A Distributed Review Unit
Abstract
In my experience, I usually encounter the same kind of problem every time I have to teach eighth grade continuing Level One Spanish course. At the beginning of the year when I do a two-month long massed review of the seventh grade material, my students get resistant and kind of bored. They think that they already know this material and that they would use their class time more efficiently if I taught them something new. I believe that I can make the review of material presented in the previous school year more challenging and therefore more motivating by switching from a massed review to a distributed review schedule. Distributed review schedule means that students will practice the target language material over time throughout the course of the whole school year with increasing time intervals between the practice tasks.
In addition to the detailed description of one of the sections of the distributed review unit, this paper includes the description of the procedures that I followed in creating this unit. These include defining the context, needs assessment, formulating goals and objectives, conceptualizing the course, selecting and developing materials, organizing the course, designing an assessment plan, and articulating beliefs. In the conclusion I also describe my experience in implementing this unit in my school and the lessons I learned as a result of my experience.