Making it to the finish line

I attended a TPRS workshop presented by Laurie Clarcq in DC on Thursday (thank you Lea & Sidwell Friends!) and came away with a lot of ideas on how to make it through these last 4 weeks without giving up on CI. Here are a few:

1) Word of the day: assign one student to say a specific new expression every time you point to him/her (I've just been doing the usual “p-e-e-ero” or “Quién means who”). I have a couple of 2nd grade boys who can’t seem to stay focused and this is just the ticket for bringing them back to attention.

2) Quick acting gigs: Have two kids pop up just to act out one sentence, such as “Juan gives the milk to Mamá.” My classes love to act, and I always get bogged down in major productions, rather than these delightful little pop-up acting opportunities. Plenty for everybody to do, and easier for me to keep track of who’s had a turn.

3) Making students complicit in restoring order: as you are waiting for silence, look around the room, make eye contact with every student.

4) We need to communicate to the students that *they* are the most important thing, not the language.

5) Provide short opportunities for output with well-practiced language: Turn to your neighbor and tell her that Juan and Mamá live in a purple house. Now answer back that the cow lives in the purple house too.

6) Don’t forget to give students credit for *recognizing* language, even if they don’t remember what it means.

7) Write several expressions on the board and don’t talk about all of them, but see if any students figure out the unmentioned ones and use them, then praise them for being so smart, thereby motivating others to notice what’s on the board.

And now I just read Ben Slavic’s blog with his reminder to BE CHEERFUL. It sounds so easy and I know it works every time, but I just keep forgetting and letting the kids get under my skin. I have 17 more days of teaching this year. I will go slower, be cheerier, engage my students more consistently, and know that if it isn’t perfect this time around, there’s always next year! That’s the best part about teaching.