This a list of what I have in my classroom and can’t survive a school year without any of these materials.
Chime: Sometimes we need breaks from using call-and-response chants or clapping our hands. I have found a three tone chime* that works well because it gives enough time for my students to settle down.
Map: I had a hard time finding a map that was simple enough for my elementary students. Luckily I came across this map on Pinterest, and it has been the best purchase ever. You can find it at Spanish Cuentos.
Puppets and Plush Toys: Puppets and plush toys are a great tool in language teaching. I love when my students make connections with some of them. They become one more member of the class. Visit my post where I talk about the use of puppets in a world language class.
Special Chair: I have a chair that my students use when we sing to them to celebrate their birthdays in class. They all look forward to having a chance to sit on that chair in class. They also get a small gift from me which is usually a pencil, eraser, or small craft from Colombia. They also get a birthday certificate. Click here to download some free ones for your classes!
Play Parachute: Every single one of my students seems to love parachute time, no matter how old they are. It’s always fun to use parachutes for a brain break. I have written a few posts about how I use them in my classes:
Authentic Art: I love displaying art from different Spanish speaking countries. I usually label items to show where they come from.
Favorite Music Playlist: Thank goodness for YouTube! I love how you can easily make lists of your favorite songs. I like creating playlists by grade levels. Here is a list of some of my go-to channels:
Flags: I have flags and posters from the different Spanish speaking countries. You can display them all at once or take them out one at a time when you do the country of study. This pack is available on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Pointers: I found a really awesome set of pointers* that I use while looking at our “Plan de la clase” as well as when we play interactive games on the Smart Board. These ones have been the best so far! I have had them for about two years now:
List of Brain Breaks: Brain breaks are great not only to get your students’ attention back, but also for you to take a break as a teacher. I keep a list of brain breaks and yoga cards handy. Download free yoga cards here!
Simple Picture Books: Last year I started a library in my classroom. So far the books that have worked best are books with minimal text and also books that the children are already familiar with in English.
Movies: Sometimes I like using movies right before the break when I know a lot of my students will be missing. I also use them when I am out and can’t find a sub that speaks Spanish, or just being honest, to take a break!
Balls: Yes, balls of different sizes to play games or ask questions!
Instruments: Playing with these is something my younger students really enjoy!
Apron: This is not a “must,” but it has been great for me to stop putting things in my pockets when I am teaching. I used to always end up emptying my pockets of an assortment of things at home that should have stayed at school instead of hitching a ride with me – things like tiny pointers, markers, pencils, and the classroom keys. This is the one I plan to use this school year. I am especially excited about the llamas on this one!
What is something you think I should add to this list? Please feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments box.
This is a short traditional poem that is perfect to teach a little bit of geography of the Spanish speaking countries, and also numbers from 1 to 10.
Use a map to locate Perú. If you have technology at handy, take a virtual trip to Perú using Google Earth. You can find pictures and short videos about Perú. Make sure you prepare in advance, and choose the material you would like to share with your students.
This poem is also used to jump the rope! You can challenge your students to count beyond number ten. It can also be used as a cooperative game to learn names. See videos below!
As a native speaker, I find it fairly easy to stay in the target language (TL), and I’m aware that it’s important to keep my communication simple and to do as much as I can to keep my instruction at the proficiency level of my students, and, more importantly, to make it comprehensible, which sometimes I find tiresome. But, hey, that’s my job!
The Foundations of My Journey
Before moving to the United States I was a preschool/English teacher in Colombia, and comparing my experience teaching English in Colombia vs teaching Spanish in the United States, it was easier for me to focus just on what I needed to communicate in English, than what is sometimes more complex for me in Spanish. I have had different experiences teaching in the United States, having been in a total of eight schools in 17 years. The first program where I taught FLES, all Spanish teachers were required to stay 100% in the TL. I had success doing all I could to get my point across in my classes. I spent a lot of time looking for visuals, making posters, and using a lot of TPR and gestures! The program was successful, but my students thought that I couldn’t speak English. The children were trying harder to communicate with me in the TL, but there was more to it than that. I had a website, and also sent newsletters home, but the parents still thought that I didn’t know English.
Trying to Find My Way
During my four years teaching in that school district, I was approached by a parent only once, and his comment was, “I thought you didn’t know English!” At that moment, I had mixed feelings. Yes, I wanted my students to use Spanish with me at all times, during class, recess time, in the hallway, and so on, but I was also sad, because I was also there to “promote bilingualism,” and they thought I only knew Spanish. I was traveling from classroom to classroom, and the homeroom teachers stayed in the classroom during the 20 minutes of Spanish instruction. I recall that I rarely had to work hard on classroom management because the teachers were there to help. I also realized that I didn’t really know anything about my students.
