After 2 weeks in my school, I've decided that I got so lucky with my cooperating teacher. She basically told me that for my first lesson I could have free reign and do whatever I want (obviously she gave me the vocab and the timeline of the next week). Not only that, but she's told me on numerous occasions that she'd love to hear any ideas I have for anything she's doing or that might come up. She also sends me back to school with new papers, copies of quizes/activities/tests, booklets, catalogues for supplies, mad-libs books, and readers (which was today's little gift, scholastic readers in Spanish that read like regular magazines) that I could use in the future. She's just so willing to share everything she has with me along with asking me for ideas, which makes it feel more like collaborative relationship as opposed to teacher/college kid.
I also love my classes. The students are so unique it's insane. Their interests are all over the map, and so are their styles, but they all seem to get along. Sure there are little groups, but no one seems to hate or not be able to tolerate anyone else. One girl, who I've taken to calling 80's Girl, always has big hair (dyed pink and blue at the ends), intense make up, and really awesome outfits right out of a Brat Pack movie. She appears like she'd be really intimidating, sort of rough around the edges. Yet the two she hangs out with before and during class are the nerdy boy who has a backpack the size of his body and a girl who I know participates in a lot of school sports. And they're not the only cases like that, either. All three sections have cool, mixed groups like this.
Hopefully the whole school is like this, not just the parts I see!
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Who needs a secret language?
So on Wednesday I finally started my junior field experience at a not so local high school (it's almost a 40 minute drive, which is super fun at 6 in the morning...), and I love it! I see 3 Spanish II classes while I'm there, and while seeing the same lesson taught three times in a row isn't exactly fun, it's really going to give me the chance to compare the dynamics, students, and different working styles during the classes. Even though I've only been there for a few days I'm already seeing how different the sets of students really are.
But that's not the reason I wanted to post. I just wanted to share a quick little story aboutbeing bilingual reason number 472 why it's awesome to know another language.
My co-op (cooperating teacher, or mentor teacher) came up to me yesterday while the students were working in pairs to make signs for the upcoming market day and started speaking to me in Spanish. I was a little confused since we always had spoken in English, but I went with it since I grab any chance I can to practice. But then I realized why she did. She was pointing out a pair of students to me and was making one of those "they're so going to get married when they're older" comments (which I completely agree with by the way, you could see it just by watching them interact for a couple minutes). It's not like she hid it because she was saying anything bad, it was just not one of those things that you generally talk about within earshot of students.
And then I realized just how cool that moment really was. Instead of having to stand in the corner and whisper or waiting until after class, we got to make our "aw how cute!" comments and move on all while keeping an eye on the students and talking at a normal volume. There's so much freedom!
Now that's not to say that I think foreign language teachers (or anyone who speaks another language for that matter) should use their knowledge to talk about others while they're in the room. But there are so many times this could be useful for teachers, from discussing tests to disaster drills; anything that would normally be kept to hushed discussions in the back of the room, emails, and those phone calls that are taken in the hallway behind the closed door (which we've all seen a teacher do at least once in our school careers). The way I see it, you can still keep an eye on your class while taking less time to pass along semi-private information. Sure you still get the nosy student questions like, "what did you talk about?" or "what's going on??" but when do those ever actually go away?
Who knows, maybe I'm just getting really excited over something little and seeing a big exciting revelation in a 30 second conversation. Or maybe I just found another response to use when someone looks at me and says, "I just don't get the point of trying to learn a second language."
And yes, I do get that comment. Way more frequently than I would like to.
But that's not the reason I wanted to post. I just wanted to share a quick little story about
My co-op (cooperating teacher, or mentor teacher) came up to me yesterday while the students were working in pairs to make signs for the upcoming market day and started speaking to me in Spanish. I was a little confused since we always had spoken in English, but I went with it since I grab any chance I can to practice. But then I realized why she did. She was pointing out a pair of students to me and was making one of those "they're so going to get married when they're older" comments (which I completely agree with by the way, you could see it just by watching them interact for a couple minutes). It's not like she hid it because she was saying anything bad, it was just not one of those things that you generally talk about within earshot of students.
And then I realized just how cool that moment really was. Instead of having to stand in the corner and whisper or waiting until after class, we got to make our "aw how cute!" comments and move on all while keeping an eye on the students and talking at a normal volume. There's so much freedom!
Now that's not to say that I think foreign language teachers (or anyone who speaks another language for that matter) should use their knowledge to talk about others while they're in the room. But there are so many times this could be useful for teachers, from discussing tests to disaster drills; anything that would normally be kept to hushed discussions in the back of the room, emails, and those phone calls that are taken in the hallway behind the closed door (which we've all seen a teacher do at least once in our school careers). The way I see it, you can still keep an eye on your class while taking less time to pass along semi-private information. Sure you still get the nosy student questions like, "what did you talk about?" or "what's going on??" but when do those ever actually go away?
Who knows, maybe I'm just getting really excited over something little and seeing a big exciting revelation in a 30 second conversation. Or maybe I just found another response to use when someone looks at me and says, "I just don't get the point of trying to learn a second language."
And yes, I do get that comment. Way more frequently than I would like to.
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