The Rookery

We had a short spanish class today because of our work with Malcolm but the students still had a wonderful time.  Christina, our new spanish teacher, has a great rapport with the children and many have started spanish journals independently.  They are busily filling them with useful words and Christina is inundated from the moment she walks in with calls of, "How do you say…"

Today we played "Veó, veó, una cosa, de color…" which is a version of "I spy."  The game continued even after Christina left the room and students were becoming more and more comfortable with their colors and clothing words.

I've been encouraging the students to try to use spanish as much as they can.  I use it for classroom commands and they've learned useful phrases for our morning meeting.  Many of them can read the simple (and oft repeated) language at the beginning of our morning message.

We know that 80 minutes a week of instruction is not enough to master a language but we're hoping to expose children to enough language and culture to keep their brains flexible and their tongues nimble enough to take full advantage of language learning opportunities in their futures.  Imagine the Habits of Mind one has to have in order to survive in a place where you don't yet speak the language — flexibility, persistence, curiosity, making connections, taking risks, thinking creatively, finding humor.  Even as they try to puzzle out what Christina is saying (or how to speak back to her) they are practicing all of these crucial learning tools.  That, to me, is just as valuable (perhaps more valuable) than the actual words they may remember.