During my student teaching, I remember observing veteran teachers and thinking “Wow, they speak so much English! I’ll never do that!” Fast forward 10 years and….We’re all guilty of it. Sometimes it’s just faster and easier to give the directions in English, even if we know we need to be speaking in Spanish. Here are three tools I use in the classroom that have really helped both the kids and I to speak more Spanish.
1. Los frijoles
Each class gets a different colored plastic cup. When students are engaged and speaking in Spanish, I put beans in their cup and when they speak in English (or misbehave) I take beans out. They know that sometimes I will put in a handful of beans at the end of an activity so I’m not chained to the cups and that they don’t get beans if they ask for them.
At the end of each week, I count the beans (or sometimes I have my homeroom count for me) and put the totals on a scoreboard. Monday morning, as part of our routine warm-up questions, we ask “¿Cuántos frijoles tenemos?” (How many beans do we have?) and then ¿”Cuántos frijoles tenemos en total?” (How many in total?)
2. The English Box
This is a good way to constantly review numbers! The class with the most beans for the week gets a small prize. At the end of the quarter, each class that meets their overall goal earns a party. During first quarter, the goal starts at 350 and then it increases to 500 after that. Almost every class earns their party each quarter and they are always really motivated to get there. I got this idea from Jason Noble’s blog and just started using it in the last month or so. The idea is to tape out a box on the floor of the classroom with blue painter’s tape that is called “The English Box” or “La caja inglesa”. I explained to the kids that I have been a “bad and lazy teacher” recently because I am speaking too much English and this is not good for their learning. To hold myself accountable, I can only speak English when I’m standing in the box. Outside of the box, I must speak Spanish. So far, they really like it and love pointing out if I mess up. I had to modify and explain that this isn’t meant to be a “gotcha” but just a way to make us all use more Spanish and they have gotten much better. Jason’s blog also suggests making the kids stand in the box to speak English, but my kids aren’t quite there yet. I may introduce that idea for the last quarter of the year.
3. ¡Uno, dos, tres, no hay inglés!
This is an activity I picked up at a conference a while ago. Whenever there is an activity that I know my kids can do completely in Spanish, I recite the phrase “Uno, Dos, Tres” and they shout back “¡No hay inglés!” to begin the activity. The rules for these activities are posted on my wall and are as follows:
- Spanish only
- No more than 3 seconds of silence
- Take turns
- Help each other
While they are working, I walk around and listen to their speaking. If I hear them speak in English, or see that they have stopped talking, I put a small mark on their paper. The mark doesn’t mean anything, but they still try to avoid getting one. =) I typically set a timer for 3 to 5 minutes and they are always really proud of themselves when they realize they could speak Spanish for 5 whole minutes! After the activity, we debrief and talk about what kind of problem-solving skills and strategies they used to get their point across.
