Week 3 3/20-3/24: Starting off on the right foot!

Last week was filled with a lot. I started of the week Monday by taking my content area praxis test, glad to have gotten that out of the way! Tuesday was my first day back and it went well. Over break I created a playlist (with help from Faby) from which I chose a song for each day I will be in the classroom. The song plays before each class starts during passing period. As students walk in they are able to look to the board and follow along with the lyrics or just listen to it. Songs typically run from 3 to 5 minutes, and they know that once the song ends it is time to start class.

In choosing the songs I decided to carefully select a large array of artists from the many Spanish speaking countries. I printed a copy of the list of songs and posted it to the door so students are able to look ahead to see what songs will be playing for the week. Along with the date, name of song and artist I included a little blurb that tells the students where the artist is from. This is a good way to bring authentic material (culture) into the classroom and set classroom procedures.

So far it has been engaging and sets the mood for the day. It is great to see students come into class saying “I know this song!” and the couple brave ones that sing along! I already have a song request for April’s playlist and have had a student try to convince us to have the music play during the first five minutes of class. His argument revolved around the idea that listening to the songs at the beginning of class would help him learn new vocab and to retain past vocab. Although compelling, both my CT and I agreed that would not be likely to happen!

Week 3/6-3/10 Songs, Excitement, and More!

I have three sections of Spanish II and three sections of Spanish III. For most of last week and the beginning of this week I had been primarily working with my Spanish II classes. I had not addressed the whole class (Spanish III class) since the first couple of days of my placement. I had been greeting them as they came in at the beginning of class and saying goodbye, so on Tuesday when I began class and helped correct homework they were super excited! This level of excitement was not something that I was expecting from my high school students, it was great! My CT told me later in the day that there had been a couple Spanish III students that had asked “When is Srta. Angulo talking to us again?” Since Tuesday, I have been involved more and more with both classes and have lead for the majority of class time.  

For the most part they seem to be excited to hear someone else speak Spanish. My CT has mentioned that the only Spanish they hear is from the audio activities and herself. Having me in the classroom has exposed them to another Spanish voice. This is significant to me because part of my philosophy of foreign language is that students should be exposed to as much auditory input as possible. Therefore, I try to use the least amount of English as possible.

One of the activity that I created included listening to a Spanish Pop song. They were to listen to the song and fill in the blanks in the lyrics. As soon as the song started they all looked startled, and in disbelief that they would be able to catch all the words. I assured them that it was fine, and that I knew they could do it! As the song went on I was able see the students tapping their feet or bobbing their heads to the beat of the music—they were enjoying it J After listening to the song twice we went over the lyrics to make sure they had them down correctly. I then used the lyrics as an opportunity to include grammar (I had them conjugate verbs that were are working on). This was really fun for me, and the students really enjoyed it.  Also, my CT really liked it and I shared it with another Spanish teacher in the building who said she liked it and might use it in her classroom!

Week One (2/27-3/3) Hola!

First week of our second placement is almost over and it has definitely been an interesting transition for me. For starters, I have transitioned from seventh grade social studies to high school Spanish.  Class goes at a much different pace. It goes faster when it comes to directions, and we are always changing from one activity to the next. It is not unusual if we do four or more activities in on class period. I am also getting used to the size of the school—just in the Spanish department there are eight Spanish teachers! Another difference from 7^th grade to high school has been the level of energy. In 7^th grade I was constantly trying to meet their energy, in high school energy gets focused on getting them to be energetic and not just sit there.  

I’ve started taking attendance (hopefully this helps me learn ALL the names) and I am also getting the “power school 101 crash course”. Entering grades and figuring out all the tricks has been very useful, but I have seen how time consuming it is—definitely not one of the fun things to do in teaching. I been able to get involved here and there with some vocab practice and today with introducing a new grammar concept. I am looking forward to next week when I start doing a bit more in the class.