'm guessing you're pretty familiar with easy German, maybe a little bit. And there was one I just did with my German ones. We were talking about describing yourself. And there's literally, the topic is, how would you describe yourself? And it took still shots of the people. And I had my students write, anticipate using target language. What do you think they're going to say about themselves? then I play the video and they, they watch and they got all excited when they're like checked. I got it. She was going to say she had blood. He was going to say he's old or he has a beard. I'm going to switch languages already.
FishRod:About
Amanda:but that's kind of that kind of engagement. They were engaged in a task that otherwise would have been pretty boring. And it was a pretty high amount. of language being discussed among them, being the input that they were getting and I just love that they, and the buy in is so much higher than it's, than if I'm just like, okay, you know, match this description. Getting them to create with the language is really ultimately what I want them to do. Some other things I was thinking about as you guys were talking that I love to do, I mean, I know it's, it's, It's a pretty low impact as far as I have sometimes students make a bingo card in anticipation of what will they hear, what will they view because I think it helps keep their attention more. And I mean, it's so dumb if you're like cross five and I got a bingo, little bit of, and even the upper level, my third and fourth year students will still buy into that because I think it's, it takes something that would otherwise just be so meh. And it's just, you know, listening and it just gives it a little bit more. a little bit more something to listen for. I mean, obviously we want them listening for the language, but it gives them a little bit more of a kind of behind the scenes task that engages them just that little bit. And for me, it's a really important piece because I think otherwise, you know, if I'm just standing up there talking at them or if they're just listening to something or viewing something or reading something, you know, if they're really motivated go getters. I know for me, I have no problem, you know, sitting down and reading a big, long task in German, but, or a big, long text in German, but I want them to do that, and I gotta find a way to pull them in without it feeling like this is a big, long task, and I'm gonna have to write a giant essay, like, if we set them up with kind of those little scaffolds that help them gather their thoughts and put those pieces together that That generally results, yields great results, and for me, it's helped a lot with retention, because I think kids are like, this class is really enjoyable. We get to play and in fact, I've even started incorporating German board games into my courses now kind of after we have a big assessment or kind of an end of unit assessment. We do a game where they, a day where they play board games. And we've been working on how do you communicate during board games? Because I think again, in the age of post COVID where kids don't have kind of these connections to each other, it is just language class can be such a great vehicle for helping kids build those social skills. Because let's face it, if they are going to theoretically talk to somebody, or if they actually talk to somebody from the target culture, they're going to have to be brave enough to be like, Hello, guten tag, my name is blah blah. They're going to have to actually feel comfortable enough to actually talk to somebody. And, and that starts even in our own classrooms in kind of a casual sense. They have to break down that high level of anxiety about talking to people because I'm, I don't know about you guys, but do you see that kind of, that kind of hesitance to interact with even their own peers in their own school?
FishRod:I had a student once who said something that I was just so baffling to me, but the more that I thought about it, it kind of made sense, which was just like, I had seated him next to a student and they just were not like when I would be like, Oh, turn and talk and ask your partner about this or like whatever. And then like, you know, whatever, you know, talk about your weekend or something, whatever it is just like, you know, a little structured kind of quick chat before we do it all together as a class. They just like wouldn't. And I was like, Hey, like, what's with that? Like, what's happening? And he was like, Well, I just, like, I just don't know her from my other classes, and I was like, the way you get to know somebody is by asking them questions
Amanda:Talk to them.
FishRod:yeah, it's by talking. And that's what I've become increasingly convinced that, like, Yeah, we need to teach kids how to deal with, like, difference in social situations, and then, you know, have an appreciation for diversity and curiosity about it. And I think that really does start immediately in the classroom with the people in their own community. And I can see games as a way of kind of breaking that initial social
Amanda:Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
FishRod:Okay.
