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NZ Commits to Million Māori Speakers

Māori Development Minister, Hon Nanaia Mahuta, says New Zealand’s commitment to ensure basic te reo is spoken by a million people in 2040 took a major step forward today. 

New Zealand’s government (often referred to as ‘the Crown’) launched a language strategy called Maihi Karauna at the biannual music and cultural Māori festival Te Matatini in recognition of the festival’s passion and commitment to te reo. This strategy is intended to complement the Maihi Māori (a Māori language strategy developed by and for iwi, Māori and Māori language communities and stakeholders) which supports iwi, hapū and whānau aspirations towards te reo Māori revitalization. 

“Te reo Māori is special to Aotearoa it provides a unique context to experience our culture and history and the language is an important way to share our values and world view. 

“Te Matatini is an ideal forum to launch the Maihi Karauna as it draws together in the kapahaka art form the aspects of Māori oral histories through waiata, haka, mōteatea and poi compositions. 

“The Crown has long held the responsibility to protect te reo Māori as a taonga and the Maihi Karauna sets out a context for that responsibility to inform how Government can achieve this for all of us to use, share and protect te reo Māori. 

“I know that for te reo to thrive by 2040 we all need to do our part, working together to make te reo a working, living language,” said Nanaia Mahuta. 

Minister Mahuta says they are bold goals stretching out to 2040 and a practical step forward will be through initiatives which are focussed on rangatahi. Three areas of focus include: 

  • Hosting rangatahi regional workshops and a national summit. 
  • A social marketing campaign to promote the value of te reo Māori. 
  • Snap-reo, a series of quick, micro-lessons in te reo Māori, available on a variety of media.  

“We want everyone to feel supported in their efforts to use te reo, wherever they are and with or talking to. Importantly we want young people to feel confident in who they are and coming from New Zealand – a way to achieve this is to share a connection through te reo Māori,” said Nanaia Mahuta.

 Maihi Karauna Cabinet Paper available here https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/a-matou-kaupapa/maihi-karauna

There’s No Sound Like Home

Study shows that babies learn language best from speakers who sound like their
caregivers. Language development in bilingual children remains a contested and enigmatic phenomenon, and oftentimes it’s hard to distinguish myth from fact. A study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development not only sheds important light on how babies raised bilingual acquire language but may also explain why studies on bilinguals sometimes contradict each other.

Apparently, bilingual children learn best from bilingual adults and monolingual children learn best from monolingual adults. Essentially, children learn best in the linguistic environments that best mirror their homes.


The study “You sound like Mommy: Bilingual and monolingual infants learn words
best from speakers typical of their language environments” by Christopher Fennell and
Krista Byers-Heinlein took groups of monolingual English and bilingual French-English 17-
month-olds and tested their abilities to learn new words. The researchers grouped some monolingual babies with monolingual speakers, and some bilingual babies with bilingual
speakers and then also had groups of monolingual babies with bilingual speakers and bilingual babies with monolingual speakers.

Using a minimal pair test, because distinguishing phonemes is challenging as babies develop language, the researchers assessed the babies’ abilities to learn new words. The result was that the monolingual babies could not learn from bilingual adults and bilingual babies usually couldn’t learn from monolingual adults. The study shows that it isn’t only the language spoken at home that matters, but who the other speakers at home are. For example, bilingual babies of a parent who was raised monolingual but acquired another language to become bilingual could learn from the monolingual speaker. The study explained that bilingual speakers have an accent in both languages that they speak which is not detectable among adults but detectable to a child acquiring language.

Ultimately, children learn language best from the speakers who “sound like Mommy,” while all the participating infants had difficulty processing minimal pair words when listening to speakers whose language did not match their home language-learning environments. Neither monolingual nor bilingual babies had an advantage.

The findings present interesting implications for researchers who study infants and language acquisition: if the speakers in a study don’t sound like the caregivers in the baby’s home environment, the results may differ from scenarios in which the speakers do have the same accent as the caregivers. All babies, whether monolingual or multilingual, are highly attuned to their home language environments.

Previously published in September 2014 print edition.

‘Blowfish Effect’: How Children Learn Words

Even young children know what typical dogs and fish look like, and they apply that knowledge when they hear new words, reports a team from the Princeton Baby Lab, where researchers study how babies learn to see, talk, and understand the world.
In a series of experiments with children three to five years old reported in the current issue of the Journal of Child Language, the researchers found that when children are learning new nouns, they use what they know about these objects—how typical or unusual they are for their categories (such as fish, dog, bird, or flower)—to help them figure out what these words mean. This type of sophisticated reasoning was thought to only develop later.

