Report from the Field – Rachel Martinez

Something really unexpected but inspiring happened yesterday. As class was about to start (my last period of the day, 7th grade) I was reminded that I needed to pack up my stuff because I needed to leave right after class ended so I asked a student to start the class for me by asking what the date was in Spanish. Then I went over it and chose a word off the word wall to begin our word association activity. I introduced the word and asked for my word association person to come on up and lead the class in a discussion on how we could remember the word. Then my master of gestures person came up. They were doing such a good job, I asked if anyone wanted to lead us in saying the word several times in funny accents (as Ben describes in Stepping Stones as putting the word into our bodies). To my surprise a young man who is usually quiet came on up and lead us repeating the word. I was surprised also because he imitated some of the inflections that I frequently use. I was very impressed. I sat among my students and asked if someone wanted to ask the first question about the image (starting the PQA with asking what color it was). The boy next to me said he would do it. So I sat back and acted like a student! I thought he would give it up to another person but he kept going!!! When he said something funny I would do the “stop” gesture and another student would help him pronounce it better. This kept up for the entire time! It was AWESOME! I didn’t have to teach and it was a great way to assess my students. Everyone participated as usual. The plusses were that I could model how I wanted students to act by saying to myself “Oh numero 5, I have to sit up straight, I forgot!” or giving cute answers. Now, of course he wasn’t circling but it wasn’t really about method or learning that day, It was about assessing. It was a beautiful sight and I was encouraged to share this after telling Greg S. It was a total accident but I enjoyed every moment of it.