Mateo - Ben Slavic

Mateo and his brother Manny were at the iFLT conference. Mateo wanted to take French but is only in fourth grade and so was too young for the only French offerings by me which were for older kids. But we got him in anyway.

So there was Mateo on Tuesday morning sitting in class with sixth through tenth graders. Why? His mom – our own Dori V. in this PLC – told me he really wanted to learn French.

Sabrina pointed out to me after one long morning session that the kids had just sat through class for over two hours. Mateo was sitting there in a chair for that long. He was focused, listening, just listening, for that long, and just a fourth grader!

Many adults couldn’t do that! I was very proud of him because he helped me teach by paying such close attention. Whenever a student is focused, they help you be a better teacher, as we all know so well.

Why could a fourth grader do the impossible and sit still for over two hours and just listen? Here are just a few reasons.

he understood.
it was interesting to him. What is not interesting about a talking tree telling a blabbermouth girl to get out of the mountains and leave him alone?
Mateo wanted to learn.
Mateo is very smart.
Mateo felt safe and important because he knows that he is very important to me.
using a comprehension based approach keeps kids interested.
Mateo is very lucky to have a mom who has been doing this kind of teaching for a long time.

I had never taught a fourth grader before. If all fourth graders are like Mateo, I need to move down from the high school to teach fourth graders! He is a classy kid! Or I could have told Mateo that in the past tense when the helping verb is avoir the past participle agrees with direct (but not indirect!) object pronouns (including relative pronouns!). Or I could have given him a worksheet with nice pictures on it. Knowing Mateo, I don’t think he is a worksheet guy, though. Not for two and a quarter hours every day, anyway. I know that because I knew that he actually wants to learn French. And you know what? He did!