Seeing the Value of Teamwork and Mentors
Despite all of these critical reflections, I still learned so much there, where I learned so much about being a Spanish teacher in the United States. I had seven awesome colleagues who had been teaching for a long time, so they were always open to listening, and their classrooms were always open if I needed to learn more. They respected me and the strengths I brought to the table as a native Spanish speaker, and they mentored me, too. As a new immigrant at that time, they provided strong support! Those ladies shaped a lot of the teacher that I am today!
Forced to Change Course with Opportunity in Adversity
Sadly enough, the town voted against a tax override, and the school district lost the Spanish program. Spanish language instruction at the elementary level fell victim to other budget priorities. To this day, I still don’t understand why there is more emphasis on high school foreign language instruction than in the early years when it makes a lot more sense in so many ways. I did decide to create my own program targeting pre-K kiddos, but that’s another story! After a few years of working independently, I decided to go back to a school because I was really missing being part of a school community.
Growing More Flexible
Once I moved to a different school, the policies about teaching 100% in the TL were different. The school already had a Spanish and French teacher for grades 4 through 6, so I was hired to create the other part of the program with the help of my colleagues, and we used a backward mapping process to create our curriculum for grades pre-K to 3. Both of the French and Spanish teachers used some English with their students. Although I had a little flexibility to create the program, I first stuck strongly with using only Spanish in class out of habit and desire to push students to use the TL. I started noticing that the other language teachers had such strong connections with their students, and their students would actually look for them during recess time. That was when it dawned on me that I had been missing an opportunity to connect with my students and get to know a little bit more about them. So by my second year in the school, I finally became more flexible and started to allow interactions with my students in their L1 during times out of my class.
Building Deeper Relationships
Children would actually come and sit next to me by the bench on the playground, and we had great conversations, rom talking about my family in Colombia to their plans after school! That’s when I realized that it was okay for them to use their L1 to communicate with me during recess time. I also feel that because I am a native speaker, they need to know that I am bilingual and that I have interest in their language and culture. Keeping my class at 90 to 95 % TL in my classroom continues to be my goal.
Hitting My Stride and Learning the Value of Patient Beginnings
I am now in my third school (as FLES teacher), where the program is awesome! We have a seven-day cycle, and I get to see my students five out of every seven days. I can do so much with my students! And the consistency in our schedule definitely helps the program. In this school we spend the first days in English, in fact, nobody teaches any of the subjects because we spend the first days getting to know our students and making space for our students to get to know their teachers. This has been the best idea ever! Kudos to my school principal for encouraging us to start our school year this way. Last year was the first time it was done schoolwide, and it made a big difference in that it was an opportunity to connect with my students without the pressure of digging into my curriculum right away. During the first days we discussed classroom procedures, explored the space, and talked about the rules in class and how important it is to follow them to make it a safe space for everyone. We used TPR with the rules, and then it was easy to transition to using them (and TPR) in Spanish.
Honing My Craft and Holding Myself to the Same Standards
I keep the poster in front of the classroom to refer to the rules whenever I need them. I also teach hand signs that are connected to “passwords” they need in class. (See my post about “passwords” here.) I also have a poster that says “En español,” and I point at it when needed, and a hand sign that I use if I have to use English (Time out sign.) I usually use this sign and accompany it by saying “Voy a hablar…” and my students say “inglés.” If they have a question for me, they request permission to use English by asking “¿Puedo hablar inglés?” So I figured I also have to signal it when there is the need to use English from my end.
Weaving in Complexity and Culture
I try to keep my teaching at between 90% and 95% in the TL, and sometimes I actually have classes with the TL at 100%, but there are times when I feel that it is necessary to use my students’ L1. When teaching culture that goes beyond the tangible. They also see me taking risks with words that are difficult for me to pronounce. I am working hard on incorporating more culture into my classes and to be able to give voice to the different Spanish speaking cultures. They’re so diverse! My students already know enough about El Día de los Muertos, or La noche de las velitas, but if there is something new or unique, I’d rather use five minutes of my instruction time in English making sure everything is clear, than letting things go by and being responsible for inadvertently instilling or reinforcing stereotypes, however subtle..
Taking the Summer to Reflect on Reflections!
Writing this post has been so great to take the opportunity to reflect about my own journey and process as a language teacher. This is my own experience, and this is how I have arrived where I am right now with the use of TL in my classes. I know as teachers we have to look at what works best for us and most benefits our students. I am just happy to be able to share my own journey with you. I would love to hear what you do in your classes and learn about your journey and your own process of adaptation over time! Please feel free to add a note in the comments!
