Buenos días:
It's been a while since I've posted--mostly because things have been busy, but I also may or may not have forgotten my password for a bit...I feel the grey hairs coming in already.
This year has been my very first year dealing with super apathetic students. I am very much accustomed to students loving Spanish class and the content that I teach--especially 6th graders--but I have two groups this year that are very bad at showing their interest.
I felt like I had tried everything: surveys, lessons on social faking, developing units around personal interests, letting students sit with friends, and the list goes on. That's not to say that these strategies didn't work for most students, but it didn't for all.
Sometimes, in the classroom, one student can change the whole game. All it takes is for one student whom the other students view as "cool" to be unengaged for the whole class to start to feel the same. I gave two classes lessons on social faking--basically pretending to show your interest--and explained to them that I am suuuuuuuuuuper empathetic. So, when they have low energy, so do I. I'm working on that!
Anyway, these strategies were very ineffective with one of my students. This student's apathy has been really venomous to the other students in the class, and I have started to feel soooooo defeated. Like...really friggin' defeated.
What has started to work:
1. I moved the students' seats. This seems like an easy solution, but it was a strategy I hadn't thought of before in this way. I decided to move the students' seats strategically so that the student who is most apathetic will not be facing me most of the time. If this student is being an active listener, then they should turn around; but this way, if they don't, then I won't be affected by the apathy. I am hoping that this will help a lot with my empathy and the other students' reaction to this student's lack of interest.
2. Participation Grades Re-mastered - The famous Bill VanPatten mentioned participation grades on his podcast "Talkin' L2 with BVP" the other day that really helped me a tonnnnnnn. I, personally, had done away with participation grades because I feel that they VERY often reward extroverts and punish introverts. HOWEVER...buh duh da da!!! BVP comes to the rescue! This grading system is essentially based on active listening. Since our students at the novice levels are really supposed to be soaking up as much language as possible, they need to be active listeners. If they are not, they won't acquire as much, so their grade should be able to reflect that.
This rubric is pretty quantitative and not super qualitative, so it's a work in progress, but it has helped me so so so so so so much with students not talking over other people, making eye contact, answering questions, etc.
It's something more for me to keep track of, but if it's helping my students acquire the most Spanish as possible, then I'm okay with that. I have found that students are being much kinder to each other and to me in terms of listening to each other. The more they listen, the more input they get!
My friend, Toni, recommended the acronym SLANT.
Sit up
Listen
Ask and answer questions
Nod your head
Track the speaker
I'm hoping to put this on poster in my classroom soon as a nice reminder for the students. All in all, this has been my best year as a teacher in terms of lesson plans and curriculum, but it has been my hardest in terms of students' social and emotional needs. I'm hoping to get better and better at this every year.
Thanks as always for reading. ❤
Timothy
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