Thread by @NicoleNaditz

Thread: I don’t share a lot of re: my work on SM, but I am proud of the work my district’s Spanish teachers did and are continuing to do around our new adoption & additional opportunities I’m facilitating this year for my district world language teachers. 1/16 #langchat @NADSFL

2/ A representative team of middle and high school teachers piloted three programs and evaluated each along our key indicators. Students and community provided input as well. A consensus process was used to select the materials that would be recommended.

3/ As part of our recommendation, I successfully advocated for technology for every classroom so that teachers and students would have dedicated, consistent access to practice and assessment resources in all modes of communication.

4/ the real magic began this past summer: a cohort of teachers came together for a week of collaboration, with pay.
Day 1: Implementation training
Day 2: I facilitated an interactive intro to framework-aligned instruction (CA’s 2020 FW).

5/ Days 3-5: the cohort worked in both course teams and vertical alignment teams to develop *suggested* pacing guides for all four levels aligned to our essential standards and showing how to achieve each course’s proficiency targets w/out “finishing” the book.

6/ Suggested pacing guides were shared with all Spanish teachers. Additional implementation trainings offered with paid subs. We also identified cohort members willing to serve as “mentors” with the new materials. I provide support as well.

7/ now I am recruiting a new cohort to work together and with me this school year to a) examine a key practice from our FW, b) design lesson plans aligned to materials and essential standards that incorporate that practice. This will create a shared lesson bank.

8/ I am now replicating the process for our French teachers who are piloting this year.

9/ Other advocacy: working with an awesome ASL teacher and our county office of education to develop and implement a #SealOfBiliteracy assessment for ASL to ensure those who communicate in ASL have equitable access and opportunities to demo proficiency for the Seal.

10/ I also offer proficiency testing for students who already have some proficiency in languages other than English to validate for our district’s 2-year WL grad requirement (also serves as placeholder for Seal if demonstrated proficiency meets requirements)

11/ I am super excited to also offer substantial professional learning for all languages this year, starting with an intro to framework-aligned instruction for WL teachers who weren’t part of the cohort, plus a day with @gretafromtexas and another with @grahnforlang !!

12/ and I am taking a team of language teachers to our 2023 @CLTAtweets conference!! Team will create shared resources and strategies from conference and present one key takeaway each at a PD event after conference.

13/ since I arrived in my role in 2018, I helped facilitate course development to increase course offerings for Spanish for Heritage Learners and both AP Spanish Language and Culture and AP Spanish Literature courses. Including at sites with traditionally few AP offerings.

14/ also developed an initial pathway for students who complete our district’s dual immersion program to have appropriately challenging content in high school. But we still really also need content courses in Spanish…that is still lacking.

15/ so overall, I am reflecting on my work so far in this role. Pleased with what has been done *and* really seeing a need to improve my supports to teachers and programs going forward.

16/ Finally, a huge shoutout to @grahnforlang for being a thought partner with me early in my design process for the work I did around the Spanish adoption. It went even better than I hoped. /end

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