My students are knee-deep in their next project and this one is MAJOR. I said the “Spanish How-To Demonstration” was my most ambitious project to-date... but I’m sure this one will steal that title rather quickly.
They have spent a week and a half planning lessons, gathering visuals, making up songs, and copying worksheets… and beginning on Monday they will head over to the Lonoke Elementary School and teach these lessons to real-live little Lonoke kiddos!
I’ll surely be posting numerous photos of this week-long endeavor. It’s going to be absolutely fabulous. On so many levels.
Let’s start with the obvious…
1. They’re going to be doing the teaching instead of me! Holla! They’re going to get a taste of what’s its like to be the one up front. The one who doesn’t necessarily want to sing in front of twenty “too-cool” kids, but cares more about the students’ learning than his/her own personal dignity.
2. They are getting valuable review over all the Spanish concepts they’ve chosen to teach. I can’t tell you how many students have had to re-learn weather expressions, time expressions, “gustar” expressions, numbers, animals… you name it… just so they’ll be prepared to teach those concepts to someone else. Teaching really is the best way to firm up your own knowledge… I should know.
3. These kids they teach are going to have a BALL! They’re going to LOVE it. And that will be such an encouragement to my students.
4. My students have had to work very hard to learn responsibility throughout all this. They have had to be here for planning. They will have to be present to earn their grade for teaching week. They are driving themselves to their assigned classroom, and they alone will be keeping the ball rolling. They are required to not only teach their students, but assess what they’ve learned. No excuses, no weak links. They’ve had to work under a deadline where there are actual consequences that can be felt! I’ve seen people really step up to the plate this week. And I’ve seen those who haven’t stepped up get a lot of disappointed groups members… and THEN they’ve stepped up.
5. Non-participation is NOT an option. I try to make this a general practice in my classroom every day, but still it happens. For this project, each group member has a clearly defined teaching roll spelled out in their written plans. Today I watched as one group rehearsed... and I saw Carlos (Spanish name), a student whose personal goal is to be “going to the bathroom” for as much of my class as possible, practicing how he was going to greet the 1st graders on day one. “¡¡¡Hola Amigos!!!” I wanted to melt. He may not love Spanish, he may not love me… but he does love kids and he’s going to do great with them.
6. They’re seeing just how much prep work goes into something like teaching a lesson. You can’t just put “Teach animals” on your paper and expect it to take you ten minutes. You have to prepare specific animals to present, visuals to enhance the ideas, methods to assess whether the kids got it. You have to give yourself a fall-back activity if/when your 30-minute lesson only takes you 12. And you can’t just “say” the material to the kids. You have to tell them, show them, involve them, have them say it to you, have them say it to a friend. I love watching my students as their brains finally grasp this concept… a good teacher works hard ahead of time.
Can’t wait to post some shots of the action!
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