Annick explains how she holds kids accountable using World Language Games. This is a rough transcript of a conversation I had with her today:
Annick: If a student is absent, no matter the reason, including excused absences, I give them an automatic zero for that class. They can miss the class that is fine but you have to make up the time with CI. So my policy is that if you are absent for whatever reason you have to go play World Language Games to get back the points. One day is worth 30 points of WLG. Many kids make up the points! Some don’t. What about them? If they have an F, I show them their grade and they have choices to bring the grade up. When kids complain that the absence is excused, I tell them that yes the absence is excused but that the work is not, that they have to make up their interpersonal grade with the computer.
Me: Is what you are doing in class tracked with , aligned with, connected to the content of the games, then?
Annick: Yes, I scaffold in order: vocabulary, sentences and stories. So that the content of the WLG pages at any time has been frontloaded with the content of each of my classes. The content of the games mirror exactly what we did in class. Note carefully: the content and the vocabulary are all pre-planned before the year begins but sentences and stories vary as per what the classes came up with that day or that week. I also have a standard story that I create before class to guide me in much the same way that Anne’s scripts provide rails to the class.
Me: That is an amazing thing. Does it take a lot of work?
Annick: World Language Games are customized. My entire four year lesson plans are here. Everything I do in terms of vocabulary for four years are in the WLG pages. So they are my pacing guide and my lesson plans and so it is easy for me to assign homework for kids who are absent. It is easy to generate study guides. So when I gave Mike the ideas for his design plan for the site we kept creating more options – like Textivate and Quizzlet – on this site, even more than Edmodo and Polleverywhere and CPS, for example. It’s like a Wiki. too. Diane Neubauer and other teachers give Mike ideas as well. And it’s all in one place. It’s a fun option and we can have lots of fun in class with comprehensible input games when kids have CI overload from class. Examples of games – played against the conputer – are Jeapordy, Millionnaire, Bingo, Smack, etc. Even with just one thing from the vocabulary data bank, I can generate more than 50 different games and worksheets, so that is how powerful it is. Lots can be done with sentences like Sentence Definitions, Sentence Matching, Sentence Targets, Sentence Holes and Sentence Scrambles. So that option is all about reading. And also there are color coded stories, so I can choose the story I want and project it on the Promethean board. I can print the color coded stories so students can do group reading activities as well.
Back to the point, we do this occasionally in class but, by giving this to people who have missed class, I don’t have to create anything for them (I refuse to do extra work for them if they are absent). Because I created all this so they just have to go to the games and get some CI via technology. It’s all here on this site in advance.
Me: Where can my PLC members learn more? Do you realize how many Chinese teachers would like to explore this?
Annick: It’s good for these languages: French, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish. So here is the demo page link:
wlangames.net/Demo.php
Me: Thank you Annick!