Amanda:is that I want them to interact and to, to gain some friendships. I had a girl who went on my gap exchange. had met a kid, she was brand new to our school as a sophomore. And she had met a kid who was a freshman in my class. And because of the nature of our activities, they became friends. And by the time she graduated last year, she was like, I'm so grateful for German class because it's where I met my best friend and I thought to myself The kids need this space to be able to form relationships because how can we ever expect them to want to communicate with other people in other parts of the world in a whole? other language If they don't feel confident enough to even talk to the kid next to them, who theoretically speaks the same language, or at least in our classroom space, they have, they share that common language. And I think that that, that the team building aspect of it that kind of that SEL aspect of it, of like, you know, this is a chance to unwind and to take some of that pressure off ourselves is a really, is a really important piece of, of why I like to bring games in my classroom. And like I said, I think engagement is a huge, huge piece of it as well. That, that for me is a great way to just, to just get kids to want to be there. Because I think for a lot of kids, school is such a white knuckle experience. They are everything about it. The social aspect, the education, like the, the academic aspect can feel. So overwhelming and I don't want that for my classroom because I don't want kids to be scared. I of German. I don't want them to be scared of learning language because there is a real fear. I notice it every single year. I always do a survey at the start of the year, kind of just gauging attitudes about language and language learning their experiences. I have a lot of students who've taken other languages and there are a little, are a little Turned off by some of the approaches of other teachers and and I mean that a mean way to knock my colleagues. I just find that that means for me, I have to do something that sets my class kind of on a different path so that it's not a similar white knuckle, uncomfortable experience. And I, I want kids to, to feel free to be silly and goofy because that's what I am. I'm a giant nerd and goofball in my class. And, you know, I think that that also sometimes sets the tone that, that lets them know, like, this is a safe space to be a little bit silly. Like, it's okay. Okay. we'll color something and that's not weird in this space because I always remind them like, you're like a preschooler, learning, like, you know, you're, you're learning, you're learning basics and you're going to grow and we're going to move past that preschool stage pretty quickly, but I still want this to be a place where you can, you know, where we will occasionally color things or we will play games and we will do, yeah, fun, silly things that, that are meaningful, yeah. that help us build our German skills, but that also, I mean, fun is never, for me, fun is not the primary reason we play games. We play games to work on our communication skills. Fun happens to be a byproduct. Is really my approach. If they have fun, great. I don't plan it with fun in mind. I think just the tasks in and of themselves, when you, especially when you're using something, like I said, even as silly as a bingo card, when you're using something that gets you to go, Oh, I won. It mean you're really actually listening and paying attention. That's what I wanted you to do. And that's what you did. They happened to win. Cool. Great. Usually, usually it's like, do I get a prize? I'm like, the pride of knowing you won. And sometimes that's good enough. Other times I give out candy. Sometimes I give out stickers. And just things that, and, and they get excited for those things. Because again, it's that, that idea of like, you know, German class doesn't have to be like all my other classes. It can be a little bit. Yeah, a little bit silly. and I think too, games can be a great way to wind in culture. I was thinking about this as well. I use a lot of pictures and I will have kids, you know, we will do either, what do you see? Sometimes I'll have a selection of cards and they have to pick up the vocabulary items that they see. And then I use that as a vehicle to talk about. What's really happening in the picture and the cultural aspect but that gives them a little bit of structure of the vocabulary in place first, so that they know kind of where we're driving the bus on this one. and I think it's just important for them to pull their attention to things that they might otherwise not notice. And and games can even gamifying it a little bit can make it give us that like little in road to make that connection or to bring them to that connection.
bill:I have a lot of thoughts on a lot of what you said there, Amanda. I especially liked the parts about like, starting back from a break with a game to just remind students of what our, what our class is about. I think that's really great. You said something about creating this big geocaching activity and just also a shout out, like, you know, we like to keep things simple, but sometimes you just have to put in a little extra and that's fine because it sounds like you had a great experience with the geocaching thing. And like you said, like, You now got it for forever to use and that's great.
Bryan:I was gonna say, I really love that idea of geocaching. I've like, I've like heard of it, and like, heard of people doing it not in a school context, and I never really thought about doing it in a school. I do use like, Breakout EDU, which I don't know if any of you have heard of that, but it's like, basically you get like a, a huge box with different kinds of locks on it, and the activities that you have students do give them. Essentially the codes for the locks and so you can do a lots of really versatile things with it And I like to go really hog wild and like make it super like I don't want to say complicated but like engaging, where they have to go to different locations on school campus and like talk to different teachers and like look for clues and like do things that, you know, still require them to use the language, but like are not just, you know, sitting in the room listening to me or whatever. So love that. Gonna steal it. It is a lot of work, but just like you, I've saved, like I've laminated everything now and so it's like I can just pull it out whenever I need it. So, highly recommend doing that kind of thing.
