Time management (inside and outside the classroom)

Since I have a two hour layover at the airport I figured I would put my free time to good use rather than wasting my life sitting at my departure gate.

What am I doing? Grading exams (and planning for the next two weeks).

What's conjugation?

We learned how to modify verbs in Spanish depending on who we are talking about. 

If you still don't know how to conjugate present tense verbs that end in -ar after multiple modes of presentation, you are beyond the teacher's reach. 

1st try: visual + auditory

Check out the awesome video

2nd try: traditional (some people like the no frills approach)

3rd try: kinesthetic (you made a foldable on neon green paper and stapled it into your interactive notebook)

OUTSIDE

INSIDE

I don't remember Spanish being this exciting when I was in high school.

Riding the struggle bus

How do we improve teacher attendance?
I always laugh when I see this question posed in faculty meetings or in education leadership circles. Why? We should ask a different question; why are teachers absent so much?

Excessive teacher absences

Sure the odd teacher has a chronic health condition that requires frequent absences for medical attention, but this does not apply to the rest of us able bodied teachers. 

Why are teachers absent so much i.e. more than 10 days each year (in priority schools)?

1. We need a break from being a teacher, mentor, counselor, parent, psychologist, interventionist, corrections officer, zoo keeper, and/or life coach
2. We need a day of peace and reflection
3. We need a day to catch up on paperwork (for the extremely dedicated few)

Frequently asked questions 2.0

It always warms my heart when my students are hard at work either independently or in groups, and they raise their hands to ask a question. What is less pleasant is the nature of the questions since they are completely unrelated to the work in front of them.

1. Miss, how long your hair is?
2. Is that all your hair?
3. How long you been natural?
4. Is you gon' flat iron out your hair?
5. Miss, where you from?
6. You from Chicago, ain't it? (nah, she from New York)
7. Miss, is you mixed?

At least I inspire curiosity in the classroom. 

"Is we gon' had to presentate this?"

It never ceases to amaze me how my kids want to act up and show out in front of their friends. They will do anything for attention which may include anything from being loud, wearing revealing clothing, being disruptive in class and in the hallway, refusing to do work, and open defiance in the classroom.

Given that they love to be the center of attention, you would think that that they would enjoy being the center of attention by presenting their work in front of the class. This was NOT the case when they had to present a basic greetings and introductions comic strip that they created.

Sample comic strip

When it came time to present, one of my boldest attention seekers was clearly opposed as he raised his hand and asked, "Is we gon' had to presentate this?"

Increasing student engagement without over engaging my free time

This year I try to keep students engaged without spending hours planning a fun activity that may or may not work out. I thought of the easiest review game ever after I was forced not to do my modified version of the fly swatter game when the poster machine broke one morning. It took me all of two minutes to think of the game and ten minutes to get the supporting materials together.

Modified Fly Swatter Game

I let students pick a partner. Each pair gets an answer board with scrambled phrases in the target language. I call out a number and translation of one of the phrases on their answer board. Students work with their partner to write the correct number beside the phrase on their answer board. The group that gets the most correct wins a prize. 

Why is this review game awesome?

1. Students are engaged

2. Students are quiet (they don’t want neighboring groups to steal their answers)

3. Students are practicing listening

4. I can easily assess listening comprehension

"Is we doin' work today?"

I never knew kids could be so lazy until I started teaching. Last year when I taught a state tested subject, I kind of understood why they complained about doing so much work. This year I teach an elective; Spanish 1. Just to be clear, this is Spanish for kids who have NEVER taken a foreign language class in their lives.

This means we're learning things like the ABCs, days of the week, numbers, weather, classes, and colors. You are officially the laziest person on earth if you think learning the ABCs in Spanish is too much work. We even watched a video and sang a song!