The first few weeks of school are finally over and I am relieved to have found my groove again. I am a really socially awkward person so meeting 150 new people in one day can be a lot for my social battery. I love my students and I am really impressed with their maturity level at the moment. Key words: at the moment. Thank you to their middle school teachers last year for absolutely shaping them into the humans they currently are. They really did a great job with this group.
I am teaching Spanish 1 this year alongside my coworker, Jennifer. Jen and I are really making a great team and are striving to be consistent with this group so we can help out the Spanish 2 teachers next year. One of my least favorite things about teaching Spanish 2 was if the Spanish 1 teachers did totally different things and topics. Everyone learns at a different pace but having some form of consistency really does make it easier on the future teacher. We are focused on collecting HQSD (High-quality student data) this year and finding the best ways we can do that.
Jen and I kicked the year off by doing the SOMOS 1 UNIT 1 activities and the song “Los pollitos dicen” with our kids. We are using SOMOS and VOCES this year and I am starting to LOVE having VOCES as a resource. VOCES is made by Teacher’s Discovery and the activities and grades sync with Schoology so it ends up saving HOURS. It is also 100% customizable when it comes to editing and creating your own activities in their platform. That is pretty unheard of and I am excited to utilize it more this year.
We are focusing on greetings, introductions, and a few other common phrases that will help our learners be successful moving forward. Also, we are targeting numbers 0-30 by teaching phone numbers and listening for those numbers in commercials. The most attractive thing about VOCES is the amount of authentic resources they provide. The options are really endless with this program.
At the OFLA conference, I learned from Donna Tatum Johns about ways to add more games into the classroom on day 1. We played a game that she calls “Stuffies” because it is played with stuffed animals. Students stand in a circle and they have to say the name of the person across from them and throw the stuffed animal to that person. That person says the name of a new person and the cycle continues. Where it gets fun is that the first person who started will get another stuffed animal and the goal is to create a pattern and keep all stuffed animals going. If someone drops it, everyone has to start over. We played this for the first few days to learn names and it was a hit.
Another activity that I really enjoyed doing was introducing SO MANY KIDS to Blooket. Blooket is a staple in my classroom and we play it often to review vocabulary. I was sure that they would have played in Middle School but I was really surprised to find that half of my students had never played.
This upcoming week, I am excited to do some listening activities with numbers and play some Pictionary with them. I will say that I wished I would have done a few more interactive activities with them before jumping into content. I loved the suggestions that Profe. Zulita gave on her blog about her first few days in Spanish 1. Jen and I opted to wait on doing a cognate unit until after doing some greetings/expressions and I already know that I want to change that next year. We are jumping into her cognate resources very soon!
Right as the school year started, I decided to actually post products for purchase on my TPT store. This has always been an on-going mental battle for me because I love giving things to teachers for free but free doesn’t pay the bills. I really want to pursue my blog and craft more but in order to do that, I have to somehow make money to pay for all of the things to keep my website going. So, I settled on posting on TPT and figured that if people want to, they will buy. I teased my first product, a Can-Do Statement Tracker, on Twitter to test the waters and see if anyone was actually interested in it. I was SHOCKED that 22 people have purchased my first product so far. This Can-Do Statement tracker is 100% editable and allows learners to track their progress towards meeting Can-Do Statements. I also will be using these to guide my small groups later on in the year to target the specific areas where my students need help or where I can continue to push them further beyond the current Can-Do. I will collect these before the chapter test to get an understanding of where everyone is and I am also excited to see if their ratings match their perfomance on the test. I will NEVER take these for a grade and I will always give students the opportunity to retake tests and quizzes. I am most excited for them to go back to previous Can-Do trackers for previous units and fill them in after the fact if they acquired/met the target after the unit was over. I want them to see that language learning is a process and just because we do something in August doesn’t mean it won’t impact us in October. You can check out my Can-Do Statement Tracker here!
My other exciting product that I am STOKED to turn into a bundle is my Interpersonal Speaking A/B activities. This specific one targets sharing phone numbers and birthdays. A/B activities are something I learned about when flipping through a really old file of papers that were left in my first classroom. There was an activity where students partnered up and needed to work together to create a cohesive list of school supplies that were being donated to a school. Person A has the answers to the question person B has and vice versa. These are going to be a unit staple in my classroom this year because I value interpersonal speaking as early on as their affect level allows.
CI classrooms and some curriculums do not put an emphasis on speaking early on because students are still processing the input. I totally understand this and that is why I always check the affective filter level of my kids on a topic before assigning this. What does that mean? That means that if I know a student is absolutely terrified to speak Spanish and couldn’t do this activity, they are not going to be forced to do it. They will have a chance to speak with me or maybe just go in the hall and do their part on their own in an environment that they are comfortable in. If they really just are not ready, they can complete the activity as part A and B as a writing assignment.
You might be wondering why I am so concerned with them speaking at all. Well, truthfully, it’s a standard in my state and it is something I do value. In my first few years, someone from a university came in and conducted a survey with my students. The NUMBER ONE thing that they said is that they wished I asked them to practice speaking Spanish MORE!!!!!! THE STUDENTS WANT TO SPEAK (usually), so I provide those opportunities in the safest environment that I can. Hoping off this soap box now but I am really passionate about this…..
I am excited to continue my work with Jen on building our units this year with our new curriculum and that is my main focus this year. I have a few exciting posts up my sleeve for this platform that include diving deeper into my Interpersonal Speaking activities and my interpretive activities. I spoke at OFLA this summer and I had a huge response for more in-depth explanations on how to teach interpretive strategies to learners. In September, I will be speaking virtually with STaRLT on September 29th on Interpretive Activities. Most importantly, I AM GOING TO SPAIN!!!!!!!! My husband and I are finally taking our much awaited Madrid trip in October! I will be vlogging my trip on Instagram so make sure you are following along there for Spain updates. Thank you for reading and I will see you next time back here for another post!