Nothing like the sounds of traditional music, and the stories behind it! I love when I am able to find a song that belongs to and represents one of the Spanish speaking cultures – and use it in my classes. Bringing traditional songs to the classroom is a way to teach our students that the Spanish speaking world is not just one culture, but that it’s made up of many cultures. It’s a way to show that there is all kinds of cultural diversity out there. However, using traditional songs in elementary school is not an easy task. Finding traditional songs that suit the levels we teach can be challenging because sometimes they have too much vocabulary and complicated structures and sometimes not enough repetition. So I know I have to work on simplifying them for my students to comprehend. Sometimes I just choose parts of a song to focus on, which usually happens to be the chorus.
This is how I recommend teaching traditional songs at the elementary level:
Identify the vocabulary or structures you want to focus on.
Provide background about where the song is from. Use a map to locate the country where the song is from – and with today’s technology you are even able to prepare your students with virtual field trips using Google Earth. You can even make a play passport for your students to keep track of when they learn a song from certain country.
Make it comprehensible. Create a slide show with images from the song. Taking a screenshot works great! Use the Movie Talk strategy to talk about what the children see in the picture. If there is no video available you can create your own slide show with pictures that are representative of the song. (See sample below.)
This may vary a little from teacher to teacher, but I let my students listen to the whole song without stopping the first time.
Focus on creating meaning. I also like using TPR and create gestures that go along with the song. When songs are too complex for my level, I focus on the chorus which most of the time provides a lot of repetition.
This is also optional, but if you happen to have some of the instruments that are used in the songs, pass them around and have your students experience them.
If you have a library in your classroom, print the Powerpoints, laminate the pages, bind them together and add them to your library.
Sing and enjoy!
La vicuñita
This is one of my favorite songs. I used it with my kindergarten students this year, and their reaction was beautiful! The first time they heard it they were in love with it, but some of them expressed sadness. I love how they were able to feel the song without the need to understand every single word.
I created a Powerpoint to talk about the song before teaching it to the class. I took screenshots of the video and added more images to use while talking about the pictures. Believe it or not, there is a lot to talk about in these pictures. Below you may find a sample of a script that I used while talking about the pictures. Expect some of the children to come up with more details. I used this song with kindergarten close to the end of the school year. I noticed that sometimes my students participated by using English, but I let it go to avoid frustration and would do the following instead. For example, one of my students said “There is a sun!” Then I pointed to pictures saying “Hay un sol,” then pointed at the side pictures on the slide, saying “Hay una luna.” Then I went back to the slide and said “¿Hay un sol o una luna?” In this way, I was giving them some vocabulary prompts and avoided some frustration at this level, allowing it to flow naturally.
Here is an example of the conversation I had with my students using the slideshow I created to make the song comprehensible.
Slide one:
¿Qué animal es? ¿Es un perro? ¿Es un gato? ¿Es una llama? No, no es una llama. ¡Es una vicuñita! ¿Es un perro o una vicuñita? ¿Dé que color es la vicuñita? ¿Hay vicuñitas en Austin, Texas? ¿Qué animales hay en Texas? ¿Dónde hay vicuñitas? Hay vicuñitas en Perú, Bolivia, Argentina y Chile. This is a great opportunity to pull out a map!
Slide two:
¿Qué animal es? ¡Hay una persona! La persona mira la vicuñita. ¿La persona es amiga de vicuñita? ¡Hay un sol! ¿Hay un sol o una luna? Hay cerros, muchos cerros. ¿Hay playas? ¿Hay playas o cerros? ¿Hay playas en Austin?
Slide Three:
Recycle structures from the previous slides. You will see that by this time the children will start recalling vocabulary on their own. You can add “¡Hay otra persona! Hay un niño y una niña.” You can go to the class and count how many niños and niñas are in the class. Again, recycle structures from previous slides, for example, “La persona es amiga de vicuñita.”
Slide Four:
¿Qué animal es? ¿Es un elefante? ¿Es un perro? ¿Es un gato o una vicuñita? La vicuñita dice, “yo soy vicuñita.” La vicuñita dice “¿yo soy un perro?” La vicuñita dice “¿yo soy un perro o yo soy vicuñita?”
Slide Five:
Hay otra persona. ¿Es una niña o un niño? La persona no es amiga de vicuñita. Es un cazador (hunter). ¿Es un doctor o es un cazador?
Slide Six:
Vicuñita está triste. ¿Vicuñita está triste o feliz? Vicuñita no está feliz. ¿Vicuñita está en la playa o en los cerros?
Slide Seven:
Hay lana, mucha lana. ¿Hay lana o plástico? El pelo de vicuñita es bueno para lana. El cazador quiere la lana de vicuñita para hacer un suéter.
Slide Eight:
Hay un círculo. ¿Hay un círculo o un triángulo? Vicuñita está con sus amigos.
