Wednesday and Thursday, June 13-15, I worked on a collaborative project with the French teacher, Dawn Klient, and the Mandarin teacher, Xuemei Li. They are recent arrivals to the Burke's World Language department and have intentions of developing their own curricula for their courses. Both the Mandarin and the French teachers are responsible for the entire programs while I share the Spanish program with Emily Otero (she teaches 5 and 7th grades and I have 6th and 8th).
During our time together, I showed and shared with my colleagues the plan/scope and sequence for my 6th and 8th grades. Our time was devoted to exploration of monthly themes. This included big grammar topics, daily assignments, cultural projects, and major events that require preparation (student led conferences for example). Since the focus was on three different languages, I made it my goal to highlight creative, fun projects that could easily be done in French, Mandarin, and Spanish. It is also our goal as language teachers to come together and to participate in some cultural projects such as the Famous Women's project (also done with Makery and Art) and create new ones such as making a film to highlight our students' work and progress.
Attached is the document that reveals the plan of the 6th and 8th grade Spanish programs. I always happy to help a new colleague with the creation of curriculum. Wherever possible, we, as a department, would like to be on the same page and provide our students with similar language learning experiences. Lastly, I shared with my colleagues resources/rubrics associated with the larger, creative projects.
Anthony Sabedra
I think the idea of monthly themes across all the language classes is excellent and I appreciate the attached document as it allows for others to see what you're doing each month which opens up further opportunities for connection and collaboration across the US. I'm glad you were able to support the new(er) colleagues during these days!