It is difficult to believe that we've reached the mid-point of August. As I shared in my previous blog post, we as educators are slowly embarking on a new journey of a non-traditional school year. This is a time of unprecedented stress and anxiety for all.
Due to the fact that many of us still do not know whether or not we will be teaching our students in a hybrid or fully virtual format, I started to take a look at my previous activities and think about how to make them fully digital. I felt that this would prepare me for any teaching scenario or circumstance, as I started to wonder how I should start off this non-traditional school year. What should the first few days look like?
This brings me to one of my favorite "first week of school" activities with Spanish 1: Welcome Stations. Rather than kicking off the school year with a day of rules and procedures, I always strive to make my students feel welcomed. I want to engage them as much as possible to start off on a positive, upbeat note. In the past, on the first or second day of school, I would break students up into groups and have them participate in these station activities in small groups (To read about how I traditionally incorporated station rotations in my classes at all levels, click here https://www.edutopia.org/article/station-rotation-world-language-classes). This year, the execution will be a little bit different. Students will not be walking around the classroom in groups; instead, they will be completing these digital stations online.
For a hybrid or virtual setting, I would start off by preparing a Google Doc or Google Slide. I would then outline each digital station activity, and can hyperlink them if needed for students to easily access. In addition, it's important to share that with a level 1 class, while I do provide some words/phrases/sentence starters in the target language, my main focus of the Welcome Stations is to build relationships with my students, and to learn more about them. My primary goal is get them comfortable and excited about adding Spanish to their lives.
Here are some of my ideas for digital station activities (View my post via Wayside Publishing with some more details and ideas that can be adapted as part of your Welcome Stations: https://blog.waysidepublishing.com/5-ways-to-kick-off-a-non-traditional-school-year/)
If you want to learn more about why Padlet, Quizlet, Pear Deck, and Flipgrid are among my favorite tech tools, please visit the "Tech Tools" tab on this website. Also, feel free to revisit the following article: www.edutopia.org/article/6-top-tech-tools-world-language-classes.
For more insight on teaching world languages virtually, check out my other articles here:
In closing, we don't need to have it all figured out yet. It is impossible to pre-plan the way we used to. However, it is my hope that you now feel a bit more at ease when brainstorming about how to start the first few days of a very atypical school year. Best of luck, and remember...WE'VE GOT THIS!
Sending good vibes,
Elena
Due to the fact that many of us still do not know whether or not we will be teaching our students in a hybrid or fully virtual format, I started to take a look at my previous activities and think about how to make them fully digital. I felt that this would prepare me for any teaching scenario or circumstance, as I started to wonder how I should start off this non-traditional school year. What should the first few days look like?
This brings me to one of my favorite "first week of school" activities with Spanish 1: Welcome Stations. Rather than kicking off the school year with a day of rules and procedures, I always strive to make my students feel welcomed. I want to engage them as much as possible to start off on a positive, upbeat note. In the past, on the first or second day of school, I would break students up into groups and have them participate in these station activities in small groups (To read about how I traditionally incorporated station rotations in my classes at all levels, click here https://www.edutopia.org/article/station-rotation-world-language-classes). This year, the execution will be a little bit different. Students will not be walking around the classroom in groups; instead, they will be completing these digital stations online.
For a hybrid or virtual setting, I would start off by preparing a Google Doc or Google Slide. I would then outline each digital station activity, and can hyperlink them if needed for students to easily access. In addition, it's important to share that with a level 1 class, while I do provide some words/phrases/sentence starters in the target language, my main focus of the Welcome Stations is to build relationships with my students, and to learn more about them. My primary goal is get them comfortable and excited about adding Spanish to their lives.
Here are some of my ideas for digital station activities (View my post via Wayside Publishing with some more details and ideas that can be adapted as part of your Welcome Stations: https://blog.waysidepublishing.com/5-ways-to-kick-off-a-non-traditional-school-year/)
- "Me" Slide Station: Students can create Google Slides in which they give their name in the target language (In Spanish, Me llamo...) with some key adjectives in the target language (teacher-provided) and images that represent them. Students can share their slides with each other in a class video conference. More details and ideas are provided in the Wayside Publishing blog post linked above.
- Survey Station: Create a survey via Google Forms in which you ask for students' interests outside of school. Also, take this opportunity to ask them about which types of activities they enjoy. This will help you tailor your instruction later on!
- Padlet Discussion Board Station: On Padlet, you can create a digital discussion board. You can ask students to leave a video or written response in which they reflect upon why learning a new language is useful. Every year, this is one of the first questions I ask my Spanish 1 students. I want to emphasize the "WHY" behind our class, and offer them some new perspectives about how learning the Spanish language can enhance their professional and personal lives down the road, while also making them more culturally and globally competent.
- Quizlet Station: Create a Quizlet study set with some basic introductory phrases in the target language. Challenge students to set a timer to practice and review these words. Then, after some more practice, you can host a game of Quizlet Live (Individual Mode) on a live video conference!
- Pear Deck Station: Prepare some Pear Deck interactive slides in the Student-paced mode so that students can work independently, at their own speed (sign up for a free Pear Deck PD if you are unfamiliar at www.peardeck.com). In your Pear Deck presentation, ask students some trivia questions about the target language/cultures. You can even include trivia/fun facts about yourself, or, you can write some phrases in the target language in which students have to "guess" the meaning. There are so many options, and any type of trivia is sure to be a hit!
- Flipgrid Station: On Flipgrid, students are able to easily record videos that then appear on the same page. Ask students to introduce themselves (in the target language, if you wish!) Students can then share two truths and a lie, and can respond to each others' Flipgrid videos and guess which statement is the lie.
If you want to learn more about why Padlet, Quizlet, Pear Deck, and Flipgrid are among my favorite tech tools, please visit the "Tech Tools" tab on this website. Also, feel free to revisit the following article: www.edutopia.org/article/6-top-tech-tools-world-language-classes.
For more insight on teaching world languages virtually, check out my other articles here:
- https://www.edutopia.org/article/prepping-teach-world-language-classes-either-online-or-person
- https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2020/07/teaching-world-languages-virtual-classroom
In closing, we don't need to have it all figured out yet. It is impossible to pre-plan the way we used to. However, it is my hope that you now feel a bit more at ease when brainstorming about how to start the first few days of a very atypical school year. Best of luck, and remember...WE'VE GOT THIS!
Sending good vibes,
Elena