“What we’re showing is that meaning matters,” said Adele Goldberg, professor of psychology at Princeton University and the senior author on the paper. “Children take the meaning of the objects that they are seeing into account when they learn new words.”

The researchers coined this tactic the “blowfish effect.” If children see a blowfish (or a greyhound or an unusual tropical flower) and learn a new word to go with it, they will assume it refers to that specific type of object and not the broader category of fish (or dogs or flowers).

“This study helps to solve one of the big puzzles in language development,” said Lauren Emberson, assistant professor of psychology and first author on the paper. Many years of studies have shown that when children learn new words, they assume those words mean something fairly general: if taught a new word for a goldfish, children assume that it means “fish.”

“But children can learn these more specific terms,” like blowfish and greyhound, said Emberson, who is also one of the directors of the Princeton Baby Lab. “How do they start to do that? We are showing that they use the objects themselves to do this. If they see an unusual fish and their parent calls it something, they will learn that it refers to that specific fish.”

Using a custom-designed iPad program, the researchers taught children four new words: fep, zak, lat, and galt. Two of these terms were used for typical objects and two for unusual objects. The objects came from four categories that children are familiar with: fish, birds, dogs, and flowers.

In each trial, a child saw either one or three examples at the top of the screen, identified by a new word: “This is a fep,” or “These are three feps.” With the press of an arrow, the child got twelve more images below: two that matched the examples, two that shared the category, and eight unrelated creatures. The experimenter then asked, “Can you find the feps?”

The researchers were curious whether children would decide fep only meant the specific creature in the examples—a robin, for example, or a Dalmatian—or if the term was applied more generally to all birds or dogs.

The researchers ran the same experiment with college students and found that both children and adults processed the new words in the same way. When any of them saw an unusual dog labeled a “fep,” they were more likely to interpret it narrowly—as meaning that type of dog, not “dogs” more generally. These findings run counter to the idea that children will always assume that new words should be interpreted as general terms.

A Biography of the American Public Library

American public libraries have long been a gathering place for communities across the nation, but they haven’t always been welcoming to women and people of color.

The precursor to the public library, the “social library,” dates back to the 1700’s when it served as a venue for wealthy, white men to exchange books and ideas. In 1731, inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin founded one of the first social libraries. Known as the Library Company, it did not permit women or people of color to join. Upper-class white women responded by establishing their own book clubs. They used these clubs as a platform to lobby the government for education reform, conservation, juvenile justice, and voting rights. They did not, however, permit Jews, blacks, and working-class women to join. Subsequently, those groups began establishing their own clubs. In 1896, the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs was founded and became heavily involved in anti-lynching and pro-literacy campaigns. It was also a major proponent of public libraries.

Soon, libraries were being constructed all over the country. Businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, commonly referred to as the “patron saint of public libraries,” donated approximately $60 million to the construction of libraries both in the states and abroad. That money, however, was not distributed evenly across communities. Libraries in black communities were often smaller in size and housed fewer books. Civil rights activists saw the disparity in funding for white and black libraries as an opportunity to advocate for equal rights, staging a number of sit-ins at whites-only libraries.

Public libraries were ultimately desegregated with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then, despite a lack of federal funding, public libraries have served as a safe space for people from all walks of life to learn and to engage with their fellow citizens.

New Media Literacy Resources Available Online

The California Department of Education (CDE) has created an online media literacy resource page for educators. The page provides access to free K–12 resources, instructional materials, lesson plans, and curriculum curated by a variety of recognized experts in the area of media literacy.

“These resources will assist educators in the classroom as they teach students how to access, use, evaluate, and integrate the information they read or hear online,” said Thurmond. “Students are bombarded by information from a wide range of sources. Being media-literate is a skill that can not only help them become critical thinkers, but can also help in all areas of their education and future as informed and active civically engaged citizens.”

Two key collaborators with the CDE on the media resource page are the California School Library Association (CSLA) and public broadcast station KQED. Instructional resources were chosen based on CSLA’s eight-step criteria, which included ensuring that media literacy content was aligned with the California Model School Library Standards. KQED provided access to comprehensive, free training resources and professional development for digital media educators through its online professional learning platform KQED Teach and its online Media Literacy Education Certification program.

The Media Literacy Law (Senate Bill 830) was passed in 2018 by former Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. It was introduced by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa), who was inspired by a Stanford University study that found 82% of middle school students struggled to distinguish between advertisements and news stories.

For more information, visit the CDE Media Literacy Resources web page.              