Amanda:I've done a number of breakout boxes both in person and virtually. I've done a lot. There are a lot of really great ones out there that work. great tips out there for how you can use them with Google Forms. And actually last year I was at Central States when this geocaching thing kind of fit into my schedule. So I turned them all into Google Forms and the students had to enter their answers into the Google Form and it gave them the coordinate and then they had to still go out and find it. So I charged a colleague with placing all of these things, but it still was engaging. The kids were like, What? You left us something like that to do? That was so much fun. We didn't have enough time to finish it. And I'm like, I, to me, when kids are asking for more time to finish things that they're really engaged in, then I know that that is the type of, and Breakout EDU is the exact same way. Every time I've done one, I mean, it is a beast to set one up, but once you have it, especially if you plan all the games really well, I mean, it's just a treasure you can enjoy then for, you know, a couple years to come until you have to change it all again, and then you're like, well, shoot, none of these will work anymore. But you know, that's kind of the nature of teaching, I feel like. And even some of the, kind of the games, When I first started really using a lot of games in class, I split them into teams, and it was, it was funny, you were mentioning managing behavior, and it was really, truly like, I'm the referee, what I say goes and it was a lot more stressful, so for me, I've kind of evolved to doing things that are, the whole group is responsible for the answer and that helps a lot, so I'll a lot of times give out, if we're doing, I love to do group work. The unfair game, and I mean, to make it really unfair, I'll have each kid write their answer on a paper, and they, they have the option to talk with their teammates, and they should, because they want to make sure they all have the same answer, because then I'll roll the die, and one of them will have to bring up their answer, and then if they get it right, then I rolled another die, and they get points, or whatever it is that it is that day. Sometimes we use cards, sometimes it's just like, you know, I, we'll, we'll decide numbers, whatever, but I find that that can be a really, Even something as simple that we played trash get ball and we did that as well and my kids were and I mean we're in basketball country here in Indiana right now like I anticipate Thursday. Everyone's just going to want to watch basketball all day Friday for sure and with that said, you know, if I can get them to I give them a question about something that we read. come up with the answer. They get the right answer. They get to shoot a basket. You know, it's silly, but they're engaged. They asked me, I was like, can we play trash get ball? Because they have so much fun. And I mean, it gets a little rowdy. I will admit I don't have neighbors on either side anymore. Cause I'm on an end classroom, which, and then one next to me is a former lab that doesn't have anyone in it right now. So it's probably good because it tends to get a little bit rowdy, but I think. That, you know, and, and, and I want to put out there that I play a lot of games, but I also try to balance that with calmer activities, individual activities, because there's kids that grit their teeth and get through the unfair game or trash pit ball or something more rowdy. I had a girl who, when we did a breakout EDU box, she had an an emotional handicap and it. It set her off. It was way too much because it wasn't easy to find the answer. She had to struggle and that struggle was too difficult for her. And I knew that. And I had, I had given her a different task that was, I think, and she and I had talked beforehand. This wasn't like a, you know, I didn't be like, Hey everybody, you know, this student is struggling. But that really helped.
bill:Bye. Bye.
Amanda:of comes with backups. I think that that's important, is to have, is to have backups for those kids who, you know, I want all of those kids, even the ones who are a little more hesitant to participate to be, to be a member of their team, but I also recognize that sometimes students, especially if they're having an off day or a bad day, that they need a separate space, and that's, and that's okay too, and I, I I think that that comes with being a flexible teacher, with paying attention to your students needs and interests and wants and like I said, changing it up. We don't do game based things every day, but, but they do feature pretty prominently for me, but, you know, and I think a lot of times I try to keep them really simple and sometimes it's even make a list of words that you think are important. That think you're going to hear or encounter in this text or hear in this, in this thing. And, and that can be enough for some students.
FishRod:I love it. I think we've, we've kind of transitioned into girl boss territory, which is like the kind of our best of, you know, best thinking on this as I was listening to you. And I was thinking, okay, there's some content in my classes that I think comes up every, like, is generated with the students every year, like talking about people's individual hobbies, or if we create stories as a class, or if we talk about people's experiences over the weekends, over the breaks or whatever it is. And I think for that sort of material, I do want kids to have another pass at that language. But I need to have a repertoire of very, like, low to no prep games to get that language back. Because if I set up a whole thing that I spent, you know, 20 minutes making, it's usable one time, and then that time was spent. And so you need to have those, like, kind of low threshold for you as a teacher planning mechanisms to get The information back, that language back. So I think of things like the, the pop up game by Anne Marie Chase even the quick draw game is a good one. Unfair game you can kind of do with anything. That can, I whipped up an unfair game today like real fast. Just like certain low threshold planning ones. But then stuff that is like yearly content that you know you're gonna go back. Like if you teach the same novel at, you know, at the same time in every level. Or if you are certain you're gonna show a video. Yeah. If you want to extend that learning quite a bit, then you can invest that time into something like a breakout or a geocache or something more. So that's just a good, I think, planning principle to have in the background too, is that like, sometimes you can throw down and make something, but make sure you're picking the content that it's going to pay off for.
