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Linda Li's Classroom
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17 thoughts on “Linda Li's Classroom”
Zen-like.
Ain’t it?
I showed this photo to my wife. She has met Linda before and her reaction was…”no fair.” She is a Math teacher and a very good one BTW. Unfortunately, not all classrooms are TPRS classes. Her response gave me thought about how lucky we are to teach languages and be able to create environments that are focused on talking and interacting as part of the day to day operations.
BTW there is a Facebook Group called TPRS- Deskless classrooms. It is very cool to see what others are doing in their classes.
Thanks for the post Ben!
I like Linda’s classroom a lot. Is she also making the center couch & chairs places for students with jobs?
I notice that she has word walls up with question words in characters & things the students will need to say in pinyin. I like it. Simplifies the posters and lets the kids have access to fun things that they might need/want to say. I hear what you’re saying, Ben, about having only classroom rules up at least at first, though, too. I’ve actually gone to more on the wall than less, but it’s motivated by a desire to avoid English. So, I need those words at times.
Mike, I just asked to join that group on Facebook. This is my second year without desks, by necessity (the classrooms I’ve had in Colorado are small, and last year’s was very narrow) but also by choice & by design. I try to make one row in a semi-circle.
This summer, most world language classrooms at my school got moved into windowless basement rooms. The first week back (just teachers/staff, thankfully) has been a lot about making my classroom into a place I could be without feeling claustrophobia. What helped is better quality florescent tubes, and a brighter color and a virtual window mural on the wall furthest from the door. (The mural is stick-on poster I bought online. It looks like it’s a window onto the Great Wall, like you could step right onto the Wall through the window. I figure we’ll stick famous people & student photos on the Wall from time to time & it will be fun to talk about. Two Spanish teachers bought ones that look like a window overlooking beautiful beach scenes. I’m hoping to copy an idea and add a frame around the “window” – makes it feel that much more real.) I don’t wish a basement room on anyone, but maybe sharing these ideas will be helpful for someone else.
I saw that virtual window mural on your wall in the basement, Diane, on Facebook. Very clever! I’d probably rest my eyes more on that mural more than I would out a real window if I was a student in your class.
I find myself looking at it every few minutes!
…Is she also making the center couch & chairs places for students with jobs?….
No, but she told me to tell you that, aside from the artist, she just has kids yell out certain words for right now until “we establish the job relationship”.
I would benefit from hearing how you introduced those jobs, Ben. Just assigned at will that first time? I would like to make better use of jobs this year. I don’t want it forced, but last year jobs got mostly forgotten/neglected except those handful I asked for regularly.
“I would benefit from hearing how you introduced those jobs, Ben.”
I would too. I don’t have a handle on jobs at all.
Diane, I love your window poster idea to make the best of your basement room. You inspired me to get a couple of nice posters (not window size, but nice little ones) showing some scenes from life in other French-speaking countries. Real photo posters, not TeachersDiscovery-type posters. That’s why they’re small 😉 – not so cheap.
I have windows in my room, but these will be a different kind of window. I’m going to tell the French teacher at the high school. He has a windowless room.
So your WL classrooms are in the windowless basement and our WL (at the middle school) are the only classes besides PE that meet every other day. Hmmmmmm…
I know, Jobs – page 155 in the Big CI book. But maybe we’re spoiled. We want the latest update
Oh good – I’ll go to the Big Book on jobs. My dept. chair bought it for us. I keep forgetting! Some of my coworkers have been reading avidly.
Yeah, my virtual window is not cheap, but I’m worth it. It makes me feel much better in there and I think anyone who sees it will also enjoy it.
It’s brilliant and you’re definitely worth it!
I really like the idea of the student leaders, like those with jobs, sitting in the middle. I might be able to do a rendition of this.
Yeah Sean when I get a pic up of my own classroom you will see the three armchairs and how the (middle school) kids just really want that status. But even the other jobs kids have been given so far after three classes – timer, PQA counters, and especially the Professeur 2 (!) have brought faster and greater lift off to my classes than I have ever experienced. It’s those jobs!
Ben, are any of your students complete beginners or have they all had French before?
What I mean is, do you have any real beginner classes, not just a random beginner kid.
I have two sixth grade foundational classes. In one, there is only one student in a class of 18 who is brand new. BUT he is hanging in at the same rate of comprehension as the others. In the other foundational class, about four are real beginners.
The kids with the backgrounds, either of having lived abroad or of having taken French in elementary school, are all (except for Dward Fardward described above who will be mainly reading this year) happy with the speed of the instruction.
Only with CI can one differentiate a class in this way, without breaking it up. In any other kind of class, there would be all sorts of problems.