If you are new to this stuff, there is not that much to worry about over the summer, besides keeping things simple for you and the kids! The three things I want to remember in the fall really are simple. (Simplicity is required at the beginning of the year, when kids are being bombarded with so much information in their other classes.)
I tell my first year kids that all they have to do is kick back and listen in my class as we start the year. I will be speaking to them in French and they will be trying to understand. If they are trying to get what I am saying but can’t, I tell them that that is my fault, and that I need to go slower so that they can understand.
What is their role first? To learn my rules. But I don’t explain them. They are written in English, of course, on the wall, but I get them into our classroom routine them while I am speaking to them in French, pointing out each and every infraction when it occurs.
So, while they are decoding everything I say – I look into their eyes, every one of them (well, two eyes at a time) – and I make sure that all kids are on board with the approach. I reinforce the rules whenever they are needed – intensely for the first two or three weeks – and then as needed, which, if done properly in those first weeks, is hardly at all during the year.
So they have to listen and obey the rules. What do I have to concentrate on myself? These three things:
Circling
SLOW
The Rules
With some Point and Pause in there as well. I teach the rules by circling and going slowly. That guarantees my success in reaching the kids with personally designed classes and keeping them in line all year.
I use the Circling with Balls activity primarily in those first weeks (described here on my site under resources/workshop handouts), but any form of comprehensible input will get the job done. It doesn’t matter. Pictures are great, as per Scott Benedict.
It all works. The main thing I try to do in keeping things simple there in the first few weeks leads to amazing things later! But, especially if the kids are coming from, as in my case, some pretty wild middle school experiences, and they are ninth graders, I really have to put that foot down there in the beginning of the year, but lovingly.
So, and I am thinking now of the teachers Liz trained in Columbia this past week, instead of getting all emotional about trying to get all that information into your classes next year, take it slowly. Go down to the banks of the Congaree and hang out. Go to the beaches. Enjoy that great state with some of the finest people I’ve ever met in it. Don’t worry so much.
Say something to the kids, teach them how to use the fist-in-open-hand move – credit Jason Fritze – speak to them about themselves in the simplest, slowest, most circled speach you have ever done or could ever imagine doing, then go even slower as per the Amy Teran Principle, throw in the rules as they are needed, and that’s it!
So now we get to all have a relaxing, carefree summer because we know that, really, starting the year off with comprehensible input methods is cake!