Face to face

I was sitting in the bleachers watching the JV baseball game. Just a couple of rows below me a family of 4 was enjoying watching their older son at bat, but with them in the bleachers were 2 darling children. They were around 5-6 years old, and so well behaved. The little girl had brought her scooter and her bicycle to keep her occupied during the game. She spent the morning zooming down the sidewalk and then checking back in with Mom & Dad to make sure they were watching. When she grew tired of biking, she came back again to her parents, and cuddled close to her mom, under the blankets. (You know how this year's Spring has been!)

What happened next was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing extraordinary, but it gave me pause to re-evaluate how I could be a better teacher. I witnessed the Mother holding her daughter's face between her loving hands, and talking, teasing, and laughing with her daughter. What struck a chord with me was how articulate the 5 year old was. She was having a delightful conversation with her mom: complete sentences, mostly correct grammar, a sense of humor, with a total understanding of everything being said to her! Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing extraordinary. But I know my 1st graders at the end of their first grade year in Spanish Immersion cannot carry on that kind of spontaneous conversation in Spanish.

Because I teach and converse only in Spanish with my students, I often forget how articulate they can be in their first language. It would be fun to hear all of that, but my job is to bring them to this point in their 2nd language. What could I do to help them grow closer to this level of language proficiency? There is no way that I would have time to hold each child close & have such personalized and intimate conversations with each of my 27 students. But maybe, just maybe I could do a better job of utilizing those 27 students to give each other some of that personalized, intimate time.

I'm thinking of those strategies such as "Pair share", "Turn & talk", etc. I use those frequently, but what if I amped that up? What if every time I call on a student to share something, I invite the entire class to respond to that child by repeating, "It's your turn, Suzy". Or if after Suzy speaks, I immediately invite the rest of the class to repeat to their partner just what Suzy said. What if I give Suzy a prompt such as, "I think.......(and she tells what she thinks), but I'd like to hear what Johnny thinks."?  And then Johnny continues the pattern. What if my students always have a partner for whole class time, and every time I give instructions, I break it up into bite-sized pieces, then have one of each of the partners tell the other partner what I just said?  And then we practice asking questions when they don't understand the instructions.

I can imagine this would slow down my morning meeting time a bit, but I'm wondering if after a couple of months I might not have more verbal students, a closer knit group of students, and students who are more independent earlier in the year as a result. I'm wondering if I might be listening to whole stories from my students in the target language by Christmas!  What if I continue this practice, adding in more depth as the year goes on, so that by this time next year, we might be able to experience some of those unincumbered, personalized, intimate conversations just like this little girl at the ballpark? How cool would that be??!!! 

Those are my thoughts today. What do you think? Where are your students in their language development? Where do you want them to be this time next year?

Wishing us all more face to face time,

Sheryl René