Measuring Expressionism

Can a computerized assessment measure expressive language skills? This is an important question, since the ability to express ideas is one of the major indicators for College and Career readiness. Many times, I am asked this question in workshops. Participants inquire about expressive language skills because they associate expressive language with oral vocalizations. To analyze this question, we must first define expressive communication and its components.

Communication can be divided into two major categories: receptive (the elements that we understand) and expressive (the elements that we use to let others know our thoughts). Receptive and expressive communication occurs in, both, oral and written language. In assessment, expressive communication is measured by analyzing writing and making “writerly” choices. That is, students outwardly demonstrate their ability to use written forms of communication to express their thoughts and ideas based on the choices they make. Elements of storytelling provide the foundation for application of skills and creation of novel ideas.

Discourse, also known as storytelling and conversation, is an important indicator for College and Career readiness. It is the foundation for expressing ideas and works of creativity. Elements of discourse include: knowledge of setting, characters, conflict and resolution, emotions and communication partners, all of which are embedded within a specific sequence of events. Computer adaptive assessments ask students to arrange story events in sequential order and draw conclusions regarding characters, setting, conflict and resolution. Assessment can also ask students to identify character emotions and to make inferences regarding the author’s or character’s intent. Each of these types of questions requires students to understand these discourse elements, and actively express their abilities by applying this knowledge to the content. When students can sequence a story, make inferences regarding intent and draw conclusions, they are applying their knowledge of diverse perspectives and purpose. Each of these elements, when used in assessments, allows students to demonstrate their ability to engage in constructive discourse. This stimulates novel connections and ideas – again, an indicator of College and Career readiness.

Adaptive, computerized assessments, such as NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), can indeed provide indicators for expressive language abilities that teachers can use to understand students’ current capacity, and make an informed plan to build new learning.

Virginia “Jenny” Williams is a professional development facilitator for NWEA. She holds a Doctorate in curriculum studies and educational leadership from Georgia Southern University. She has held a variety of positions within education including speech-language pathologist, lead teacher, literacy coach, assistant special education director, program specialist for a regional education service agency, and college professor. Jenny has been providing professional development for the past eight years, with a focus on data analysis process to inform instructional decision-making.

Testing Benefits

If you are an educator, chances are that you have had or will have a student who is learning English as an additional language. Some of these multilingual students are eligible for language support services if their English proficiency limits their access to learning academic content. Districts typically have specific policies for identifying these students. Once these students are identified, by federal law, they are required to take an annual language proficiency assessment to confirm their eligibility for additional support until they are considered English proficient. Language proficiency assessments are used to monitor eligibility and language growth over time with variations from state to state. Some states, like California, New York, and Texas, have developed their own assessments. However, most states join consortia, like ELPA 21 or WIDA, for enhanced support.

Language proficiency assessments like the ones described here are considered summative assessments; in other words, they provide information on the learning that has already occurred and are typically used to meet policy requirements. However, while the main purpose of these assessments is accountability, the data from them can be used to enhance the language development of students. Here are some ideas of how to use the data from language proficiency assessments:

Identify/Monitor Language Goals for Your Students

Data from language proficiency assessments can help identify specific areas of focus for schools or districts. Whether you work as part of a leadership team or a professional learning community, collect data specific to the various language domains available through your assessment: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and any other composite scores available, like literacy, comprehension, and overall scores for all of your students.

Important reminders:

  • Do not use the information from your language proficiency assessment as the sole data point when making decisions. Always try to collect other data and triangulate all of your points of data.
  • Remember that language proficiency assessments show the performance of students at one point in time, so they do not account for average performance of individual students. However, when aggregated, they can provide one perspective on how groups of students are performing.

Monitor Language Development Over Time

In the same way that language proficiency assessments provide you with information about language performance at a point in time for a group of students, if the same data is collected over time, you can look for patterns in the language development of your students.

Considerations in Using Data from Language Proficiency Assessments to Monitor Growth:

  • Use the right score: Some scores from language proficiency assessments are better when trying to identify language growth across time. Raw scores, for example, are not appropriate when comparing scores from two different test forms or students. This is because typically a raw score does not take into account the difficulty of the items on the test. In some of these assessments, like ACCESS for ELLs, proficiency levels are interpretations of the scale scores that account for the grade level of the student; therefore, those levels may not be appropriate when looking at growth over time. The best score to use from ACCESS for ELL is the scale score, because its calculation accounts for the difficulty of the items, but it is not specific to grade level.
  • Use multiple scores: Triangulate data from multiple sources related to language growth to get more comprehensive and useful information about your students’ language use, including classroom observations across various contexts and situations.
  • Involve others: Make sure that you use language from classroom observations, but also from informal spaces, extracurricular activities, and home, whenever possible and available.