bill:Something that's been to me to make games quicker is figuring out some ways to make questions quickly. Because a lot of my games are question based. I'm going to ask a question, students have to answer to do whatever, action they need to do to earn a point. So, something that I have done is, like, a really one to do is, like, find the target language. So, like, you give a word or a phrase in your shared language. Use sparingly, but, like, it's nice in a pinch. And if students have a reading they just have to go through the reading and find language. So find the translation of whatever it is that you tell them. Some, another one that I did. Recently was made all of the statements about the articles that we read false and had to go through their readings, to find why it was false. And the kicker was. Multiple things in the sentences were false, but I only required them to one and find one correction. But, something to keep in mind with that is I don't know how well that would work for lower level classes where, like, because I think what makes the false statements. questions work for me in my opinion was that had to like think a lot about where they were gonna find their answer in their text because this was based on like a chronological brief history of something and so they had to think like oh when did this happen and find part of the article to find out why it was false rather than like a short sentence which true or false, but it says instead of sister. That's kind of more word recognition. Which is great for the lower levels. That's what we need to do is find and produce like words before that we move them onto phrases. And so, and so I don't know, I would have to think about that more, but doing something with a text that you already have. And something with kind of with language in mind or vocabulary in mind. Or even if it is like a lot of dialogue, like who would say this, go through and find it. So for me, that was been the biggest thing to help me make games on notice. And sometimes like with practice, you can do it on the fly. Like I've already got the reading in front of me. I'll just go through it and translate on the fly. So
Amanda:I'm big on templates. I make a lot of templates for things. Copy, what I need to change. That has been a real time saver, especially with games, because they can be such a time investment for, for me, that's, that's, like I said, I like to say I work smarter, not harder, and those templates have saved tons and tons of time, and it's, it can be questions sometimes I, I did, my students little biographies about family members, I think these are first years, and I printed them, I hung them up, and I had, of course, some very simple questions, and I gave them not enough time to answer all of them. that intentionally because then they got together with their team and the goal was to see who and which team they could compare all their answers and which team could get the most answers. And it was kind of interesting because they had different strategies for handling that and there was some negotiation that had to happen in there. And I think there were 31 questions and I had one team get 29 of them, which I thought was pretty great in like 10 minutes of time. And I mean, they weren't complicated questions, but it was a way to kind of check their comprehension and for them to, to check with each other of like, did I get this right? And then, then I didn't have to intervene. But if I turned it into a game of which team gets the most, you know, they got a jolly rancher, which was enough motivation for them to. To discuss and it was really cool to be walking around listening to them going, Well, I think this one said this. No, no, it's definitely said that like just getting the fact that they were kind of negotiating that meaning it turned out to be a game, but it wasn't really a game because ultimately they were they were working through what they had comprehended and for me that was really that was what it was all about.
Bryan:I for the listeners who can't see our chat box, I just said that, like, from my current school, the first time I was setting up a game, and I was like, Your prize is candy! They all just, like, started laughing, and I was like, okay, I guess they want something else, and it's not gonna be extra credit points, so, you know, gotta think of, be a little more creative. Heh heh heh heh.
Amanda:Yeah, I think my school generally kind of went anti, anti food prizes during COVID and we were allowed to come out of that. And I don't know if all that many people really ever came out of that. But it seems to, you know, it's, it's a silly little thing for the first year. I don't do it as much for the upperclassmen, although today when they did bring back that bring back little like certificates that they have gone to the geocache because I wasn't about to put candy out among the general population. I figured it would be, you know, disappeared. By the time my kids got to it, so they had to bring me back these little certificates and they were, they were excited. I think it was a matter of pride of like, we solved this problem and we figured it out. And you know, that time I let them form their own teams it really depends on the type of activities. I knew on that one, there would be some kids who wanted to work by themselves because they wanted to challenge themselves. Other. Other students who maybe need more support or scaffolds able to kind of band together. And I liked the flexibility of that. My room, my classroom is set up in pods of four, which kind of lends itself naturally to conversation and interaction. And, and so for me that, know, putting them, putting them in that situation where they actually have to interact with people and negotiate those things, I think is, is, yeah, that's the big piece.
