End of Year Reflections

It has been a while since I last posted. Things have been very busy as the school year wraps up. For some reason June always seems to come out of nowhere, and things feel rushed and chaotic. It didn't help that my family and I chose to buy a house and have a closing date in the final month of school, but alas, life happens.

 I always seem to find June a difficult month. I'm always questioning how I taught certain units, or whether or not the expectations that I had for a particular evaluation were fair. It's tough to see your students struggling without wondering if you could have done something differently. They aren't all struggling, or else it would be really clear, but I often think that if I could design the course in such a way that everyone could learn more easily, perhaps I could help the weaker ones, which still supports the strong students as well. The question always comes down to 'how.'

The 'how' seems impossible. Every year, my students seem so different from the previous year. I feel like a strategy that would have worked for my previous year's class, doesn't actually work for the current group. It's nice to continue to build up possible strategies and resources, but it starts to feel like a make work project. And let's be honest - there is so much work to be done as it is, so I begin to question whether that make work project will really pay off in the end.

That being said, I like that I have been able to teach the same courses more and more. It usually takes me 2-3 times of teaching a course beginning to end before I am able to wrap my head around the curriculum and what needs to be done, and what needs to be changed. That's where I am at now with my Grade 11 IB Spanish course. Having taught the Grade 10 so many times, and now the 11 IB twice, I'm now seeing where changes need to be made. It's exciting to inject a bit more of my personality into a course to make it my own. I feel like the first couple of times, I'm just going through the motions, ticking off the boxes and trying to get used to it all. I'm sure it feels that way to them sometimes too. So, I'm excited to incorporate more technology with Google Expeditions and Google My Maps and a bunch of other tech based apps that can bring the language and culture to life.

But with all of this motivation to make changes comes the realization that I don't yet know what courses I will be teaching next year. Nothing is set in stone. Even though I have taught the 11 IB Spanish for the last two years, it doesn't mean that I will teach it again next year. As a matter of fact, it's looking like I probably won't! But, based on the projected courses I'm teaching, there's still excitement and motivation to make some changes and improve the courses.

One of the courses I will likely be teaching is my ESL C course. I call it mine because I've been teaching it for a few years now, both semesters, and I've been changing it up so much! This year I implemented station-based learning in the first unit. For those unfamiliar with this format, station based learning essentially breaks up the class (physically) into the different strands: Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking and Grammar. There is a "station" (a group of desks) for each strand. At the beginning of the week, I go over new learning, and explain each task, and then they go off and complete the work. They are given an estimated time to complete each task, which I calculated and shared in "blocks" of 15 minutes, and a chart/table that they use to track what they are completing each day. If they have extra time at the end of the week, I have a games station with language-based games, such as Boggle, Pickles to Penguins, Scattergories, etc.

With stations, my students get to choose what they complete and when, with the disclaimer of all tasks need to be completed in class. Often, when my ELLs complete work at home, they end up using a tutor, a translator, etc. in order to do it. This makes it impossible for me to know what they know, and what they need to work on. So, I've actually eliminated almost all homework from my class. If they ask for homework, I tell them to sit down and watch an English movie or tv show, to listen to English music, or even to go to a local Tim Hortons and order a hot chocolate and a snack. Those, in my opinion, are far more valuable in acquiring a language than sitting at home and using a translator to quickly finish all of their class work.

Stations have worked really well, so I am excited to sit down and make some more changes, and extend it to a second unit for next year. I suppose now I just wait to confirm the courses I will be teaching . . .

Oh, the end of the school year. So busy and chaotic, yet also a great time to really reflect on my teaching practice and how I can improve.

Feel free to reach out if you want to know more about stations in the classroom, or any of the apps I've mentioned. I'd be happy to share my schedule template and any other resources I have!