I am really happy to welcome all the new teachers! Thank you for spreading the love of learning a new language in your school community and to your students!
Planning is one of the most important aspects to ensuring a successful class over the course of a school year. Of course, getting to know your school community and the needs of your students are intimately tied to this part of the teaching process. You also need to be clear regarding what kind of language program your school wants to develop or has in place so that you tailor it to the demand and expectations appropriately. In many cases, we language teachers are in charge of planning our class 100% while building a curriculum from scratch, especially since textbooks at the elementary level have limited applicability for a natural approach to language teaching and learning.
In over fifteen years of teaching languages to children, I have found that planning a week in advance for the following week works perfectly and gives me time to assess the material, reflect on the way I am teaching, and to adapt for my students as needed. Although there are fancy higher tech ways to do this, I’m old school when it comes to planning, choosing to keep it simple. I plan for every day on a single sheet of paper, and by the end of the school year, I have about two big binders with all my lesson plans collected in one place. I re-use this lesson plans the following year, but I create a new binder with changes as I adapt activities year by year.
How to write a lesson plan for a 20-30 minute lesson
Prepare a routine: Make sure you develop a clear routine for your class. A routine doesn’t equate to boredom and doesn’t mean that the activities are always presented in the same way. Creating a routine means creating a space for learners to feel safe about their knowledge and to be ready to switch gears. Prepare two to three elements that are always in your routine, but make sure they can be presented with plenty of variation.
Objective:
This objective is one objective or piece of an objective drawn from the objectives planned for the entire unit. Remember that a spiral curriculum plan will allow you to come back to your other objectives later. This singular focus helps ensure that your entire lesson is well-targeted and clear. It’s the foundation for all that you do with your students.
Warm-up:
Includes your routine (calendar, weather, birthdays, etc). Singing or playing a game related to the routine or theme of study helps students warm-up for your lesson and creates a positive environment.
Activity/Procedures
The activity is the core of your lesson. In this stage of the planning, students will get engage with your theme for the unit. Different strategies are stated here to allow students to accomplish the lesson’s objective. It is important to determine the steps of the activities and to be clear about them to create a confident learning environment. An unclear set of activities will create confusion between students.
Wrap-up:
This allows you and students to know clearly when a class is over and feel a sense of accomplishment. This ending can be done through a simple game or by reviewing some elements that were explored in the lesson.
Evaluation/Assessment:
In a FLES class, the assessment is mainly done during the progress of the lesson. Try to focus on a few students per lesson, and observe them closely during the development of the lesson.
Materials:
List all kinds of resources you will need to teach your lesson effectively. This will also help you to prepare in advance and avoid trips to your office during class.
I have been extremely lucky this summer during my trip to Colombia to have had the opportunity to find amazing people who can continue contributing to my professional development and to become better at what I do, teaching language to children. This time I had the opportunity to learn from Jaime Andres Castaño of Corpoteatro. Corpoteatro is a small organization that provides workshops for teachers to learn more about how to incorporate theatrical techniques into their teaching. It also offers workshops for children and anyone who is interested in learning how to use theatrical techniques in their daily life. Reminds me a bit of all the ads I’ve seen on the subway (T) cars in Boston for Improv Asylum and their ads that say “No More Group Hugs with Brad From Accounting,” targeting corporate team building, as well as all the amazing ways theater is used in social cause grassroots organizations. Theater is essential – it really enriches the theater of our lives and is fantastic for teaching people of all ages.
One form of theatrical art involves puppets. With my visit to Corpoteatro, I wanted to learn more about basic techniques to use with simple puppets. With their help, I learned that mouth puppets work great because they are very simple to handle and give me one free hand to point at other materials. I have always loved puppets and use them frequently into my teaching (I am a PreK to 3rd grade Spanish teacher in a FLES program) because puppets give me excuses to create silly and joyful situations that open the children to learning and make a dynamic conversational environment based on play and make-believe. Puppets are a great teaching tool that allow children to forget they are listening to a language they are just learning and gives space for a playful and natural-feeling environment. In many cases, my puppet friends show up in class to teach something new, or to ask my students about something we recently learned. Their appearances in my classes are usually very short, which makes my students ask for their puppet friend in the next class. Each of my puppet friends has a name, and I usually use a name that is tied to a cultural connection or refers to a word in Spanish. For example, I have a puppet girl that I have named Cumbia (traditional Colombian dance) and another one I named Rana (frog).
