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Engering-Ward Home Learn More Inspiration About the Author |
About the Author
My name is Natasha Engering-Ward and I teach French and Spanish at Justin-Siena High School. My journey in education began a long time ago, and my passion for languages started at the age of 11 after my first French class. My French teacher, Mrs Singer (or "Mme Le Chanteur" as she was affectionately known) was an inspiration for me - she always made lessons so fun and engaging and I learned so much. I also learned Latin at school and when I went on to the sixth form college at 16, I decided to take up a third language, Spanish, which I studied together with French, Latin and Music to A level.
In my teens I started to think about being an educator as my Mum switched careers to become an Art teacher when I was at primary school and two of my cousins also followed that career path. When I was at the sixth form college I was still undecided as to whether I would go into the field of music or languages, but when I realized that I just wasn’t good enough to be a concert pianist, I opted to study languages. I spent 4 years at University, and one of those years I was abroad in France and Spain, which I adored. I just love to travel!
Once I had earned my degree, I then spent a year in Belgium as a Assistante in a Teacher training college in Liège. My students were the same age as me and were just so welcoming. I spent one of the best years of my life there; I learned so much about the people, the culture and the French language, and made lifelong friends. Once returned from Belgium I trained to be a foreign language teacher, and then landed my first position in a small town called Farnham in Surrey in the UK where I remained for 7 years until I met my husband. He worked in the Midlands in the UK and was offered a position in California. I applied for several teaching positions, but not having a California credential at the time made it doubly difficult. I was fortunate to be offered a position at Justin-Siena, a private high school in Napa, where I have been teaching for the last 18 years. I have two children ages 8 and 11, who take quite a bit of my time, but more recently I felt as if I was up for another adventure. I wanted to get back to the zest of my youth and learn something new. My fellow-Mom friend and cohort member Monica Knecht told me about me about this Master's program, and here I am!
In my teens I started to think about being an educator as my Mum switched careers to become an Art teacher when I was at primary school and two of my cousins also followed that career path. When I was at the sixth form college I was still undecided as to whether I would go into the field of music or languages, but when I realized that I just wasn’t good enough to be a concert pianist, I opted to study languages. I spent 4 years at University, and one of those years I was abroad in France and Spain, which I adored. I just love to travel!
Once I had earned my degree, I then spent a year in Belgium as a Assistante in a Teacher training college in Liège. My students were the same age as me and were just so welcoming. I spent one of the best years of my life there; I learned so much about the people, the culture and the French language, and made lifelong friends. Once returned from Belgium I trained to be a foreign language teacher, and then landed my first position in a small town called Farnham in Surrey in the UK where I remained for 7 years until I met my husband. He worked in the Midlands in the UK and was offered a position in California. I applied for several teaching positions, but not having a California credential at the time made it doubly difficult. I was fortunate to be offered a position at Justin-Siena, a private high school in Napa, where I have been teaching for the last 18 years. I have two children ages 8 and 11, who take quite a bit of my time, but more recently I felt as if I was up for another adventure. I wanted to get back to the zest of my youth and learn something new. My fellow-Mom friend and cohort member Monica Knecht told me about me about this Master's program, and here I am!
Reflections on My Journey
I have always been really interested in trying to think outside the box and use different approaches in my class. I like students to be actively participating and not just sitting in their seats passively listening. I have never been a teacher who lectures students, I just like to give them simple instructions and then have them working alone or figuring things out with a partner or a group. I have always used some tech tools in my classroom, but the Innovative Learning course has opened my eyes up to the wealth of apps out there and the importance of personalized learning. I started to incorporate the flipped classroom learning model little by little towards the end of the first semester. Students experimented with apps such as Quizlet, which made their learning much more individualized, as they could choose between which functions they wanted to use; they could play a matching game, be quizzed or simply review flashcards. I used Screencast-o-matic and Edpuzzle to record short videos for my students. Getting them to watch them at school in small groups seemed more successful than having them watch them at home. Whilst they watched the videos I spent time helping other students on a different activity.
Originally when writing my research paper, I recorded data from my students just using Quizlet, but as I moved through the course we were introduced to a variety of tech tools which I knew would be instantly beneficial to my classroom. I used Flipgrid, Quizizz, Adobe Spark to name but a few and so in the end I decided to try to incorporate the general use of technology into my study so my data would not be so restrictive.
Music is a keen interest of mine and has been since a child. At the beginning of the year students had to gap-fill a couple of songs in French and I noticed instantly how they were able to pronounce the words more authentically and how they seemed to remember the vocabulary more readily. As a child I also remember learning songs to become familiar with grammar points in French and how much easier the song made it to remember them. Therefore I decided to incorporate more music into my classes and to see if it made learning French vocabulary more effective. Essentially students were given a karaoke project to work on in a group, whereby they had to extract the most important vocabulary words from the song, be familiar with the song and make a karaoke music video of it. Students seemed very enthusiastic to be working on this project, and they did some wonderful presentations to the class, which was great.
