Every new school year comes with relationship building, routines, defining spaces in our room, and little rituals that we all use to make our classes unique and great for every learner in our communities.
Of course, without needing to go into too much detail, this year is unlike any other and comes with more things to add to our routines. If you are teaching face to face, you will be working on hygiene routines, and if you are teaching remotely you will need to work on norms to be in a virtual class. No matter how we start the school year, we all need to work on making sure that every single student is feeling safe, validated, and extra loved.
I suggest you explore the Responsive Classroom website because it has a wonderful amount of articles and resources that are helpful for the first weeks of school, ideas to build relationships and routines in your classes, and so on. Something that I love about Responsive Classroom (RC) is how it always focuses on phrasing everything with a positive tone and in a simple way for students to understand. Students’ voices are very important in RC, and that’s why teachers who use RC create classroom norms and agreements with their students.
I know many language teachers are eager to start the school year in the target language right away. I have to say that was my approach for many years, but I no longer start my classes in Spanish. This is partly because the school where I teach emphasizes that it’s better to take the time to slow down and work on relationships first to get to know our students and for them to get to know a little about me, too. I truly value this approach and see it as an “investment” in my relationship with my students, rather than a “waste of time,” and as a result, the school year goes smoothly. I can’t say it makes it perfect, but the ride is certainly more pleasant and more connected.
You might want to read these posts where I share tips for the first days of school:
Quick Tip for Starting the Year Off with Distance Teaching
When teaching students online, it comes in handy to have some visuals to help your students figure out what you are asking for. In my experience with online teaching in the spring, I didn’t really have to invest time in relationships, but just to continue to grow them, based on seeds I had planted in person earlier that year. In another sense, though, teaching remotely felt like starting from zero because I needed to add more to the skills that were based on in-person teaching and learning. I found myself drawing quick pictures to remind my students to stay muted or unmute themselves if I couldn’t do it. There were times when I needed to see all my students on camera and to have them raise their hands to participate. This school year feels like the opposite. I will start teaching remotely and am arranging my teaching to account for this, but I have to work extra hard to build relationships, that’s why is so important to start with a kind of short presentation where children can know a little bit about you and find ways to connect with them.
Visuals are key when teaching a language so students can make connections faster, and for that reason, I have prepared this set of cards that you can use with your students. In this case, you will need the physical cards as a quick visual way for your students to understand what you are asking them. That should help during your lessons to remind your students or let them know what they need to do. Click here to download and print them for your classes!
Over the summer I saw so many teachers sharing their Bitmoji classrooms that I had to give it a try. Of course, this is something that is not necessary, but I thought it would be fun to make one. Sometimes it’s these little unnecessary touches that make my work fun!
How Can You Use Bitmoji Classrooms?
First, I think it adds some fun to your virtual class. Even if you are back in the classroom, it will be fun for your students to see. Bitmoji classrooms can be used as:
A way to display your schedule.
A way to greet your classes.
A way to place links you can use during your lesson.
As a choice board for students to use and explore on their own
And many more!
There are so many tutorials on YouTube that it doesn’t make sense for me to recreate the wheel. Here is one video that I think explains the process in simple steps:
Don’t have time to watch the video? Don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. I took some screenshots of the process I went through while creating my virtual classroom;
I opened Google Slides:
I clicked on “Background” to add my first image:
I chose “Insert background image” and clicked on “Choose image”:
I clicked on “Google image search” because I was looking for images on Google. You can also click on any of the other options if you are uploading your images from somewhere else:
In this case, I wanted to look for an image of the “floor and wall background together.” I made sure to search for a picture of a transparent background or a png image:
I clicked on the picture that I liked and hit “Insert”:
I really liked the white walls and colorful floors in this picture!
Next, it was time to add more items to my classroom! It didn’t need to add more background images. (If I’d done that, it would have replaced the ones I already had). I just needed to click on “Insert image” and then choose where I was going to upload it from. (Note that if you don’t have any images yet, you can do a web search. Just remember that you need to look for images with transparent background or png images.):
Next I went “shopping” for a whiteboard:
I found the one I liked, clicked on it, and inserted it into my slide:
My classroom has a whiteboard now! Just follow the same steps to add more exciting things to your classroom.
How to Add a Bitmoji?
You will need to download the Bitmoji chrome extension to your computer and design your own little persona. Once you are ready, on your Google slide, click on the Bitmoji extension and search in the space bar how you want your Bitmoji to look.
Don’t’ have time to create a Bitmoji classroom? Feel free to click on this image, drag it to your computer desktop, open Google Slides, and add this image as a background. Now you are ready to add your own Bitmoji!
I am excited about how Google Slides™, Seesaw, and Boom cards are student-friendly and are so flexible to make different activities interactive. I know many teachers use my song “¿Cuántas manzanas hay?, especially around the fall season. Last year I created some printable resources to go along with this song, and I realized that some of you might not be able to use them due to our current situation, but no problem! I have you covered! I created a freebie using these three platforms and I hope you and your students enjoy them!
If you need to learn how to use Seesaw, I suggest you visit their website where you will be able to find tutorials.