Tips to Keep in Mind!
Andres gracefully shared his basic tips that can help educators when using puppets in their classes.
1. Treat your puppet like any other class member. Give it a name, a voice, and a space in your class. This puppet cannot be used by your students. They need to show respect to the puppet too!
2. Make sure you always use the same voice for this puppet, and don’t confuse it with any other puppet. Limit yourself to one or two characters for the school year. This will make the children feel confidence and know that it creates a safe environment for everyone.
3. Use syllables when your puppet talks. You want this puppet to look very natural.
4. Always look at your puppet when he or she talks.
5. Make sure to greet your puppet when he joins the class and also say adiós when he leaves the class. Put it away very carefully. Have a box or bag where you always place it.
6. Most importantly as with all teaching, smile and have fun!
I do have to admit that at the beginning it is not comfortable when using puppets, but once you see your students’ faces, you will see how rewarding it is to have puppet guests in class!
Teaching about zoo animals is one of my favorite units. This time, I visited the zoo in Cali, Colombia, and I collected a few videos of animals native to Colombia and South America. Comparing the various zoos that I have visited in different countries and cities in the US, the Cali zoo is by far my favorite. Not that I’m biased or anything! But, seriously, it is first rate. First of all, the weather is great and makes it possible for the zoo to have species from all over the world. The zoo is very well organized and has plenty of information for visitors to learn about each species. Any self-respecting zoo has a lion, a jaguar, and a bear, but this zoo also has Andean condors, Andean spectacled bears, and monkeys that are endemic to, or can only be found in, Colombia.
To use these videos and pictures, I advise you to first take a virtual trip to Cali, Colombia, using Google Earth. Then, download the map of the zoo and plan your visit with your students. On the zoo’s website you can find some pictures and videos of some of their animals.
Here are a few videos I took during my recent visit to the zoo. Feel free to share them with your students! Teaching with authentic resources always gets the children excited about the language and different cultures.
el cóndor de los Andes
la guacamaya
la llama
el mono
el oso de anteojos
Have fun visiting the zoo!
Carolina
All the videos and pictures here are property of Fun for Spanish Teachers and are available for classroom use only. Please contact me directly if you wish to use them in a different way. If you use them in a blog post you must give credit to my site www.FunforSpanishTeachers.com
Every year when I travel to Colombia to visit my family, I try to take as many pictures and short videos as I can to share with my students in my classes. They are always curious to know about Colombia and always get very excited to see what I have to share with them. I’ve taken a few of those videos and pictures and am sharing them with you here so you can share them with your students too!
The supermarket is always a very fun and interesting unit, especially because I love teaching about a variety of fruits that are common in Colombia but not so well-known in most of North America. It is also an opportunity for students to compare the markets in their own cultural settings and that of Colombia. We have traditional markets where small, family farmers travel to the big cities to bring fresh products, but we also have supermarkets like Carrefour, Exito, and La 14. On this trip, I took a video in a Carrefour supermarket in Cali, Colombia. I am always very excited about the amounts of fresh and delicious fruits and vegetables I can find at great prices. You can find everything you need in a supermarket here – fresh food, clothes, everything you need for school, refrigetators, iPads, computers, etc. You don’t need to go to different places, you will find everything in one place!
A Mall in Cali, Colombia
Picture: los tomates
Picture: los bananos y los aguacates
Picture: la piña
Picture: la sandia y la guanabana
Picture: el mango
Picture: la papaya
Have fun teaching in Spanish!
Carolina
The pictures here are property of Fun for Spanish Teachers and are available for classroom use only. Please contact me directly if you wish to use them in a different way. If you use them in a blog post you must give credit to my site www.FunforSpanishTeachers.com
The internet has taken off as a tool and forum, used by many teachers to look for new ideas, share their expertise, support their units, and more. I have found many websites with great resources for Spanish teachers. Here are several of my favorites, in no particular order.
¡Hola! I am Carolina, a Colombian elementary Spanish teacher based in Boston, MA. Fun for Spanish Teachers is the result of my passion for teaching Spanish to children and my desire to inspire collaboration and creativity in a vibrant teaching and learning community. It’s the perfect stop if you are looking for songs, games, teaching tips, stories, and fun for your classes.
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