A few months ago I shared an ice-breaker activity to help students warm up after returning from winter break. It turns out that this activity can also be used as one to close the school year. It’s a great activity to get everyone moving, using the language, and talking about plans for the summer break.
This activity is set up as an interview. Students have to move around the room asking different classmates about their future plans. I usually give them five to ten minutes to complete the activity. My rules are that they need to use Spanish and need to find one person per box.
At the end of the activity, you can count and see which student got the most names. You can also graph the activities to identify the most popular summer plan.
Yes! Another school year has ended, and now it’s time to reflect upon on it. I have always been good about writing a list OF reflections at the end of the school year, thinking about what worked or what didn’t, what I need to continue working on, and what I will keep doing in the new school year. However, since it’s essentially a note to myself, I rarely benefit from anyone else’s experiences (something I value highly!) and I often lose the list during the relaxation and shuffle / travel of the summer. This year I decided to use my blog as an open forum to reflect on my school year. I know it will always be here (unless Blogger shuts down!) so I can come to back to it when I need it. I have also saved a copy in Google Drive, something I suggest you can use to safely store your reflections too! This document can also be used as a reference to set your goals for the new school year.
Teaching in the Target Language
As a native speaker, I find it an easy task staying in the target language (TL) and keeping my instruction at the proficiency level of my students. I come from teaching in a FLES programs where we were required to stay 100% in the TL, to the point that my students thought that I couldn’t speak English. Yes, the children were trying harder to communicate with me in the TL, but there was more to it than that. Once I moved to a different school, the policies about teaching 100% in the TL changed. That was when I realized that I had been missing an opportunity to connect with my students and get to know a little bit more about them. It was okay for them to use their L1 to communicate with me during recess time. I feel that because I am a native speaker, they need to know that I am bilingual and that I also have interest in their language and culture. Keeping my class at 90 to 95 % TL in my classroom continues to be my goal.
Whole Brain Teaching
This was my first full year using WBT. As a result I feel that my students were more engaged, and I spent less time focusing on discipline issues in my class. Due to the limited amount of time I have with my students I only use level 1 in WBT, which involves these steps: 1. Five Classroom Rules 2. Teach OK 3. Attention Getters 4. Scoreboard 5. Hands and Eyes 6. Mirror 7. Switch I will need to be more consistent in using the steps and definitely need a wider variety of “Attention Getters” in Spanish. If you use WBT, please share your Attention Getters with me! Also if you would like to try WBT next year, here is a link to the visuals in Spanish.
Reward System
I use the WBT Scoreboard system for the whole group. I use the “pesos system” for individual participation. If a student challenges himself/herself to stay in the target language, they would get a copy of a printed peso to keep in their billeteras (a paper craft made at the beginning of the year). There were three opportunities for the children to use their play pesos to buy from my “tienda”. The tienda was filled with pesos, stickers and erasers. We got to practice sentences such as “¿Cuánto cuesta?,” “yo quiero un lápiz,” or “deme un lápiz, por favor.”
The “pesos system” got a little bit messy by the middle of the school year when students started to lose their pesos and billeteras, and, as a result, a lot of feelings of frustration were in the air. I have to find a better way to keep track of their points which translate into participation using the TL during class.
Interactive Notebooks
When using Interactive Notebooks, it needs to be clear that if you let your elementary students do this alone, they will take a lot time on it! This is my third year using Interactive Notebooks, and I sometimes forget about this. It is also necessary to put the samples together in advanced to have a visual to show to your students so they know what the final outcome will be. It is also important to be sure that the activity is at the level of your students. Something that has worked for me is to do activities with my students at the same time, making sure that they don’t get behind and always leave coloring for the end. Don’t use liquid glue – don’t even have it in the classroom because I learned the hard way this year when one of my students spilled glue all over his notebook. Glue sticks are the best! What I really love about Interactive Notebooks is that at the end of the school year students have a resource to take home to practice during the summer. I didn’t use them a lot this year, which I regret a lot because the excitement about this in past years has been great!
Flipped Classroom
I started my school year strong on this, making videos for my students and sending communication with families about it. I teach at the elementary level, and the success of this really depends on how involved and available parents are to be able to sit with their kids. I might give it one more try in the new school year, but not keeping it as my priority goal.
