Hi WOL Friends!
In our last episode, Olivia talked about what she learned at the conferences. In the chat, our Latin teacher, Ann thinks that the Kindergartener Olivia talked about may have coined a new term!!
Ann, our Latin teacher, in the comments said: I'm metacognizing. Love that. Did I spell it right?
Pat’s reply: I think it is the action verb for metacognition?? What would they say in Latin - is there a root system we could apply?
Ann’s reply: Haha. 'meta' is Greek meaning "after" or "next". 'cognitio' is Latin for "getting to know" or "comprehension". Webster's says that the first use of 'metacognition' in English was in 1972. 'meta' in English has this sense of upon oneself, such as, metamorphoses ( a change of the thing itself). Although I cannot find 'metacognize' listed in Webster's (yet), 'cognize', just as in Latin, means "know, understand". 'metacognize', as far as I can tell, has been coined by a kindergartner.
I wonder if Olivia should reach out to that presenter. How fun would that be to have a child that young be able to take about the value of thinking about their own thinking!
In today’s episode, we talked with Ashely Hertzog, one of our Spanish teachers. Ashley has been on a learning journey with the Korean Language. It is exciting to have talked with Ashley, Lauren, and Olivia about how important it is to get out of your comfort zone as a teacher. Empathy was a key factor in the discussion - and we know empathy is the fuel for connection, connection the fuel for learning.
Here are a few of the takeaways:
Ashley’s interest in Korean is related to K-POP. Throughout the pandemic, she engaged in their music and variety shows and didn’t want to wait weeks for the captioned video to come out. Did you know K-Pop is ruling fashion week?
Learning a new letter and numbering system is hard. So is getting the pronunciations and tones of a new language. Ashley gained empathy for her learners as she was called on to speak. Some tips on how to stick with it when things are hard - Habits of Mind!
Sometimes the point is not to master the language. For Ashely being able to understand the music, variety shows, and cultural context is enough. Her study has given her insight when she goes to shows or concerts - and when she engages with the new friends she has met on her learning journey. Olivia and Lauren agree - being able to understand and be understood, can be enough.
Lauren, Olivia, and Ashley talked about the value of being a student of a language to empathize with students. Each had an experience that helped them to consider how to create an expectation of trying to be understandable (comprehensible), not perfect as you are learning a language (or any new concept or skill). So far that is paying off with our Narrative storyline course - Survival Spanish!
Ashley and Olivia are piloting Survival Spanish - where the emphasis is on being able to survive in a Spanish-speaking setting. She never wants to go back to teaching any other way. Ashely finds her students willing to take risks, and make guesses while they participate in class and they are succeeding using a comprehensible approach (90% target language spoken).
We are excited about the Narrative Storyboarding approach to navigating our course content. This year our teachers have really enjoyed diving into storyboarding which seems to be a natural approach to comprehensible input. AND, in addition to Spanish, we are developing Chemistry, Physics, Middle School Science, Latin, German, Arabic, French, Chinese, and Japanese in this model.
We will be launching the World of Learning Design Space on March 21st to introduce our first Design Project - Storyboarding Courses. You can join us to create your learning journey with Virtual and In-Person Opportunities. Use the QR code or this link to register.
As always, if you need a long or short-term solution when you can’t find a teacher you can contact us HERE.
Expanding Learning and Empathy #31