Episode 84: ACTFL Takeaways p3

I am so grateful for you! I am so grateful for this community! This is my third and final ACTFL reflection!

Links mentioned:
Who is it!? jueves - with La Maestra Loca
Winter Brain Break - Snowball, Polar Bear, Penguin!
La Familia Loca PLC

If you're looking for something LOW LIFT to use before winter break, I've got the perfect resource for you! It is a Snowman Glyph!  It includes two different versions of the student worksheet AND slides if you want to use them to guide students through the activity! The best part!? It is full of high frequency language and it is in English, Spanish, and French! Check them out here!

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Transcript

Snowman Glyph Activity

So excited you're here to listen to this episode, but first a message from our sponsor, La Maestra loca. Hey, it's me. I just finished a new resource and put it on my TPT, and I think you're gonna love it, whether you want it for these final days before break or want it to start easy when you get back into school with something that's very low lift that you could literally give the students know they're getting input and you can ease in. Then I highly recommend it. It is a snowman glyph activity. If you loved my pumpkin glyph that I put out in October, you're going to be obsessed with the snowman glyph. It is equally as comprehensible. In fact, I made it a little bit better, and there's two student worksheet options so that you can decide to share the answer key or not in advance. And it also comes with slides so that you can co create one as a class, or you can walk students through it. And you know, just make the language that much richer. So, if you want to grab that, I'll put the link in the show notes. I think you're gonna love it. And thanks for letting me support you. And now on to this episode. Grateful for you, teacher.

Welcome!

Welcome back to teaching la vida loca, the podcast you come to for short and sweet and sometimes spicy, episodes full of enthusiasm, magic and tips and tricks for your classroom. I'm Annabelle, your maestra loca, and I'm here to bring you inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host, I'm your cheerleader, and I'm thrilled you're tuning in. So, let's do this. Let's tackle teaching la vida loca together. Hi. Welcome to Episode 84 of teaching la vida loca. This is probably my favorite ACTFL reflection podcast. This is part three of the three-part series I've done, and I have officially confirmed that there will be a fourth part that's not really a reflection, but I'm having a guest come and talk about the session that they did at ACTFL because I think it was so powerful, so impactful, and could have an incredible ripple effect on our world language teaching community, the more people that hear it. So, get excited for that because I'm recording it with them next week. But that's the only hint I'm giving you. Oh no, I should give you another hint. The person that is going to be a guest has been somebody I've already interviewed for the pod, not the podcast. What am I talking about? Oh, my new YouTube series. Who is it jueves? with La Maestra loca. So, there's your hint. If you have watched any of those interviews. It is somebody who has already been interviewed for Who is it jueves? If you haven't watched my YouTube series yet, I encourage you to. There are already nine interviews up there, and they are so golden. Every single one is different, but I ask the same 11 questions of every single person that I invite. It's been really, fun. Okay.

ACTFL Reflection

This last reflection, I just want to talk about the power of community. When I think about the advice that I give to new teachers, I always have several tiny pieces, but the most important piece of advice that I always tell teachers who are new to the profession is find your community. Find your people, find the people that you can go to, to vent, to share joys, to share challenges, to share wins. Find your people who light you up. In person conferences are so powerful for the ability to connect with community. I had this huge realization at ACTFL. I have been struggling lately, feeling like because of my... I am a workaholic. I'm working on it. I get great joy in serving teachers and working with teachers, and I think that I just need to find a balance. And I've been questioning a lot, like, why don't I have better friendships relationships? And I know it's probably because it's my own fault I'm not prioritizing them like I have a great friendship in Rose, who came with me to ACTFL and my friends, Christina, and Nicole here, but like, I don't have friendship relationships that look like other people do. And I have my old school friends, and my oldest friends are all out of state, and I get to talk to them, and we do Marco Polo and stuff. But I've been really feeling like, why don't I have many friends as an adult? It's probably because I'm a workaholic, and then I get to ACTFL, and I realize I have very real friendships, and it's my teacher community, and it's powerful, and they see me as a person beyond la maestra loca, they see me as Annabelle, and I'm so grateful for that, in the same way that I have work moms, you know, like Donna Tatum Johns and Diana Noonan and Michelle Whaley and all these strong, incredible females who are so important in my life. And then I have sisters like Darcy Pippins, who, you know, I almost never stay at a hotel without Darcy, if we're going to a conference together, we're always rooming together. This time, I roomed with Darcy and Donna, and there were several Familia loca members as well in our Airbnb, and my friend Rose who came to watch Ophelia. And I can't tell you how special it is to have those moments to debrief at night and talk about what we went to and then just talk about life, talk about what we're struggling with at home and where we're finding joy at home, and the great things that our kids are doing right now, and it's just the power of community is so special and so important.