I have thoroughly enjoying getting to grips with these new tech tools and updating my teaching methods within my classes. I have noticed a real difference in my students’ attitudes and motivation over these past few months, which I personally, as an educator, find very exciting.
Originally when writing my research paper, I recorded data from my students just using Quizlet, but as I moved through the course we were introduced to a variety of tech tools which I knew would be instantly beneficial to my classroom. I used Flipgrid, Quizizz, Adobe Spark to name but a few and so in the end I decided to try to incorporate the general use of technology into my study so my data would not be so restrictive.
Music is a keen interest of mine and has been since a child. At the beginning of the year students had to gap-fill a couple of songs in French and I noticed instantly how they were able to pronounce the words more authentically and how they seemed to remember the vocabulary more readily. As a child I also remember learning songs to become familiar with grammar points in French and how much easier the song made it to remember them. Therefore I decided to incorporate more music into my classes and to see if it made learning French vocabulary more effective. Essentially students were given a karaoke project to work on in a group, whereby they had to extract the most important vocabulary words from the song, be familiar with the song and make a karaoke music video of it. Students seemed very enthusiastic to be working on this project, and they did some wonderful presentations to the class, which was great.
I have thoroughly enjoying getting to grips with these new tech tools and updating my teaching methods within my classes. I have noticed a real difference in my students’ attitudes and motivation over these past few months, which I personally, as an educator, find very exciting.
Lasting Learning from the Innovative Learning program
Education is so important for every single one of our students; they are going to be the new leaders of our society and they deserve the best we can give them. They should experience and be immersed in a well-structured, cohesive and supportive learning environment. I want to continue what I have begun, building on my curriculum over the summer. Onward and upward!
My TPack Reflection
Teachers across the globe are endeavoring to be more innovative, since technology now is much more at the forefront of our lives than ever before. Throughout this last year TPACK’s framework has been instrumental in guiding me to become a better educator. This learning model was developed in 2006 by Punya Mishra and helps define the knowledge that we as teachers need to teach technology in our classrooms. It is important that we use it as a vehicle for teaching, and don’t just use technology for the sake of it. This framework shows us how technology changes not just how we teach, but also what we teach.
Technical knowledge, content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge all are dependent on one another, and TPACK is the sweet spot where they all overlap with each other. My journey this year has been fruitful for both me and my students where technology is concerned. I took baby steps incorporating it at first into my classroom, but my students were so encouraging that it gave me confidence to try and integrate more. Initially I would use Quizlet at the beginning of class to review new vocabulary, and then I used Quizlet Live to quiz the students in teams on what they knew. Quizizz became another favorite; when working with this app, students were able to work individually at their own pace, and sometimes this was favorable as opposed to working in teams, or working for a fixed time on each question. From Quizizz came Google Forms, as I found that I could take questions and answers from Quizizz, and then make them into a quiz using Google Forms.
The use of technology in my classroom just morphed, and before I knew it I was incorporating more and more apps to enhance my students’ learning. I was already very familiar with the content I needed to cover, so that made it easier to look for the best tech tools out there to help me deliver my content more effectively. In a foreign language classroom, activities can be quite short and succinct, so having a choice of apps to use to enable students to review and learn new material was a life saver.
Music then became another focus in my classroom through the medium of technology. Music I have found has always been a good hook to get students interested and engaged. I showed examples of songs in the target language, then students researched and found songs that they enjoyed listening to and whose vocabulary they felt that they could readily learn. Students were able to use great technological tools to demonstrate their learning, including making an Adobe Spark presentation of their song’s most important vocabulary words. I worked with students on making QR codes for their poster board to represent their karaoke videos and their original songs. More and more I felt as if I was working alongside my students as opposed to being the teacher imparting information at the front of the room. This was transformational for me as an educator. The use of technology in the classroom has given me more time and energy to focus on working with individuals or small groups of students, and students themselves are becoming much more in charge of their own learning. It has been a win- win situation all round.
The use of technology in my classroom just morphed, and before I knew it I was incorporating more and more apps to enhance my students’ learning. I was already very familiar with the content I needed to cover, so that made it easier to look for the best tech tools out there to help me deliver my content more effectively. In a foreign language classroom, activities can be quite short and succinct, so having a choice of apps to use to enable students to review and learn new material was a life saver.
Music then became another focus in my classroom through the medium of technology. Music I have found has always been a good hook to get students interested and engaged. I showed examples of songs in the target language, then students researched and found songs that they enjoyed listening to and whose vocabulary they felt that they could readily learn. Students were able to use great technological tools to demonstrate their learning, including making an Adobe Spark presentation of their song’s most important vocabulary words. I worked with students on making QR codes for their poster board to represent their karaoke videos and their original songs. More and more I felt as if I was working alongside my students as opposed to being the teacher imparting information at the front of the room. This was transformational for me as an educator. The use of technology in the classroom has given me more time and energy to focus on working with individuals or small groups of students, and students themselves are becoming much more in charge of their own learning. It has been a win- win situation all round.
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