Using Data from Language Proficiency Assessments to Guide Instruction

While data from language proficiency assessments provides good information for goals over time or large groups of students, this data can also be used in other ways to guide teaching and learning. Enhancing the use of academic language across different contexts provides students better access to academic content and with increased opportunities to participate meaningfully in teaching and learning. For children and youth who are multilingual, and for whom English may represent a barrier to demonstrating what they know and can do, language proficiency assessments are an additional tool. Language proficiency assessments provide opportunities for students and their educators to focus on the development of language, serving as models, sources of data, and catalysts for a more intentional education.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in September, 2016. At the time, Mariana Castro, PhD was director of academic language and literacy initiatives at WIDA Consortium, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. For more information about the uses of ACCESS for ELLs, visit https://wida.wisc.edu.

Japan Takes Responsibility for Language

Japan’s parliament, the Diet, has responded to the steady growth of foreign residents by passing a law making the government responsible for Japanese-language education. The legislation is seen as a step in the right direction to help municipalities take action to teach the language to foreign residents.


New resident visas were introduced in April to allow more immigrants to work in blue-collar jobs, as Japan’s demographics have resulted in a shortage of younger workers, but the visa moves lacked accompanying provisions to help new immigrants integrate.

Proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and approved unanimously, the legislation calls on the government to take comprehensive action, including legal and fiscal steps, to provide opportunities for foreign residents to be trained in Japanese.
The law, which covers children, students, salaried workers, technical interns, and refugees, states that foreign residents “who wish to study Japanese must be guaranteed as much as possible of the opportunity to do so, in a way that would match their needs, abilities, and circumstances they are placed in.”

However, the law does not contain specific measures that need be taken, so its effectiveness will depend on how much funding it receives. It does require the central government to implement “fiscal measures” toward the objectives.

It also calls for improving the quality of Japanese language schools and increasing teacher salaries, and it requires the government to set up a special council to foster coordination among the education ministry, foreign ministry, and other relevant agencies.

Government statistics show that the number of non-Japanese residents hit a record 2.73 million at the end of 2018, up 6.6% from 2017.

Meaningful Professional Growth

Amanda Seewald offers a spoonful of thoughts from a teacher coach

The most creative people I know are educators of some sort. As educators, we are trained to be flexible, attentive, driven, motivated, and always ready… for anything. But why did we all become teachers and enter into the field of education? I am sure you would agree that the answer is to ultimately find ways to open thought up for learners, to give them the tools, information, and guidance they need to build understanding.

This is no simple task, as we all know. The thing that we forget is that teaching is truly an art form, and each one of us is painting or sculpting our own version of a masterpiece every single day in every classroom. But the reality for educators today is that our ability to take hold of the artistic and thought-provoking career we have chosen is hindered by the constant change, the scrutiny, the stiflingly rigid curriculum requirements, and, of course, the high-stakes, potentially career- or life-altering testing that cripples motivation and growth for teachers and students. We know that these issues only serve to move us and our students farther from the true goal of encouraging thought, creation, and innovation. So, how do we work to put the art back into teaching and the innovative spirit back into learning? How do we move away from the urge to “cover” the material and instead uncover learning experiences that will be unforgettable to our students?

I believe that one of the answers is to change the way we provide and accept professional development within our schools and across districts and regions. Rather than the traditional model of full-day or half-day “one and done” workshops, consider how dynamic professional development could be with a more organic, collaborative-facilitated, and consistent learning experience.

Teacher coaching can be a powerful tool to make this change a reality. Over the past few years, I have been privileged to serve in this role for a few groups of incredible teachers whose challenges varied class to class and subject to subject. Their schools had unique personalities and cultures that required attention as well. All of these teachers brought with them, as we all do, their own cultural norms, personal academic and classroom experiences, and cognitive proclivities for ways of learning. What these teachers needed was not a PowerPoint presentation and an additional layer of expectations, but instead an ongoing and consistent sounding board to provide guidance, and support and a reflective partner to be their eyes when they were in the thick of instruction. They needed someone on the sideline but fully invested in the outcomes… a coach.