FishRod:By way of girl bossing, to victory with games, do you have any absolute banger games that you're like, absolutely everyone should be playing this game all the time? You've kind of dropped the, the, you know, the unfair game we've talked about a little bit. And so we can put links into the show notes for listeners about like, what is that game? We'll send you to the, the best resources on these ones. So the unfair game is a great one. Even just gamifying these pre reading activities has been such a great way. I've done that with infographics, like, you know, looking at this, you know, word level. of things and the kids are like glued to the screen trying to see if their predictions are correct. And so I think predictions feels like a game. And so that is a great way to build that positive, affect for that. What are some other games that like our listeners absolutely need to be playing with their students or things that we need to be doing to gamify, I guess, the rest of the material.
Amanda:I love cards. I feel like you can do so many things with cards with, I mean, yeah, it seems like discrete vocabulary, but for me, I work in thematic units. haven't quite abandoned that yet. And I, and I can't because I, there's multiple teachers. We kind of have to stay relatively similar. So I, you know, I try to build in where they can create sentences with them, or they have to ask each other. You know, about those specific items or they describe them. I do a lot of, you know, taboo or even scattergories. I do a lot of scattergories with pictures. If you're not doing that, you should getting them looking at things and thinking about what's there and describing what's going on. Today we did a little bit in my first year class we've been talking about like birthdays and family. And so I tied in some seasons and, and months of the year'cause you know, obviously birthdays, that that also ties in. And you know, it was we did a categories with what can you do in this picture?'cause we've been working on the phrase I can. And so they all had to come up with a phrase of I can do something and I did it. I guess herd mentality style where they had to have the same answer. So I had like four teams that were like, I can play soccer in the scene. Because they again had to like look at it, they had to think about it, they had to apply all the things we've been working on. They had to negotiate it. And then of course they were like, Oh, I knew you guys were going to write that. And, and you know, for me, when I see those kind of, not only a little bit of, you know, the productive skills, but, but the, the buy in I think is, is really important. And it gives me a chance then to also assess Do they understand, know, are they, are they writing things the way they should be? Do they understand what I'm asking them to do? Because a lot of times those things, for me, kind of give me a gauge of like, okay, I see that there's some misunderstanding on this point, and we need to spend a little bit more time. I need to give them more input, is usually what it tells me, that they need more experience with this before they're able to, to move on to it. I don't know that I have any games that have, like, specific names. I just find that I'm, like, on the fly, I do a lot of stuff with pictures and making observations and making predictions. And because I think that that brings a bit of novelty into the situation. And novelty, you know, it makes people curious. They want to get invested. is this? What can I do here? And those are kind of my, those are some of my go tos. Like I said, I mentioned bingo sheets, which sounds, again, so dumb and so simplistic, but find that I bring in a lot of authentic materials that keep winding all of these things in there, so we get a lot of mileage out of them. For example, with food we did, You know, I was okay bingo sheet. Yeah, we play playing normal bingo because that's the only thing we're going to do with it And then I bring up grocery ads and they have to pick out all of the things in the grocery ads Then we talk about prices and we describe the food. Do you like that? Do you not like that? They talk about their preferences and they engage in those things you know with each other with me and I can do a lot of stuff Circling that way, which I think really lends itself well to some, to, to adding input. We did I just did this with my third years, we've been talking about obscure sports. That's where geocaching came in. This kind of, the close of this unit about obscure sports. And I found a video in German about the, the top same It was the top 10 craziest. craziest types of sports in the world and so I gave them the names of the sports and I had them create a list of what do they think they need to be able to play that sport and then we watched the video and they watched clips of these people doing these things. The one that weirded them out most was probably toe wrestling. that, which weirded me out too. They're like, what do you need for that? but they were, you know, really having to Think about, and it was of course working with vocabulary, but it was like that predictive piece of like, what's gonna come up? Are we right? Are we not? Right? they were really, they bought into it because then, you know, that lent it to kind of l lent the dis led the discussion to our next little piece of the, of the chapter we had to work on. Because again, this is my dual credit class. It makes it a lot more interesting than what's. It's just in the textbook because that's so dry. I call it, I call it the