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Home is Where the Art Is: Bringing Down the House with LUV’s “Come See Where We Live”

Greetings, language teachers and home enthusiasts! Where we live can be one of the most defining features of who we are. It dictates our quotidian experience and influences our diet and our cultural consumption habits. On the other hand, it also acts as a place for expression. Many of us decorate, furnish, take care of, and influence the spaces we inhabit based on who we are, what we stand for, and what we love. So, there’s a lot you can tell about someone based on where they reside, making sharing those details an excellent way to get to know someone. If you’re considering utilizing Level Up Village’s “Come See Where We Live” course in your intermediate language classroom this year, it’s definitely worth a moment of your time to consider a few ideas that might really raise the roof for your students.

Stay Outta the Big House

Something funny happened to me that I will share with you so you can avoid my clumsy misstep with your Level Up Village participants. When I had my students share interesting details about where they live in a virtual exchange and encouraged them to include a tour of their homes, I really messed up!

Why?

You see, the school where I teach attracts very privileged students who often hail from rich neighborhoods. This was never more obvious than when they walked their virtual exchange partners through their large, sometimes palatial, villas. In an endless journey through gilded hallways, crown molding, priceless art pieces, and designer furniture, one of my students casually made his way to his favorite spot in the house—where he kept his guitar. But, being used to this level of affluence, I didn’t think much of it until a colleague pointed out that students from another part of the world might see this relatively innocuous walkthrough as a bit braggadocious and “extra.”

Maybe have a conversation with your students first, before they complete Week Three’s “Favorite Space Inside or Outside My Home” prompt. The course directions tell them to: talk about their favorite spaces inside or outside the home, including details such as what they do there, how these spaces make them feel, and who spends time there with them. A simple way to avoid a faux pas could be to focus on one particular part of the home so that the video doesn’t become long-winded or indulgent. Plus, you could even leverage it to suit your course’s vocabulary pool: if you just did a food lesson, ask your pupils to consider talking about their kitchens; or, if you just wrapped up the classic “morning routine” lesson, challenge them to use those reflexive verbs as they go through their daily toilette practices in the bathroom!

These may seem like mundane alternatives to a full house tour, but you’d be surprised how many of your students are tuned in to cooking videos or skincare routine clips on TikTok!

Turning a House into a Classroom

Now, let’s transform the typical view of a home into a dynamic learning environment. When I first introduced the “Come See Where We Live” course, I encouraged my students to think of their homes not just as backgrounds or settings, but as characters in their stories. This approach nudges students to narrate their home environment with a more critical eye and creatively engage with their space.

For instance, a student might describe how the afternoon sun filters through their living room windows, casting patterns on the walls that change with the seasons. Or they might recount the history of a particular family heirloom, connecting it to a cultural tradition or a personal anecdote. It sounds completely absurd, but honestly, I had just wrapped up the past tense with them, and I wanted them to keep up their usage of the new grammar—otherwise, as you surely know, it’s out the window!

Asking your students where else they feel at home will help them to consider Week Four’s prompt: talk about a place near where they live and explain why it is interesting, unique, or important.

That’s why LUV’s prompts for this course are so open—whether it’s an indoor or outdoor space that your students are sharing, their garden, basement, or a window nook somewhere, every place tells a story. Getting creative with how your class interprets the concept of “home” makes their presentations not only a language lesson but also a deep dive into personal storytelling and cultural exchange.

Feedback Loops and Learning Curves

Weeks Five and Six of Level Up Village’s “Come See Where We Live” course task your students to respond to their international partners’ videos, prompting them to exchange information about which places they would like to visit, what else they would like to learn, and whether it reminds them of any places near their own homes and effectively compare and contrast their peers’ favorite spaces inside or outside the home, as specified in the learning objectives.

Integrate peer feedback into this process! Encourage students to ask questions about each other’s homes in the target language and help foster a genuine exchange of ideas and cultural perspectives. This not only helps build vocabulary and fluency, but it also nurtures empathy and global awareness. Again, utilizing the vocabulary and grammar you’ve taught up to this point is key: guide your students to hone in on the ideas they actually can effectively communicate. They’re going to want to make astute claims and erudite observations but remind them that simple statements will suffice. Their partners will be moved by their interest and enthusiasm, even if their language skills are still growing.

When I ran this exercise with my students, I was pretty impressed with their efforts. They seemed more adept at describing emotions and conveying subtleties that are often lost in translation, and when they responded to videos in English, their native language, they were very kind and thoughtful. Additionally, their questions grew more insightful, reflecting a deeper understanding of and respect for diverse living conditions and lifestyles.

Such a win for the language instruction and life lessons!

Where the Heart Is

“Come See Where We Live” offers more than just a chance for students to practice their language skills; it offers a platform for cultural expression and empathy. By carefully curating the parts of the homes they share, focusing on storytelling over showing off, and engaging in thoughtful exchanges, students learn valuable lessons in language and life. They don’t just see where they each live; they learn to appreciate the different worlds they all inhabit.

So, whether you’re teaching in a bustling city or a quiet suburb, consider how this course could not only improve your students’ language abilities but also expand their horizons. After all, each home has a story, and each story is a unique lesson in human experience.