The word coach brings up different images for people and often expectations of providing encouragement, imparting knowledge, unlocking potential, and elevating. This is true for sports, and is valued quite highly in our culture. Why not apply this same concept broadly to education? A teacher coach can be a pivotal change agent in any school environment, but, as with sports, coaching success requires some very important conditions:

A. A culture of collaboration, not evaluation
B. A focus on iterative reflection for growth
C. A clear and deep knowledge base to share
D. Consistent opportunities for planning together

E. TRUST
These conditions are essential and also difficult to achieve in many cases. In a coaching situation, it is the responsibility of administrators to communicate the role of the teacher coach clearly to teachers at the onset, and it is the responsibility of the teacher coach to present and construct an environment of collegial collaboration and trust. My experiences with teachers over the last few years yielded what I would consider everything from small steps to monumental leaps. These experiences drastically affected me in addition to the teachers with whom I worked and can truly call colleagues and friends. I am confident that this work was successful only because all of those conditions were present.

In one school, I arrived in April, three quarters of the way through the year, and I was brought in to assist teachers who had been frustrated for a while without enough support in a developing program. I had to find a way to help them build success for themselves and their students, but in order to do that, I first had to get to know them individually. I had to prove that I was really there just to help. To build this trusting relationship, it was important for me to make the following ideas clear:

I am not…
• here to evaluate you
• demanding or requiring anything of you but what you want to give, which should be your best
• going to do it all for you

I am…
• your colleague, ready to share my experience specifically in this field
• available to collaborate regularly
• willing to roll up my sleeves and teach with you
• someone who believes in you and wants to help

Through on-demand demonstrations, a seemingly never-ending set of resources on any topic, discussions to clarify goals, and most importantly collaborative brainstorming, I was able to connect and establish myself as their genuine partner and coach. It was my great hope that through these strong relationships we could bring many ideas to light and ignite a fire in the teachers to be the artists they are.

My goals were clearer each day, and the words empower, reflect, encourage, and listen were my mantras. One teacher who was there from Spain was feeling very frustrated with her kindergarten classroom, but her willingness and welcoming attitude toward me showed me right away that she was a true professional with her heart in the classroom every single day. I watched. We talked. We planned. I demonstrated. We taught together. We created. And we built a new path forward for the students and for my new friend and colleague. I was thrilled to have the chance to be a part of this partnership, and although my job was to help her grow, I also was learning so much in return. Her classroom was transformed. Her instruction grew exponentially. I knew that all of this was already in her and well within her grasp, but I was thankful to get to help her unlock the master teacher she had inside. The changes we were making were obvious, and other teachers in the building began to realize how a teacher coach could be an asset to them.

“You’re my Mary Poppins!” she said to me one morning. It was true that I carried a bag everywhere I went, full of things that I pulled out like a never-ending handkerchief from a magician’s wrist to provide materials and resources that I knew could help my teachers. It was true that I ran around so much from class to class that one may have thought I was flying. But what I realized was that being a “Mary Poppins” meant that I had become what I had striven to be—a mentor, a friend, a guide. A coach. What an extraordinarily meaningful and professionally inspirational thing for her to say to me!

I was lucky and honored that for the following two years, I had the chance to work with several other teachers and to help them see the endless possibilities of their creativity. I was a regular in their classrooms and PLC meetings, a lunch buddy, a researcher, a communicator, and an extra set of hands whenever they needed them. I wanted them to know how their energy and preparedness had a direct impact on the students’ responses and engagement. I got to know each person and had the chance to work with so many wonderful students as well.

Coaching can and should be motivational and growth oriented for the teachers and the coach. It is through this type of professional partnership that learning spirals upward for educators and students. My advice to coaches is to remember that you are their partner and can be their best reflection guide. My advice to teachers is to remember that your students really SEE you—every expression, every tone, every reaction. Invest yourself in what you are teaching by sharing your personality and interest in learning, and your students will do the same.

Be a guide, a ringmaster, a game show host, an inventor, a magician, or simply an enthusiastic participant, and you will see the spark you ignite in yourself and your students or colleagues. Don’t forget that within the walls of your classroom, you have the power to drastically impact lives, and there is no test, no set of standards, and no evaluation that can compete with that or take it away. I can tell you for sure that all of those parts of our educational system will simply be background noise for the genuine creativity, innovation, and thought that sprouts in your classroom if you firmly grasp those same things in yourself and share them.

The metaphor at the end of Mary Poppins about flying a kite is perfect for what learning experiences should be. No matter what role you play in education, the goal is the same. Send your students “soaring up to the highest height!” Let’s go…

Amanda Seewald, MEd is the owner of MARACAS, through which she publishes innovative curriculum materials and works with students, educators, and families. (www.maracas123.com). She is the president-elect of FLENJ and serves on the boards of JNCL and NECTFL. Seewald regularly advocates for language education support on Capitol Hill. She is a speaker of Spanish, French, and Japanese.

