World Language Learning Community

January 11, 2012

TBAISD Administration Building –Leelanau Room

9:00 am to 3:00 pm

Meeting Notes

Present: Jeremy Augenstein, Bridget Bailey, Tom Baker, Victoria Derks, Lisa Dohm, Colleen Hartl, Kathy Koski, Mary Kuhlman, Kelsey LaCross, Bryn Lynch, Cindy Reed, Kristine Simpson, Maria Suomi, Tamara Batcha (present about 2 hours), Janna Blakely

Review of discussion held during the November 7th RSDD sessions with Jackie Moase-Burke

-Assessment piece and the important role it will play in the near future. Will we have a standardized piece at some point?

-It’s too bad that more administrators weren’t there since many don’t seem to be aware of the world language requirement.

-Having access to Jackie Moase-Burke and her knowledge is wonderful.

Update on ACTFL standards

  • Update on placement/standards/assessments – Lisa Dohm
  • The globalization aspect has greatly expanded ACTFL. Next year it’s in Philadelphia. This year Mandarin and Arabic are much more to the forefront than even 8-10 years ago.
  • Lisa focused on assessments while at ACTFL. ACTFL added a new level to the proficiency guidelines which is called distinguished; this level is not separated out into distinct level, if you are at the distinguished level, you are distinguished. Lisa shared the updated ACTFL standards with us.

Discussion on maximizing resources:

  • Contact other ISDs to find out what they are doing to measure proficiency? Draft a letter together and then email it to all the ISDs to see what we can tap into.

-Jaime McCall from TCAPS has contacted the ISD to see what kinds of assessments are available to measure proficiency.

-What do we currently do? Do we keep portfolios? Pre-test/post-tests? Kathy Koski said that at the elementary level the CAAP tests (district assessment) will take 20% of the teaching time. National Spanish exam is on Quia. With the listening portion it is time stamped so you can see how long they spend listening to it.

-Could we possibly get a half-day training on Moodle 2.0 so we can develop our assessments, or what is the group rate for a Quia subscription?

-If students take the classes for high school credit they don’t have to be assessed in another way. At the middle school TCAPS’ students have to pass the CAAPs with 70% or higher. Two credits, or experience. It’s almost like a test-out situation. Are we looking at an elementary assessment or a middle school assessment? What kind of test do we want to design? One that goes beyond novice-high?

-The online classes do not cover the “Five C’s” of the World Language standards.

-Zambombazo Spanish website has a lot of authentic materials.

-Mis cositas has Spanish, French, German

-Grooveshark is a good website for music.

-Voicethread to have students record speaking portions.

In the afternoon we broke down by elementary, middle school and high school levels to work on more assessments.

Elementary focused on speaking and listening pieces.

Middle school focused on creating a document in quia. The group that worked on this believes that their reading document could also be used at the high school level. Multiple choice questions, written in English. This is a more authentic assessment. ChooseMyPlate.gov in Spanish:

High school level worked on the speaking assessment. We found three pictures which we liked and uploaded them to the WLLC site. We have ideas for the written part so we can work on that in May.

Next Steps

May 10 –probably most of this day will be spent creating more of the assessments.

Janna will be going to the statewide ISD World Language Collaborative meeting on March 26. If you have any questions or ideas that you would like her to pursue at the state level, please email her before that date.

Have your business office send Janna an invoice for the guest teacher/sub fee.

Since our next meeting is at the end of the year we should bring in writing samples so we can see what the novice-high level looks like.

Note taker: Bryn Lynch

Just a Reminder….. May 10, 2012 (Thursday) is our last meeting for this year.

Substitute reimbursement:Please submit invoices to TBAISD, Attn: Janna Blakely

One teacher per building, $100 limit