Can you 'Flip' language?

Today I explored the idea of flipping the LANGUAGE classroom...

Have you ever heard of "flipping the classroom"? (In a nutshell - the Lecture becomes howework, and what student previously completed at home as "homework" becomes in-class problem-solving. The idea is that this allows students to view the lecture at their own pace, come to class with questions, and apply what they viewed with increased one-on-one interaction with the teacher and their peers). To learn more, check out this TedTalk by the founder of the Khan Academy:

PROBLEM: Salman Khan's "flipping the classroom" concept fascinates me, but one of my first thoughts after watching it was that his flipping practice focuses almost exclusively on learning the sciences, with no mention of language. Could it possibly be used to teach LANGAUGE? - and in my case, teach English or Spanish as a second language?

Today I brought this question & TedTalk video to the Teaching Methodologies course I am currently co-teaching at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

We began class with a pair-share conversation, asking a partner about their favorite tools & uses of technology, and how we might use them as students & teachers. 

After watching the video, most students voiced interest in flipping but encountered several challenges. For example, they said that language is not like math, there are not problems with one right or wrong answer; language classes should focus on collective or community communication (reading, writing, speaking & listening) & not individual problem solving which lends itself more effectively to Khan's flipped classroom examples.

SOLUTION: To encourage further brainstorming & concrete envisioning of a language flip, my co-teacher (Vanderlei) & I gave a hypothetical example of a lesson. I like to dance, & he likes electronic music, so we considered creating a flipped class on ‘Making your own dance steps to electronic music’...

METHODOLOGY: We designated the 1st half of the flip (or homework video lecture) as the Content-based Learning portion, and the 2nd half (in-class work) as the Task-based Learning portion.

CONTET: Our video consisted of the following content: body parts (head, shoulders, knees & toes song), giving directions (take a step, move body part), and the directions (up, down, forward, backward, to the left/right). We then asked students to bring into class the next day their favorite electronic song.

TASK: In class, the students get into small groups, choose 1 favorite song to dance to, create 10 choreographed dance steps that accompany their song, teach it to a different group, and then perform together for the class.

...

After providing this example, Vanderlie and I split the class into groups asked them to come up with their own hypothetical flipped classrooms, and finally share their ideas and a sample video lecture to the class. Finally, the class ended by discussing the areas in which they had discovered difficulty making the flip work; what other challenges they foresee when implementing the flip, and whether or not they can see themselves actually using the flip.

TAKE-AWAY: My most significant take-away from this class came when noticing how much richer the discussion became after the students had gotten their hands dirty with flipping, having now more rich personal experience to pull from (Learning by DOING). Vanderlie & I were able to sit back and let the students take control of the discussion – a rare occurrence in the courses I observe at UFRJ since the students here, like most in any traditional classroom, are accustomed to lectures, passively observing (spacing out), and viewing the teacher as the only source of valuable knowledge.

Another Take-Away: I think that Flipping the Classroom can work with the idea in mind that the Video Lecture introduces the Content, and the In-class time demands the completion of a related Task. Or can YOU think of a different way to flip it?

My MissTEPings

Misstep - a blunder; to take a wrong, misplaced or awkward step; to go astray. Hmmmm... that sounds like a certain phenomena I've become quite familiar with during this process of learning how to "teach" and become a "teacher".

The summer after graduating from UC Davis with a B.A. in Spanish in 2012, I made the step up to graduate school at UCSB's Gevirtz Teacher Education Program. Fearing the worst of Norcal prejudices to be true, I nervously embarked on the 8 hour drive down south along the 101 leaving behind my beloved Bay Area. Upon arriving, I surrendered any biases, now replaced with awe for the exquisitely stunning combination of ragged mountains, friendly coastline, and faraway islands on the horizon.. the adventure began! I met several of my new student cooperative house-mates gearing up for that night's Isla Vista toga party. Although our house seemed surrounded by fiendish fraternities, it was also just a block from campus and a HopSkip&aJump to the beach. I rode my bike around IV, and wondered who had made the infamous grammatical error upon naming the fiesta street Del Playa, instead of De La Playa. In the mornings I picked and ate fresh avocados from the tree in my front yard and oranges from the back. Then I rushed my bike the 1 minute ride to the Gevirtz School of Ed. building to make it in time to join the pre-class gymnastic Knoll-tivities, craft a 10-minute feely free write, charlar con mis colegas en Spanglish, design innovative butcher-paper sketchings, or alter and admire post-it-covered walls once bare. Between classes I ran in the sand at campus point, and afterwards washed the oil stains off the bottoms of my feet. In the fall I started student teaching and the beach trips became few and far between... I struggled to discover my style, role, and objectives as a student teacher, while also trying to write a first chapter of my thesis inquiry paper. I met inspiring, caring, and challenging colleagues, students and teachers. I had ups and downs.. and turnings all around;  and still made great headway towards achieving many of my personal and professional goals. But then, I took a step away...

A pretty hefty step indeed - all the way down to marvelous Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! The change of scenery has taken me astray from TEP, but not from teaching. For the past 7 months I have been working as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in several undergraduate English courses at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, teaching two of my own extension courses: one on Cultural Comparisons between Brazil & the States (looking at such topics as college-life, Brazilian Funk vs. Hip-hop, Valentine's Day vs. o Dia dos Namorados, the sudden surge of Brazilian Protests vs. Occupy Wall Street, etc), and the other course on Applying Interactive Teaching Techniques for Language Teachers (a real snoozeFest in contrast, right!?).

Despite the added intensity that comes with... living in a packed city of over 6 million brasileiros, shifting away from my second language of comfort (Español to Portuñol -> a Spanish & Portuguese hybrid), finding shelter from sudden tropical flash downpours with my 2 dollar umbrella, holding onto a moto-taxi for dear life while speedily squeezing through the skinny streets that wind up & into an enigmatic favelas of improvised cliff-hugging dwellings, staring bright-eyed and bushy tailed into the clearing mists of anti-riot tear-gas that obscures the battle-line between protestors and police when suddenly receiving a face-full of the putrid fumes myself, and more... yes, despite these now-laughable loco life experiences, the step away from TEP has also allowed me to temporarily escape our jam-packed schedule, lower my gears, take a deep breath of rapidly diminishing Amazonian air, ruminate some more upon our foundations, and experiment with creative ways to apply what I have learned thus far to a foreign reality - so the trip to Brazil... NOT a misplaced step in the least! ..Not counting, of course, the many awkward attempts at shimmying my way into a sprightly stepping roda de samba, forró festa, or dimly-lit zouk disarray.

My 10-month journey and eventual departure is rapidly coming to a close, and while a precipitated sense of Saudades for Rio grows, I know that I am almost ready to return and finish what I started in Santa Barbara. MissTEP? I sure do - I look forward to rejoining the community, reentering as a confusingly old & yet new kid of the cohort, and stumbling over a Spanish now infested with Brazilian Portuguese flavors.