Catching Up

     I have fallen behind on posting here, along with everything else. I got strep, went to the doctor to start antibiotics, and then literally the following day tripped and fractured my ankle. Three weeks later, I'm now in a boot and supposed to take it easy- meaning stay off of the foot. I always thought I was lazy (and I am) but I did not realize how much time I spend on my feet in a day until I was ordered to keep off of them!
     Persona Especial has hit a bit of a snag. A big part of what I was doing was going to the kids directly and giving them personal attention, which seemed to help them answer honestly instead of pulling them up in front of the class. Now, I can't do that, so I'm trying to find an alternate way to deal with that as well as other classroom management issues. I've been a lurker this entire time. There's probably a less creepy name for it, but that's mine. I circulate the room, I check in with the people who need help but won't come up to me for it, I stick phones in paper bags and make sure no one has their neighbor's paper, I poke sleeping students to see if they need a nurse or redirection, etc. It's a big part of how I keep the class together, and I can't do that right now. I won't be able to for approximately another three weeks. I'm behind on my lessons, behind on my planning, behind on my housework... Behind on pretty much everything.
     I won a free trial of a course from Fluency Matters during ACTFL and one of my classes got to try that. I'll keep an eye on it for the future to see if things improve, but my students weren't fans and neither was I. The content was interesting enough and high frequency, but navigating the site itself was a pain. Multiple students (and me!) had our accounts locked out as an abusive IP for no reason I can figure out. I'd be down for a print copy of A Conversar.
     Not everything has been bad, though. This week is Wooly Week and today we rewatched the Victor trilogy together. I won't give away any details, but Feo was both unexpected and pretty awesome. I paid for a month of Adios Textbook and it's way better than I thought it would be. I have to play around a bit to adapt the timing for my students and our lack of technology occasionally creates issues, but it's well worth $15 a month in my opinion.