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!