Language Sensei

A Language Teacher's Journey

Lessons Learned in Prepping for the “Unknown” Start Date

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MP900405396I had another post planned for this week – but somehow this one seemed to be the one that wanted to be written. It is an anxious time for me, and 40,000 other teachers, right now in this province. Currently we are in a labour strike, with both sides jockeying for position and public support. The upshot is that instead of being anxious – the good anxious – about the start of the year – classes, opening activities, set-up etc. – I am anxious about when the start of the year will be, and how I will handle the semester once we begin. If rumour holds we could be losing a month of school (I know!) which hurts especially hard if you teach in a semestered system and orthography needs to be taught as well. So, with a program at risk, and the feeling that you can’t quite settle into prepping something, what do you do? This week I’m learning how to cope when outside forces impact my best practice intention.

The same or less? – So, do I scrap the extras? Or do I do what I ‘usually’ do but just less of it? My preference is to keep the extras – the song of the week, the time for conversation, even the interactive orals etc. These are the activities that bring the most fun and learning connections in the room. What I will do is use this unusual start to look for opportunities to hit key learning points in a different time than I typically might. It even lets me take a good hard look at my course and say “Do we really need that unit” – and eliminate the weakest element of the course!  I may hit one less ‘unit’ but there’s no way that I can’t get them the language they need in the time I have.

More purposeful – Less ‘practice-able’ – A shortened time frame means that every activity, every opportunity must be real and purposeful. What an opportunity! I’m going to have to ask myself – is this a purposeful thing for my students to be engaging in? Or is it a legacy of my old program and can easily be dropped – like the conjugation charts (such as there are in Japanese) or the workbook homework. I envision less class repetition and more class collaboration and communication. Not a bad side effect of the later start at all!

It’s about the communication – and building great language student skills – This will be my planning mantra as I prep during this unknown time. At the heart of any language course is that fact that language is used to communicate – and that’s what my students will be doing. This shortened time will ask me to maximize the interpersonal opportunities for them. Communicating with each other when they aren’t as prepared as I think they might be will require them to develop great second language skills – risk, guessing, supporting their partner and circumlocuting when needed. At the end of the semester they may not have had every unit students had in the past – but they will be great language learners with the skills needed to succeed in subsequent courses.

Relax…because they will take their lead from you – Ever said this? “I can’t believe the year is ending in __weeks and I’m so behind!”. Then there is that stress you feel immediately transferred to your students. Suddenly the focus in the room switches from ‘using’ language to ‘learning what we need to know’ or “construction not communication”. Well…I may have less time this fall but my students will not be receiving that message from me. If I relax and approach the course with excitement and enthusiasm that’s the vibe my students will feel – and hopefully take their lead from.

This is not ideal, this labour dispute is tough financially, emotionally and professionally. But the ‘gift’ that I am being given is the chance to look at my course and really discern what the key skills and learning points are.

Fingers crossed that September 2nd sees me back in the classroom!

Colleen

 

 

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