World Languages Year-End Reflection Activity

The end of the year is a great time for students to reflect on their learning. This is especially important in a year as unusual as this one where students experienced very different types of learning environments. Your students have all accomplished things when it comes to their language learning, and this activity gives them a chance to celebrate those victories and reflect on areas to improve.

This activity can be modified for any language (or content area!) and can be scaffolded to help novice students use target language in a simple way to reflect, or they can reflect in English.

end of the year reflection exercise woman at computer thinking Students can be creative in the format they choose for their assignment so it represents their personality.

Example formats:

Instagram or Facebook story
Google Slides or Powerpoint
Flipgrid (or other) video
Powtoon
Animoto
Sway

Step 1

Students choose three examples of work to highlight for the school year:

Example of something you completed that you are proud of
Example of something you want to improve
Example of something that was really fun to do

Step 2

Students compile their examples in a format appropriate for their presentation - pictures, videos, screenshots, etc.

Step 3

Students create their presentation with written or oral commentary about the examples. The amount and type of commentary will vary according to the student’s proficiency level. See scaffolding below.

Step 4

Students share the presentation with the class, a partner, or a small group.

To scaffold for novice learners:

Using some of the 10% English time for reflection can be valuable for novice students.
To stay in the target language, provide sentence stems to students.
Ask students for simple like/dislike statements about their examples.
Ask students to say how they feel about the work they did.

To scaffold for intermediate learners

Students may still need some help with vocabulary specific to reflection.
Ask students to expand on why they chose the examples they did.
Have students talk about the experience of completing the assignment.

To scaffold for advanced learners

Ask students to talk about what they would do differently for one of the assignments.
Have students compare their work from one time in the school year to another time.

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Author

Janet Boring
Director of Product Management, World Languages
Carnegie Learning, Inc.

Janet's teaching experience is in Spanish, having taught all levels, both AP Language and AP Literature, dual credit courses, and native Spanish speaker courses. After seven years of teaching high school Spanish, she joined the Carnegie Learning team, but she still serves as an adjunct Spanish professor at Lone Star College in Houston, as well as an AP Reader for the AP Spanish Language and Culture Exam. Her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish is from Geneva College, and she learned my Master’s degree in Spanish focusing on Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh. She enjoys traveling and experiencing new places (when there isn’t a pandemic). She also loves presenting at local, regional, and national world language conferences on a variety of topics from differentiated instruction to cultural biases and how they impact the classroom.

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