Yesterday our new group member Deena sent in this report. I jumped it up in the queue because it is more than cool:
Hey Ben!
Cannot contain myself! I had my first day of the real deal today…I reviewed the RULES that I introduced yesterday and started in with a few structures in Spanish…Hay (there is/are), un chico (a boy), una chica (a girl), and Se llama…(s/he calls her/himself…) courtesy of Martina Bex…Thanks Martina!!!
And I worked it…I wanted my students to give me an idea of how they liked learning like this…So many repetitions and saying the same thing in 30 different ways and sometimes the same way 10 times. We talked about 3 or 4 students in each class and by the end of each class, after endless hands flying over heads because they didn’t understand and wanted to and me reinforcing the rules as necessary (I teach 8th grade Spanish), they got it and were yelling to each other in the halls after class and on the way to lunch and asking students in other classes if they’d had spanish yet. “We already learned some spanish today!” was yelled down the hall by at least 4 kids.
I was super cognizant about SLOW…it felt weird, but when I made eye contact, I could see the wheels turning and the smiles and the looks of total amazement. The kid that told me yesterday that he was going to fail this class looked at me today like I was some sort of crazy sorceress that made him learn something!!! That’s me…Crazy Spanish Sorceress of Learning! And my students were actually leaning forward to listen to what I was going to say next.
So now I’m in tears because I waited so long to find this method of teaching where my students can’t wait to hear what comes next! I don’t know if you realize how great I feel…this could be life-changing for me!!!! SERIOUSLY! What the hell was I waiting for? Why doesn’t everyone do this? And Ben, I don’t think I did it even close to well, but it worked. I will start circling with names on Monday…and then I read the post on cCWB and I was so proud of myself because I really stayed in bounds today…trying so hard not to add anything beyond what was on the board and the question words.
Thanks to everyone here for your advice, your ideas, your support…I am so incredibly proud of my students and of myself. Today was a success!!!!!
Have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Deena