Ryan reported in June at the end of the year from Washington State:
So, I am sitting here in 1st Period looking at my students’ final exams for Honors Spanish 1, and just started crying.
All year, I have been second guessing myself, wondering if I am doing enough, and feeling like a slacker as a teacher to my honors students, because I have been following a non-targeted approach since day 1 this year after attending the workshop in Portland last August. I haven’t been taking work home and I haven’t had a ton of papers to grade this year. I haven’t done all of those time-consuming things that I used to do, and was really worrying about how things would turn out. I just told myself to have faith…I remember Tina telling me at Rita’s coaching group in September or October “Are you speaking Spanish to them? Then that is enough, they will learn.” We haven’t had a calendar routine, a secret password, a daily or weekly routine. I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants and figured it out as we went along and each week was different, each day was different. We started out with OWI’s moved on to Invisibles, and worked with them on and off all year. As well, we did Story Listening, did Movie Talk, did some Somos lessons from Martina Bex, did Movie Talk, did some Blaine Ray stories, did Matava scripted stories. I did a little of everything, but never cemented a routine, which concerned me.
I had to give my students a final, and part of it was writing. We haven’t done a lot of writing, but I just wanted to see what they could do. I put up two pictures as a prompt and told them to write me a story. I am absolutely floored at what they can communicate! We have class only 4 days a week, we missed 12 school days because of snow, and they are just blowing me away and I am so proud of their work! I look at their writing and what they are able to do and know that I will never go back to vocabulary lists and grammar instruction.
So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you SO MUCH to both of you for all that you do and continue to do and I look forward to seeing you guys next week in Portland!! 🙂