Last Minute Changes

I teach two sections of the same class and for better of for worse, I often make adjustments to my lesson plan for the second class based on what didn't go as I hoped in the first.  Yesterday, the first day back from Thanksgiving,  we were starting a new unit.  The first thing we did was to talk about what the date was and then draw a calendar on the board so that kids could get a good look at the time they have between now and the final exams in January.  This is a great warm up for kids because the have a good handle on days of the week and numbers and thing like "Navidad" can be explained by singing a few seconds of "Feliz Navidad".  I was reminded of the value of spending some time on this time management activity when a student said, earnestly, "We have exams after break?"  Then the sophomores or juniors had a quick chance (in English) to talk about exam period, conference day, all the ins and outs of this time of year.  It is a good opportunity for the upperclassmen to demonstrate leadership in the classroom.

Then we were looking at some new vocabulary about things we like to do for fun.  Coming back from break is a great opportunity to talk about this.  So we talked about "Mi restaurante favorito es. . . " and "Mi película favorita es. . . "  Then with that understanding the could catch on to the drawings of the place vocabulary (restaurante, café, cine, etc. . .).   But in my first group,  they were a little flat at this point; too much going from kid to kid and teacher directed repetition.  By the time we were doing some activities as a class I found myself cold calling a kid who wasn't paying attention just to "catch" him.  (I apologized to him after class-- felt terrible.)

So for the second class I tried to get them out of their seats more, duh.  After doing the calendar warm-up, I had them break into groups and draw the different places on the board.  Then as a class we talked about each one, with some prompts

• ¿Qué haces en un resturante?  Yo como. 
• ¿Qué es tu restaurante favorito? In and Out es mi resturante favorito. etc. . .

When they all had a chance to say something in this structured setting (I think all of them?) we turned it into a game.  We broke the class into 4 groups and then I described a situation (all in Spanish, of course) and they had to send a runner to the "place" that was drawn on the board where the situation was taking place and the first team to slap the "place" got a point.  It was a way better way of engaging with the material and they got practice listening for key words or cognates that would give them a sense of meaning.

Guess I will try this in my first class today.

The Holiday Rush on Learning

At my school, we have a semester system with two semesters of perfectly equal length.  One of them begins in August and ends with final exams in January.  This system, with final exams falling after the Winter Break has taken some getting used to for me.  It makes the time between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks different than my academic experiences.  It was always a time of rushed work, stressful tests, racing to get to that endpoint when I drop it all and then headed off to vacation.  That "freedom" was a joy of the vacation. 

But here, we calmly re-enter academic life after  a four day weekend of giving thanks.  Then, we have three full weeks of classes.  They are "normal", the pace is not hurried (or any more so than usual). When we break again the students are not given permission to drop it all, as they have tests to prepare for in January about a week after their return. 

In the past, I have tended to grumble about this thinking that the kids need a break, they need to go out and be kids over the vacation.  But the more I learn about teaching and learning, the more I think maybe it is a good thing that they are held accountable for their learning up to and through the holidays.  If we hope that what we teach is enduring and transferable, shouldn't they be able to communicate all that they have learned since August in January with little or not attention to it over the break? Yes!

Coming Soon:  What does this mean for Final Exams?  What should they look like in this set-up?  Does it nudge us to make them more meaningful?  (I think so!)