Speaking by Numbers

Martha Edelson and Lori Langer de Ramirez share the consequences of motivation and affect in teaching middle school world languages and math

As teachers of math and Spanish, we have both been approached on countless occasions by adults — friends, colleagues, parents — who share variations on the following statement regarding world language study: “I took seven years of Spanish, and I can’t speak a word.” Or in the case of math: “I’m just not a math person.” Frequently, these confessions of having had a negative experience with our subjects are accompanied by sadness, regret, and perhaps even guilt on the part of the speaker. Parents who confide in us feel especially culpable for not having learned conjugations in Spanish, or algebraic notation, and they often look at us with hope, eager to hear that things have changed — that their children will not suffer the same fate.

The good news for parents and their children studying world languages and math today is that research shows that a student’s positive affect is of paramount importance to results (Krashen, 1982). This research underscores our own findings: that it is imperative for students to feel not only comfortable but also competent and able to take risks. Over time, the subjects we teach have unfortunately become loaded with negative overtones. Perceptions of math and world languages have been adversely affected, at least in part, by outdated methodologies and a misunderstanding about the way in which the adolescent learns best. As a result, we have both felt a strong need to “rebrand” our language and math study by modeling fun, engagement, and the joy that can be felt as we play while learning our subjects. And when students are having fun doing the “work” of a subject, they are very likely to be “on task,” engaged, and participatory in positive ways that contribute to the goals of the class.

Mythbusting

Language study as an “elite” subject
Students who struggle in world language study often claim that they just “don’t get” the language. Their parents often echo this sentiment by claiming that they also don’t “have an ear” for language. While this claim is patently untrue (since these parents speak English with no problem!), it is indicative of a deeper problem in language education. These statements reveal a stereotypical attitude that maintains that language study is for the “elite” and suited only for students with a highly developed ear or special set of cognitive skills. Indeed, for many years, language study was only available at the secondary level, when students are supposedly mature enough to handle the study of verb paradigms and grammatical structures. Certain languages have cycled through historical periods of elite status: Latin at the turn of the last century, followed by French, Russian during the time of Sputnik, Japanese in the 1980s, now Chinese. The truth is: all students can (and do) learn languages, and all languages are worthy of study, if the right motivation is present and solid, research-based methodologies are utilized. It is the job of the language teacher to find ways to develop motivation in and convey this sentiment to students. Along with the task of designing and developing lessons to teach languages, our (not-so-minor) role must be to frame language study as enjoyable and worthy of effort, and to instill a reasonable expectation of success in our students.

Mathphobia
When I meet people for the first time and tell them that I’m a math teacher, they often roll their eyes and exclaim, “I hated math!” In fact, it seems that the memory of math class resonates strongly with them, and not often positively. Hating math seems to be a badge that many adults wear proudly. It implies that they are survivors of a war, and look at them now! They not only survived math classes, but they also succeeded in life despite their battle with them. Moreover, it seems that those who did well in math class did so despite their distaste for it. Many others state that they are “just not good at math,” as though being good math is something that only an elite few are born with.

For many of us, learning math entailed memorizing a series of long and meaningless algorithms, and the beauty and creativity of the subject was long lost on us.

These are some of many reasons why we need to rethink what we do in the math classroom.

The Affective Filter
In his writings, linguist and researcher Stephen Krashen posits the affective filter hypothesis (1981). He claims that variables such as anxiety, self-confidence, and motivation have an effect on a student’s acquisition of language. Krashen believes that students who are confident, anxiety free, and motivated are better able to learn languages and that it is imperative for teachers to establish a comfortable and safe environment in our classrooms in order to keep students’ affective filters down. It is when students are tense, feel criticized, or are just unmotivated that their affective filters go up and little or no learning can get through. Krashen’s ideas mesh well with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory of psychology. Like Krashen, Maslow believes that a student’s physiological, safety, love/belonging, and esteem needs must be met before that student can reach self-actualization, or a place where learning can best be accomplished.

“Math Myth”
One popular myth about math is that there are certain people who are “math people” — those who can do math well — and everybody else. Studies vary widely in examining what qualities lead to the attainment of math ability. Some research points to the emergence of math abilities in infants and even animals. In his book,The Math Instinct: Why You’re a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs), Keith Devlin, a mathematician at Stanford Univer­sity, presented a 1992 study by Karen Wynn that showed that very young children have a reliable sense of quantity of a small collection of objects, even before they have the language to describe it. If humans are born with a math instinct, we may conclude that there are those of us whose innate sense of numbers is stronger than that of others. However, a study by Kou Murayama, a research psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, indicates that hard work in math is even more important for success than innate number skills. Students who are motivated in math are more likely to be successful math students when they reach high school than those who score higher on an IQ test in fifth grade but do not have the motivation to work hard.