Culture
I have to confess that one of my biggest fears is passing down stereotypes of other cultures to my students. Remember that I have reserved 5 to 10% of the L1 to use in the classroom when needed. On the issue of culture is where I give myself permission to use the L1 in class, especially to clarify any messages that can come across as stereotypes. I know some teachers have an strong opinion about doing this completely in the TL, but I do have to confess that I feel better if I allow room for using the L1 to clarify and maybe have deeper conversations about other cultures. That’s what has worked for me so far!
I incorporated some “light” use of the culture into my daily routine comparing the weather and temperature in different Spanish countries and sometimes even calling my mom in Colombia to allow my students to have basic conversations with her, and they loved it! I still have to work on stepping out of my comfort zone to share with my students more about cultures other than Colombia and Mexico.
Communication with Parents
I used a website hosted on Haiku, but because it was password protected it made it hard for some parents to access it during their busy routines. My goal was to get rid of paper newsletters, and I did, but the password protected site wasn’t helpful this year. I have heard of other teachers using Instagram and other social media outlets to share with parents while still protecting the privacy of their students. I might look into it and decide on what to use next year. I am open to any suggestions you might have, so please share them with me in the comment box!
What Am I excited About?
After 15 years of being in Boston (which is also the total of years I have been in the US) and 7 years of teaching at the same school, my family and I will be relocating to Austin, TX this summer. I will be teaching in grades K-5 at an elementary school, so I am excited to be working with a wider range of groups. I was the only PreK-3 Spanish teacher in the school I was teaching at in Boston, and now I will be part of a team of two more teachers teaching the same grades! How sweet is that?! I am excited to have more companeras.
This summer I will be attending the iFLT conference in Tennessee for the first time, and although I already use TPR I can’t wait to take it further and start with TPRS!
How did your school year go? What are you plans for the summer? Any goal for the new school year yet?
Yes! I can’t believe we are already talking about the end of the school year. It’s that time when we all are having a hard time concentrating and ready for the break. Here are some ideas that you might find helpful. Just click on the pictures to take you to the correct link. 1. Get ready for the fall with this project for Hispanic Heritage Month.
2. Make paper Molas to decorate your classroom or display around your school.
3. Learn about the beautiful quetzal bird and make a simple craft.
4. Teach about Frida Kahlo and visit her house in Coyoacán with this resource.
Using puppets in a world language class is a great way to create a fun space for children to explore a new language because they are engaged with the puppet rather than focused on the perfect use of the language. Younger children enjoy puppet shows that are run by the teacher. In older graders puppet shows can be used as a tool for students to own and use the language, a tool that gives space for creativity in the target language. Here is a sample of a project I did with my third graders. They have Spanish twice a week for a 40-minute period each time. It’s almost the end of the school year and I wanted to assign them an activity in which they could use the language. This also can be used as an assessment tool or something to share with parents. We worked on the puppet together, and we used about 25 minutes in class to make them. Children colored the puppets, cut them out, and added the legs using string and clay for the feet to make them heavy. See the steps below:
The final result! A happy wiggly puppet!
Then came writing their own dialogue. This step was the most challenging for them. I asked them to work in pairs and create a brief script using some of the language we have done this year. The only directions I gave were 1) Make sure it includes a greeting, 2) Have fun creating the script, and 3) Include a farewell.
This was done by third graders. We focus a lot on the oral part at this level and writing is minimum. I anticipated that some of them were going to complain about not knowing how to spell the words. I let them know that it was perfectly fine to make mistakes. Here is a sample of one of the scripts – click on it to make bigger:
After working on the dialogue, they took time to practice with their pairs. Once they felt ready, I recorded their videos using a green screen as a background. I edited the video with an app called Green Screen by DoInk. The green background was replaced with a picture of a street in Cartagena, Colombia. Here is a short excerpt from the video:
I put all the projects of my students in one video, and they enjoyed watching it together. Projects like this can be used as PR (public relations) with families.
Grab your free “monstruos” and get ready for the show!
Enjoy,
WELCOME
¡Hola! I'm Carolina, a Colombian Spanish teacher with over 20 years of experience. I'm here to support you on your journey as a language educator!