Last, but not least, Google Slides™ are always great to use, especially if you decide to do this activity as a whole group. I find it hard to assign activities through Google Slides™ because they are not friendly for students in second grade and younger.
I hope you have a lot of fun trying all the activities on these three platforms. Don’t forget to let me know how it goes!
I might be going back to the beginning of my teaching career (when I was a teacher traveling from classroom to classroom). I did it for about 8 years in Boston and for a few months in the school where I currently teach due to some renovations.
A few years ago I wrote a post for traveling teachers, but a lot of things have changed since then and now that I am looking into possible options because I might become a traveling teacher again, I thought it might be nice to share with you what I have been exploring.
My experience as a traveling teacher has mostly been using hard tote bags since they can easily stay open. I had the one in the picture (size L) below and I really liked it because it also had pockets inside. As I mentioned in my older post, I used one per grade with duplicate materials.
I also used a collapsible cart to give my shoulders a break. I had to travel between different buildings, so sometimes it was not great when there was snow on the ground, but it was still handy when the weather was nice.
I wish there had been something like the cart below when I was traveling. I like that it has many pockets to hold tiny things like a laser pointer and markers.
In my current job, I had to travel for a few months during my first year, and I had a cart like the one in the picture. To be honest, I used it for about two months because I was not comfortable taking it to other classrooms and it made a lot of noise while I was going from classroom to classroom, so I went back to tote bags.
If I end up traveling from classroom to classroom I think I will keep a tote bag and the awesome rolling cart with organizer set. I think I will carry fewer manipulatives since, due to the current situation, I won’t be doing activities where the children have to pass anything around. I will use Google Slides and other online resources to each and will use the classroom’s projector and keep some flashcards because you can’t trust technology 100%! I will also have a few puppets to bring smiles to my younger students! And yes, since I love telling stories while drawing, that will be one of my most valuable teaching tools!
I will also carry my awesome laser pointer. I can’t live without it! I like this one because it can be charged and I also like the green light.
And we all know that we need to wear face coverings and carry wipes, hand sanitizer, some gloves, our own markers, erasers, a lot of patience and love! If you are a traveling teacher this year, please share in the comments what your plans are!
This is part 2 of the post “Tips for First-Year Teachers.” If you missed it, please make sure to read it here and come back to this post.
Teaching in the Target Language
(From a previous post called “My Journey as a Spanish Teacher”)In 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 I also sent newsletters home, but a lot of the parents apparently still thought that I didn’t know English.
One day, I was approached by a parent, 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.
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 the French and Spanish teachers used some English with their students. At first, I stuck with using only Spanish in class, mostly out of habit, and my desire to push students to use the TL. I started noticing that the other language teachers had really 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.
Children would actually come and sit next to me by the bench on the playground, and we had great conversations, from 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 an interest in their language and culture. Now, keeping my class at 90 to 95 % TL in my classroom continues to be my goal.
Classroom Routines
As I mentioned above, keeping it simple is the best way, at least during your first year. In a regular pre-COVID setting, depending on the students’ level:
End the class by thanking each other, where I say: “Gracias, class”, and students reply: “Gracias, maestra” (ps: I will change to profe this year because maestra doesn’t sound natural to me. In my prior years in Boston, students called me by first name – this is a topic for another post!)
If I have time I do a quick “exit ticket” for the children to line up.
Parents also like to know what’s going on in your classes. Having a monthly newsletter or a website as a routine to communicate with your parents is also a great PR for your program!
Setting Up Your Classroom Norms
Simple is my motto! I think three to five norms accompanied with good visuals are great! I usually have them in Spanish, but I introduce them and discuss them in English with my students. Some teachers like to create their norms along with their students, but I usually go with generally simple rules that are phrased in a positive way. I keep them in front of the room to point at them if I need them as reference. I have experimented with different norms every year, and by far these have worked the best:
You can also piggyback on the norms the homeroom teachers have created for their classrooms.
Join a Language Organization
Stay up to date with professional development by joiningACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages), NNELL (The National Network for Early Language Learning), or yourstate language organization. They usually send newsletters to help you stay abreast of the newest research and methodologies in language teaching. If possible attend national and/or regional conferences. Sometimes it is important to be in the same space sharing with people who care about and to whom it matters what you do.
Be You and Make Time for YOU!
With so many teachers sharing on social media it is inevitable to see ideas and want to bring them to your classroom and expect to get the same results as that teacher who posted on Instagram. To be honest, I have been there too, but the reality is that we never know what’s behind the scenes, so if you see an idea, read it, watch the video and see how you can adapt it to the needs of your students and to the special qualities of your personality and style. Remember that you got hired to do that job because you were the best-qualified teacher for it. So start with trusting in yourself!
Last, but not least, make time for yourself! Start now when you are new, use the weekends to disconnect if you can. Make time to take walks, exercise, or watch your favorite show on your couch. I am telling you this because I have made the mistake to get into the routine of just working, even on the weekends – sometimes to the point that I even forget that I have two kids. These last years I have made it intentional to only bring work home if necessary, and it has made a difference in my classroom. A refreshed teacher gives everyone the best chance for truly engaged students!
Please feel free to contact me if there is anything I can do for you!