toast book. It's dry like toast. No butter. And it's kind of sad. So that's my way to try and like, you know, teach in the spirit of what's in that chapter and make it so that kids, you know, like I always tell them, you may never, you never know. You might find your next hobby. You like, you know, kunstrad, is artistic cycling. If you want a new sport, look that one up. That's real special. Hobby horsing has come up. That's a big one. And, and, you know. They also, like, they'll also bring some in, and I know when they're bringing things to me that they're invested, and it's, it's a quick, like, that five minute activity that required zero prep for me, it gave them a buy in, so I don't know if I really answered your question of, like, what are my go to games but I think for me, when I can get them to predict stuff, or to notice stuff that then ultimately leads to some sort of winning and, and I, really do try to keep it simple, and the rules are usually, you know, Yay, you guessed correctly. Congratulations. I think that I try to go a lot, like, obviously things in groups, but also as individuals because I want them to also have a sense of pride of like, I guessed correctly. I knew what was going to happen here. And I think that that. they're engaged, they've bought in and I, you know, a lot of that comes with building the relationship of trust that I tell them, like, I'm not going to give you something you can't do, and I'm not going to set you up to fail in here, so, you know, I feel like that, that's the underlayment of it all, and I think games can be a real part of that relationship building because it can, can take some of the, as I mentioned before, some of that, like, overarching stress of like, oh my gosh, there's a teacher and she's listening to me speak and I sound really weird. I don't know these words. I'm gonna mess it up. And it takes it kind of takes that off of it when the task is to focus on this other thing. And I just happen to be walking by listening to their discussion and listening to what they're doing.
FishRod:about the content versus the language.
bill:Yeah I think my biggest takeaway here is like kind of that framing of making the questions or making the game some part of something like a prediction because I've just been thinking a lot recently about into our classes not only into a different language, into a different style of class, probably, but like, you know, Getting them to actually to like activate prior knowledge, you know, like, what do I already know? Like, I'm going into this thing and maybe I already know some things that I could say to talk about it. and I think that's probably really motivating. And so I am think about how to incorporate that into everything now, so thank you.
Bryan:Yeah, like a super fun thing that I, well, I think it's fun. Yeah, it's fun that I do, like, every, back to school, because, like, I have my students for, like, five years, so they don't need to hear the this is my background, and this is my likes, because they already know. So what I do when I come back To school is that I, I do a bingo about what I did over the summer. So like I have like a huge list of different activities that I could have possibly done and they have to predict about which ones they think I have done and they like create their own bingo sheets with like numbers that go with the sentences and they just go through and check like, which ones did they correct guess correctly. As I, you know, then talk about it. And I don't know, it's always a hit. So I recommend you steal that and do it if you are in a similar situation.
Amanda:I absolutely love doing that because then you turn yourself into the content, it lets them get to know you a little bit more, and sometimes they, you throw them a real curveball, and they're like, I did not expect that from you, and I think it also helps kind of it also kind of helps humanize you. It also helps build a little bit of camaraderie because sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I did that too. Or like, oh, that's really weird, but maybe I'd be interested in that. And I, I love doing that on a Monday after a weekend. If I'm looking for something different for weekend chat, it'll be like, predict what Frobek did over the weekend. And sometimes. Yeah, they come up with weird stuff. They really love to like put their teachers into strange scenarios and situations. And, and I, I feel like that is reflective of the kind of relationship that you build with those kids, right? Like they, you know, they, they aren't going to put you somewhere that's hopefully inappropriate or anything crazy like that, but you know, big, funky sense of humor. And the more you can lean into that, I think the, the better that class can be
bill:And additionally, they can see first person forms of everything
Amanda:indeed.
bill:a hopefully really interesting way, because I think a lot of times, at least for me, I don't think I give my students enough first person input, so they get a lot of like TNAs, what have with the S at the end. But they don't get a lot of Tengo from or it's like, or really quick in dialogue. So great way to like, just add that in for me as well. Great stuff. Once again want to say thank you Amanda for being here with us tonight. It was such a playful conversation.
Amanda:Thank you for having me. It was a great time. I really enjoyed being with you guys.
bill:Yeah. And I'm glad again to have another in state Hoosier with us today. So for everyone until next time, go out and slay.
FishRod:Bye!
bill:Bye.
Bryan:Mm-hmm