Thus, we can conclude that anybody can learn math. It is our responsibility as math teachers to help students develop the motivation, persistence, and what Duckworth et. al (2007) define as “grit” to achieve. Allowing students to take risks and providing them with the tools and the environment in which they can find joy in math will foster the passion needed for success.

What Works

Lowering Filters and Raising
Motivation
In teaching world languages, it is important to provide students with a safe space in which they can feel comfortable taking risks. After all, speaking a new language with different sounds to one’s home tongue can be cause for anxiety. Especially in middle school, when one of the main goals of the adolescent student is to “fit in” and not be seen as different, speaking a new language can feel risky. Furthermore, making mistakes in the study of a new language is a given. How do we educators design activities and lessons that help students to feel safe in taking these risks?

Modeling is one important means of making students feel comfortable in the classroom. If the teacher is willing to model risk-taking behaviors, students will be more likely to follow suit. Teachers must also model the joy and enthusiasm that they feel toward their languages/subjects. If the teacher isn’t excited, it’s unlikely that the students will be. And, perhaps most importantly, teachers must be willing to make mistakes and to laugh at themselves. It is liberating for students to see their teachers make an errors — and acknowledge them without negative feelings attached. This type of modeling can set the tone for the classroom community. It is also helpful to establish “rules” at the start of the school year that include reference to the behaviors that are accepted — and expected — in the class. Below is an excerpt from the “class contract” for middle school students. It is read through on the first day of school and sent home to be shared with and signed by parents on the first night as homework.

How to Succeed in Spanish Class
In order to get the most out of this class, let’s agree on the following rules:
Listen. Listening is important in the language classroom. Listen to your classmates, and to the teacher — and we will all listen to you when it’s your turn to speak! You can learn a lot by paying attention to others when they speak in class, so listen up!

Participate. We learn language best when we use it — a lot — so raise your hand, volunteer to do a dialog or skit, share your answers to homework. The more you speak, the better your pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary will become in Spanish.
Respect. We are all in this together, and yet we all have different strengths, talents, and skills. The goal of this class is to grow and improve, and to do this, we will all have to try new things. This will mean making mistakes — lots of them! We must all be respectful and supportive of each other as we take this journey together. For this reason, teasing or making fun of classmates will not be allowed in our class. All for one, and one for all.

Gaming in the Language Classroom
Another effective way of lowering the affective filter with adolescent students is to incorporate games and game design into lessons. Much to the lament of many parents and educators, middle school students spend an inordinate amount of time playing games — video or internet based or otherwise. But games are not in and of themselves a bad thing. In fact, teachers can leverage the excitement of games in the classroom by designing activities that involve quests, rewards, and good feedback.

Games designer and advocate Jane McGonigal (2011) writes passionately about the potential of games for educational purposes. She describes optimal-experience design as a game that has “compelling goals, interesting obstacles, and a well-designed feedback system” (p. 126). Students play games because they are excited by a meaningful task or goal and they have a reasonable expectation of reaching that goal. In the case of videogames, they play games over and over again in order to learn something new to help them move on to new challenges. They seem not to be dissuaded by failure and, in fact, are more willing to take risks if it means progressing in the game. They are always aware of their progress because all well-designed games have an intense and clear feedback loop that lets players know where they are in the game and how far they still need to go. These traits of a good game can be incorporated into the classroom experience so that students feel more motivated and connected to their learning.

An example of a world language game is one based upon the Paris-Dakar rally. Middle school students of Spanish and French were organized into teams across several different seventh-grade classrooms. Each team consisted of several students from both languages in an effort to foster collaboration and teamwork. A huge map of Europe and Africa was displayed in the front hallway of our school, with specific cities highlighted in red:

Students were required to design a “car” for their team using a 3” x 5” index card. These cars were placed on the map around Paris, and then the race was ready to begin. Each day, students were asked questions or given tasks in their respective languages. On some days, they were simple questions involving new vocabulary or cultural topics. On others, the questions required students to move around the school to find hidden objects (using directions in French or Spanish) or to interact with adults in order to find out some information (again, in French or Spanish). Each day, depending on the success of their tasks, students’ cars would move to the next city on the map. This “race” took place over the course of two weeks and had students feeling passionate and engaged. Through the game, students learned geography, cultural topics, and some history, while strengthening both their productive (speaking and writing) and receptive (listening and reading) skills in the target language.

