Challenges to encourage more input

Just a word of caution ahead: ALL my students have online access and the ability to take part. This is key! Do not attempt this if you're unsure if students will be able to do this from home. This would favor some students and exclude others.

This year I have been recording all my lessons in class. Every single story we have done in class can be found on my YouTube channel and is posted in the students' journals on Seesaw.  To see which stories I have told, you can click on the picture bar on the right, which will take you to my Instagram or on the post 50-before-winter-break (another post coming shortly with stories 51-75). This has some wonderful advantages:

1. Absent students can watch stories at home.
2. Parents can see what the students are doing in class.
3. Recordings can be used for substitute lessons.
4. Students can watch stories again and again and receive more optimal input.
5. Easy transition into remote learning.

I have not seen a disadvantage of providing the stories online. Some students have told me that they really like watching the stories again at home after listening to them in class. Others are not making use of the videos as much. Since we know that more optimal input means greater gains in language, my thought was: How can I gently encourage students to watch a story at home each week to receive more input?  Here is my solution.

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Listening Challenges
First off, the listening challenges are voluntary. Every week or two, I send one challenge to the parents of my students. The students do not know what the challenge of the week (or two) is and have to ask their parents at home. This way the parents are very aware of what the kids are doing in class and are informed of what they are asked to voluntarily do at home. Here are come examples of challenges we have done so far:

• Watch a story while eating popcorn
• Watch a story with a family member
• Watch a story and reenact a scene with toys/stuffed animals (see pictures)
• Watch a story and write down 5 words from the story
• Watch a story in a weird space
• Watch a fairy tale

All challenges are low pressure and are supposed to be fun for the students. Don't have popcorn at home? No problem, the important part is watching a story.  The students have to have someone take a picture of them completing the challenge and send it to me by the given due date. Then comes the fun part. On Fridays (or really now every other Friday), after I tell a story as usual, we look at all the pictures (and videos) that were sent in and I talk about them in German and ask the students questions, which they answer in English or German. With many of the challenges we have made it a game to guess what story that student was watching (for the reenactment and the 5 words for example). And that is it. There is no price, no winner. It's just a fun way to encourage the students to watch the videos and get more input. Everyone in class looks forward to seeing the new pictures and videos and the majority of students participate in the challenge. And as a teacher I love seeing what the students come up with, which stories they choose to watch again and what part of themselves they want to share with the class.

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