Here are the lyrics of the song. I also created a Powerpoint with the lyrics, that I also use when not using the video to sing along. I chose just a few structures that I really wanted my students to get from this song. I might focus on more “chunks of language” with grades that have had more exposure to Spanish. These are highlighted in the lyrics below:
Del cerro yo vengo con mi vicuñita,
Del cerro yo vengo con mi vicuñita.
Cantando y bailando para mi cholita,
Cantando y bailando para mi cholita.
Yo soy vicuñita y vengo de la Puna,
Yo soy vicuñita y vengo de la Puna.
Vengo escapando de los cazadores,
Vengo escapando de los cazadores.
Mala ya la hora de ser vicuñita,
mala ya la hora de ser vicuñita.
Todos me persiguen por mi lana fina,
todos me persiguen por mi lana fina.
Last, but not least, we create gestures together to go along with our singing of the song.
This version is also great to show your students the instruments that are used to play this song:
It definitely takes time to make sure the song is understandable for the children and even more at the beginning levels, but the reward is worth it. My students kept asking for this song, and a few of them shared with me at the end of their year evaluation/reflections that La vicuñita was their favorite song. I shared a post on Instagram where you can hear just how much they were feeling the song.
Have fun singing!
You might also like these resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers
I have made it a tradition to end each school year with a post reflecting on the year. It’s become a way for me to keep track of my progress as an Elementary Spanish teacher. I have been teaching for 20 years, and every year I find myself ditching things that didn’t work, adapting old things, and incorporating new ideas. I have discovered that I always like to try new things each year. This was my second year teaching in Austin. I am no longer the only Spanish teacher at the elementary level, as I was in the schools where I taught in Boston. I am extremely happy that I have two new compañeras that I get to learn from everyday. Given that this was my second year at this school, it felt better than last year. I spent last year getting to know my new school and the community. I also came to a school where part of the curriculum had already been created. Things were in many ways easier this year, and I feel that I was able to find my voice and share more ideas with my fellow teachers to bring new things into our curriculum. (Wow! I can’t believe how serious my post sounds! Believe me! I am not that seria!)
Teaching in the Target Language
My goal is to stay at 90% to 95% in the target language. There are days when I am able to stay in the target language 100%, but there are days when I feel that using that 10% of English (that I like to say I keep in my pocket) for classroom management, making sure every student understands, and making connections with my students is totally fine. My students clearly know that I am from Colombia, and I am immigrant, so I also want them to know that I am bilingual, and since I am teaching them a language, I want to be a multi-dimensional role model for them.
Classroom Management
Let’ be honest! We all have those days when kids are all over the place! This year I made a poster with more simple rules. I used that poster as reference all the time, and I noticed that having the poster close allowed me to be more consistent and make sure the class was a safe learning space for everyone. I can’t take credit for the simple rules. One of my colleagues shared them, and since I love designing resources, I turned them into a poster for my classes. I placed the poster in front of the room, and I could refer to it when it was needed.
Reward Systems
I have had years that I haven’t use a system and years where I have used different reward systems. For example, los billetes, la clase/la maestra points from Whole Brain Teaching, Secret Student, and, this year, Class Dojo, but for some reason this felt tiring to me so I decided not to use the points in the middle of the school year, and I can say that it was a relief. I felt that I was wasting time when children were trading their points for prizes and sometimes it felt that some of them were willing to work hard and follow directions just for the points. I also asked my students to vote, and many of them voted for not having points because it was stressful for some of them. At this point I don’t plan on using any point system next school year. I will focus more on using Responsive Classroom since I have been trained in it, and it was used widely in the previous schools where I taught. I will also use the SEL (Social Emotional Learning) program we use in my current school.
Brain Breaks
I am a brain break fanatic and I used a lot of them this school year. Some of my students wrote in their feedback that they feel that I need to use even more, so I plan to look for new ones this summer to add to my repertoire. Yoga worked great with my kindergarten and first grade students. I am looking forward to incorporating more mindfulness in the Spanish class since the school has a strong program too.
Culture
This is something I still need to work more on. Of course, because I am from Colombia I love teaching and sharing my culture with my students. We have included in our curriculum to share facts about two countries per month, but I still feel that we need to study this more deeply. Goal for next year!
Communication With Parents
In all the years I have been teaching, I can say that this year was by far the one I have communicated the least with parents. We are a team of three, and it wasn’t easy sometimes to coordinate to send newsletters. We have had conversations about using Seesaw more to communicate with parents. So far, I have used it as an assessment tool, but not as much I as I need too. Working on this next year!
What Am I Excited About Next Year?
It will be my third year teaching in Austin, so I know the students, the community and the curriculum! I am excited about being able to finally add my own voice and identity to the curriculum. I am excited to continue learning more about CI and TPRS, and I will also be writing stories! I also look forward to attending some conferences and maybe presenting again! And most important, really using the summer to recharge!
How was your school year? What goals do you have for next school year?
¡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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