Risk Taking in Math
As with teaching world languages, a classroom environment that is supportive and joyful is one in which students feel safe taking risks. When students feel validated and encouraged to explore new mathematical concepts, they can feel comfortable making mistakes and learning from them. The ideal math classroom is one where relationships among the students and between the students and the teacher are strong and trusting, and where laughter and mathematical play and experimentation are not only permitted but also encouraged. Indeed, humor is an essential component of a vibrant math class. It is important to laugh often in open enjoyment of each other and the process of learning. Math class should be a happy place. The teacher must model a ready enthusiasm for all things mathematical, wonder aloud at a particularly beautiful mathematical structure, and speak readily of her love for math challenges. Teachers shouldn’t mind making mistakes in front of the students, as students need to see how making errors can lead to greater understanding. While it is important to be precise in math — it is working with an eye to detail that leads to a correct solution — distinguishing precision from perfectionism is important. As learners, we don’t need to be perfect. Rather, we should accept mistakes as providing opportunities for learning. Praising a student’s process rather than just the product (no math pun intended) reinforces the notion that risk taking is important and supported.

In an ideal math classroom, it feels that the class functions as a team, cheering when one succeeds and expressing encouragement when someone else tries a problem-solving strategy that might not work. The teacher, too, must praise risk taking, offering positive feedback when a student tries an approach that is different from the one being taught.

Differentiation
As in all classes, there will always be a range in the skills of learners in a particular math class. Even when grouped homogeneously, there are going to be students who speed ahead and others who need more reinforcement to master skills. It is good practice to anticipate the needs of different learners and to be prepared to meet a student’s particular needs. Having a range of problems readily at hand to offer to those who are ready to move ahead is one way to keep those students motivated. On the other hand, it is also important to carve out time for students who need more reinforcement and help them not feel overwhelmed. Some teachers choose a time during the day to meet individually with students and provide extra support. Having quiet one-on-one time with students helps to build supportive relationships so that they feel comfortable asking for help or asking to be challenged.

Empowering students to take risks and take control over their learning is a valuable goal for teachers striving to establish a rigorous and exciting class environment. A fun way to do this is to invite students to teach and create math challenges for one another and to take a role in leading discussions and problem-solving strategy sessions. When students have a meaningful voice in their own learning and in their peers’, they become motivated learners who feel responsible for one another. Such a math class may feel a bit chaotic and messy as students grapple aloud with complex concepts and problems, share ideas with each other, and argue over different problem-solving strategies. While being a little chaotic, this math class will be very engaging, fun, and productive.

It is common knowledge that students learn better when they are self-motivated, able to take risks and make mistakes, and feel successful. When engaged, students are less apt to disrupt class or distract others. Our mantra is that learning can be — and should be — joyful. We were both inspired to come into teaching at least in part by our own passionate teachers. They possessed an infectious spirit that made us love their subjects through the magnetism of their excitement. As educators who enjoy teaching, are fascinated by our subjects, and also love kids, we aim to convey these very positive feelings to our students. While being a happy teacher is not enough to eliminate all classroom-management challenges, a safe, inviting, and enthusiastic climate sets the right tone for good teaching and learning.

This is not to say that we don’t have our challenging days. Like students, we too have outside lives that we sometimes can’t help but bring into school. As the adults, though, we set the tone and climate of the classroom, and so it is critical that we are ever cognizant of our power to influence our students’ experiences in school. Educator and psychologist Haim Ginott writes the following about his own realization of the immense power that teachers wield in the classroom:

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated and a person is humanized or dehumanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” — Haim G. Ginott, Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers

In addition to developing engaging learning activities, establishing a comfortable and safe environment, and modeling our own passion for our subjects, we must be mindful of the power we have to influence the hearts and minds of our students. In so doing, we open our subjects up to all students — not just the few and the proud.

References
Devlin, Keith. The Math Instinct: Why You’re a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs). New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005. Print.
Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). “Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101.(pdf)
Ginott, G. Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers. New York: Macmillan, 1975.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_Practice/Principles_and_Practice.pdf.
“Like Math? Thank Your Motivation, Not IQ.” Scientific American, 28 Dec., 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=like-math-thank-your-moti
Maslow, A. H. (1943). “A theory of human motivation.” Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96. Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is Broken. New York: Penguin.

Martha Edelson is a math teacher and Lori Langer de Ramirez is a Spanish teacher at The Dalton School, New York. Langer de Ramirez’s website, http://miscositas.com, is full of free resources for language teachers.

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