Over the past few years, I’ve been working to create more inclusive and considerate expectations for my students, ensuring that everyone’s needs are respected. Additionally, I’ve been mindful not to impose any ableist or overly controlling standards that could negatively impact their well-being. An excellent post by the Neurodivergent Teacher on Facebook provides concrete examples of this. The idea is to keep the expectations simple and avoid language such as “keep your eyes on the teacher” or “sit criss-cross applesauce.” Additionally, I have purposely moved away from using the word “reglas” since it might sound like something imposed. Instead, I use “expectativas,” which is similar and easier for my students to understand.
As a teacher who only interacts with my students once or twice a week, I need to keep things simple. These are our classroom expectations:
Respecto
Bondad
Español
To foster a positive and proactive learning environment, I use the Responsive Classroom approach to engage in open discussions about each expectation, encouraging students to share real-life scenarios that illustrate the importance of these guidelines. To reinforce understanding, we model each expectation through role-playing, followed by further discussions. All of this happens in the common language, supported by visuals in the target language. Each expectation is also accompanied by TPR. After introducing each expectation and talking about it in the common language, we transition to and support each of them in the target language. I see the use of the common language to talk about expectations and agreements at the beginning of the year as an investment in classroom community.
Respecto and bondad are words that are significant and need specific examples, so we discuss them and give different examples of how they should look in our class. Additionally, español is included there, but as a teacher of novice learners, I understand that my students won’t have the language to communicate some of their needs most of the time, so we have a signal to mark when we need to use English in class. We simply show a letter “T” for time in the other language, and sometimes students in my first through 3rd-grade class accompany me with the phrase ¿Puedo hablar inglés? This is just to mark a space for the other language in our class.
Furthermore, I believe in the power of classroom agreements made by students and teachers in their respective classes. I take pictures of these agreements and incorporate them into the slides I use for my classes too! By doing so, I emphasize that these agreements apply equally in my class, fostering continuity and reinforcing a sense of community. And since my time with my students is limited, this saves me some time.
Throughout our time together, I keep the expectations displayed on the board, ensuring they remain visible and accessible to students. This way, we can refer back to them whenever necessary, promoting accountability and maintaining a positive learning environment.
Here are some helpful suggestions to reinforce expectations in the target language:
Keep them short and simple.
Frame them in a positive way.
Accompany each of them with a visual.
Use TPR to represent each of them.
Make sure there is a manageable number that your students can remember.
Building a strong classroom community is based on clear expectations and agreements. This fosters collaboration, respect, and values each student’s voice. Taking the time to work on classroom expectations and agreements at the beginning of the year is an investment. It brings many benefits and helps the class throughout the entire year!
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!
