MaFLA 2015 Fall Conference

Goal: Spend less time creating slides. Solution: There are free resources to copy and paste! Goal: Start "flipping". Solution: YouTube is loaded with great videos! Goal: Spend less time catching up absent students and recovering from snow days. Solution: Post on a website! Goal: Use less paper. Solution: Go paperless with Google classroom! Goal: Collect data. Solution: Use Google Forms! Goal: Get students to communicate in the target language. Solution: Use Google applications!

Research confirms that study of another language can reinforce literacy gains in the native language, a powerful claim for World Language study as part of the core curriculum. Our classes can become learning environments where students simultaneously move up the proficiency ladder in the target language and make gains is literacy in both languages. Participants will study/review key documents from both fields, making connections notably between the Common Core standards for ELA and our field’s national standards and proficiency guidelines. We will examine how effective use of authentic materials foster students’ performance in all communicative modes. Working within the framework of Backward Design, participants will learn how to review and readjust curriculum to make these potential gains a reality.

The presenter will show activities that can easily be done in the classroom as well as different ways to do activities that teachers are already doing. These activities work with all age groups and all languages. Participants will see and experience first-hand activities that will get students interacting and engaged tomorrow.

They are students, not numbers! Sound familiar? It's time to reframe. The presenter will share one district's journey as common student learning experiences, common assessments, and common grading are commonplace among our teachers who, with their students, remain the focus of teaching and learning by USING multiple data sets to craft goals and improve performance. Participants will examine their own
journeys toward reframing state mandates, and gather the necessary resources to move forward.

In this presentation, participants will explore the important role of literature in foreign language acquisition. As students of all ages embark on their climbing of the proficiency ladder, it is important that they encounter literature as early as their first weeks of enrollment in their course. The session will focus on concrete examples of recommended literary works and lesson plans that incorporate them into the curriculum for first through fourth year secondary French and Spanish classes.

Participants will learn ways to help students climb the proficiency ladder while infusing weekly lesson plans with math! The presenter will show how to incorporate graphing, calculations and a variety of reasoning skills during this interdisciplinary session. Participants will be able to support their math departments and boost scores on MCAS, PARCC or whichever standardized test kids must face today.