Come Say Hi!

And I think that one of my favorite things at ACTFL and at other conferences is when people like you come and find me. When people like you really make the effort to say hello, because I say, I always say, in podcasts and in emails and in blogs like, come and say hi, but you'd be surprised, not many people do, so when you make the effort to like, say, Hey, I listened to your podcast, or, Hey, I did this brain break that you shared a couple years ago, and it's my students favorites, whatever you take the time to, like, say hi or make a connection. It makes me so freaking happy, because it makes me realize that I do have friends and I do have people that I impact, and it just looks different for me than it does, maybe for the people around me that I see or the people I see on social media, like I'm the person that preaches all the time. Don't compare yourself to others and comparison as the thief of joy. And yet, I'm constantly comparing my like, friendship life with others. And then I realize when I go to ACTFL I have so many friends. I have so many friends, and I have so many friends in you.

Ophelia at ACTFL!

One of my favorite moments of that realization was Laura Tetto. I was in a Terminal, and we were getting lunch. It was lots of Familia members together. We were getting lunch. We had lots of outings. Usually, we'd try and do one dinner together. We ended up like, spending, like, all the time together. But we were getting some lunch, and I was with Bertha and Maribel, and I kept on making eye contact and smiling at this, this girl next to me, and then she finally said, hi, I'm Laura Tetto, and I follow you on Instagram, and I just wanted to say hi. And I was like, oh, thank you for saying hi. She was one of the first people who had done it, and it had already been a ton of time at ACTFL, and I hadn't really met anybody. And then I recognized her from Instagram and some combos that we had had on there, because I do have this like crazy memory where I will remember you, and it was so special to connect with her, and we took a picture, and we chatted for a while, and now we've talked several more times on Instagram, and It's just like community, the community that we want and that we feel in some of our classes, and hopefully all of our classes by the end of the year, it just looks different in every class is just as important for us to form in our professional lives and our personal lives, and it's okay if those two mesh sometimes, like I'm realizing they are meshing for me, we need community for us just as much as our kids need it in our classes. And so, I loved that moment with her. Another moment that I just loved, loved, loved was Diana Castro found me and we chatted several times, and I went to her session with Michelle Whaley, and it was fabulous. They are so different and so dynamic and so wonderful together. And they did a whole story, story asking session, like I got to be part of it, and I was nursing Ophelia. Ophelia broke into ACTFL and was there with me. It was fabulous. She attended her first ACTFL. Diana found me, and she hand crocheted the most beautiful little elephant for Ophelia. I can't even tell you, y'all it's not even small. It's a big elephant. She made Ophelia by hand, and in the middle of her session, she got to give it to her, while everybody was doing an activity together, she got to give it to my baby. And it makes me realize, like my friends are these people. These are my friends like and it's just wonderful. I'm so grateful for my community. I'm so grateful for each of you listening to this. I know that when it comes to comparison, I'm constantly comparing, comparing myself to other podcasts that are bigger and are growing, and mine isn't growing, but it's consistent, which means that the people listening come to hear from me and enjoy it, and I am just so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for community, I'm so grateful for connection, I'm so grateful for my people. I'm so grateful for you. 

Let’s Connect!

So, I hope, hope, hope that we get to connect at a future conference, if we haven't already, and if we have, thank you for supporting me, allowing me to support you, and thank you for being one of my friends. Thank you for being part of my community. As teachers, we need it so desperately if we want to remain in this profession and find the joy, we need to find our people that we can ask for support when we are struggling and finding challenges, and we can share our wins and our joys with so thank you for allowing me to be part of your journey. Thank you for allowing me to be authentically me with you and thank you for listening to teaching la vida loca. I'm so grateful for you. I hope that you lavish your winter break. I just published a new blog on a new brain break called Snowball, Polar Bear, Penguin. I don't know why it took me so long to say those three words, Snowball, Polar Bear, Penguin, I guess it's four words. Anyways. If you were looking to inject some novelty into your final classes before break, I encourage you to integrate that I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever had a day where I didn't, where I introduced a new brain break, or a novel twist on a brain break that it didn't immediately bring joy to the class and make things feel better for students and for me. So, if you need some last-minute joy before break, check that out. If you want to save it for after break, for a fun thing on day one, then, yay, use it. But there's really two variations of it, so you could really do one pre break and one post break, and then just make them part of your regular routine. It is winter themed, so it's super fun. Okay, that's all for today. I love you. Thank you again for being part of my community and thank you for teaching la vida loca. Until next time, I know that's what you'll be doing, and I will be here to support you. So grateful for you, teacher. Take care. Bye, bye.