COlin, I have been thinking a great deal about your questions and challenges. These aren’t uncommon ones, really something all of us face in our practice. One thing I want to encourage you to do is consider that all kids are different and their needs vary tremendously. Some respond to consequences, others are more motived by positive responses. Others simply need to understand fully the goal. How you vary your responses to children when they resort to English will depend on how well you understand your students as learners. It is hard to figure out what motives each child. This is what makes teaching so very tricky. I have attached a page from the Skillful Teacher. It is a graphic I often share with teachers who want to talk about classroom discipline. The continuum is helpful as it helps teacher identify how their moves in the classroom are instrumental in eliciting the behavior and work they want from their students. What I often encourage my colleagues to do is try a bunch of different responses and take careful note of the results. The more I teach the more I realize that it is the smallest things that can change the entire demeanor and behavior of a class. I sometimes hear my students talking about getting “the look” from me. It took me years to develop “the look” and since starting OWL, I use it a lot less, but it happens to be my way of reminding kids that I expect better behavior. Now I find myself using so much more praise and enthusiasm. At the end of the day this makes me feel like a much better teacher and human being. Good luck. Keep these interesting questions coming. This is at the heart of instructional practice. Ruthie On Nov 16, 2014, at 4:12 PM, Heidi Hewitt <heidihewitt13@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:heidihewitt13@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote: At a workshop with Annie, she did a really cool thing to address English speakers. She would train the class to "ataca el inglés" (attack English), which ends up becoming just "ataca!" (with the action of course). I have been using it in my classes and it brings in a little bit of silliness rather than just yelling at them with "no inglés!" I've had to remind some classes that it's an imaginary attack as they really like to punch each other, oops! Have you tried writing E S P A Ñ O L on the board and erasing a letter from the end with each time English is heard? Then when the E is gone, dun dun dunnnnn - mystery consequence, "test", or something else. This was very effective in my problematic class last year. Keep on keepin' on, this is a hard time of year for me too. Seems to always happen around this time. <3 On Friday, November 14, 2014, Colin Oriard <coriard@xxxxxxx<mailto:coriard@xxxxxxx>> wrote: Thanks Jonathan. We also recite that poem very class and then go around thanking each other for being here... What do you do when you hear English in the class? How do you address it? Colin Oriard Profesor de español 1/2 & 3/4 Grant High School Room 112 Phone extension - 75612 ________________________________ From: ola-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <ola-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Jonathan Irish <isolicious@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 9:52 AM To: ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ola] Re: Student pushback and English use I teach a group of sophomores that at times can break into English. I was worried about it yesterday because I gave them a good chunk of time to practice their Spanish plays. I was thinking that 30 minutes of "alone" time would mean English, especially for one group. At the start of class I tried to be as up front as possible. Why do we speak in Spanish, why are we here? We recited la ke'ch: Tú eres mi otro yo. You are my other me. Si te hago daño a ti, If I do harm to you, Me hago daño a mi mismo. I do harm to myself. Si te amo y respeto, If I love and respect you, Me amo y respeto yo. I love and respect myself. We do this a lot but it is important to review. So class went well and they maintained pretty good focus during the practice. Students can handle high standards, they just need to be reminded of it from time to time. Suerte, El Jota 2014-11-14 6:33 GMT-08:00 Colin Oriard <coriard@xxxxxxx>: Hi all, Thank you to so many for writing me back with words of encouragement and ideas around my struggles. I really appreciate it! To further my reflective inquiry, I was wondering if more people would be willing to weigh in how they handle English use in the classroom? Do you have consequences for English use? Is there a progression of consequences if it continues? Discipline is definitely not one of my strengths, and I had hoped that expressing the importance of the immersion environment and then giving reminders and call-outs when students use English would be enough, but it is not. I need to tweak something. I teach first and second year (NL-NH/IL) at a high school that is predominantly white (about 70%). There is 33% poverty, internet access for about 90% of my students. My tentative plan to implement starting next week is that when a student uses English, I will ask them to do 5 vocabulary words with the class to get them refocused on using Spanish, and then some class applause to appreciate their efforts. Then I'm thinking that on a second offense, they will need to sit on the sidelines and answer 5 essay questions in English about our language learning environment to get them to reflect deeper on their choices in our class and hopefully get them to regulate themselves better. Once they finish the 5 questions they can rejoin the group. If they still can't participate according to the rules of the class I will give them a written activity to work on. I'm very open to suggestions and improvements on all of this. Absolutely every student has the right to learn, but I'm finding I need to draw the line when a student is taking away other student's rights to learn. Any feedback on this, and how you handle English use would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Colin Oriard Profesor de español 1/2 & 3/4 Grant High School Room 112 Phone extension - 75612
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Skillful Teacher.pdf
Description: Skillful Teacher.pdf
