Back to School…. The three most bittersweet words in a teacher’s lexicon. There’s a strange nervous excitement in the air, a starry-eyed twinkle in your colleagues’ gaze, a recovery bounce in their steps as busy-bodied educators begin to stoke the engines and start up the scholastic machine for another spin around the academic calendar year. And for just a brief glimmer, everything around you has that sparkle that comes before the grind.
Capture the lightning bug in a jar! Harness the winds of change! And let’s take that frenetic enthusiasm and squeeze every ounce of scintillating success from this magical, liminal period; it’s a great way to propel your students into exciting discussions with kids all over the world about the flavor of the week: School Days.
…And Tell Us One Interesting Fact About Yourself
With anywhere from forty to eighty new students a year, an educator like yourself usually has to scramble around this time of the year to learn first and last names, nicknames, individualized education plans, allergies, and casual trivia about a small army of adolescents all in the span of just a few weeks.
I recommend killing two birds with your Back to School stone here: start these discussions in the target language, and encourage your students to look up (or think back to) the terms they need to know to aptly introduce themselves. Then, after you’ve demonstrated the questions needed to solicit this information from them, have them practice these introductions with each other.
There’s definitely a hidden agenda here, and it’s not just getting them to talk to one another; looking ahead, when you begin Level Up Village’s virtual exchange course “Our School Day” with them, this is exactly what they’ll be doing in their first videos!
Week One’s video asks them to converse with peers about school, family/household, pastimes/hobbies, and interesting facts about themselves. Then, they’ll need to compare and contrast differences in school, family/household, pastimes/hobbies, and interesting facts in their own and another culture in their videos for Week Two. Rather than throw them into the deep end, it’s a timely exercise to have them do this right when they get into your class. They’ll be rusty, to be sure, so definitely give them extra practice with this, and remind them to keep their language simple and fluid.
There’s a plethora of good that can come out of this. For new and transfer students, these mini-meet-and-greets will have the added benefit of allowing them to chat with the other students under the guise of completing an in-class exercise. In addition, talking about one’s self, one’s interest, and one’s family should come easiest to young language learners, since it’s what they’re most interested in, and it will get them warmed up for their introductions with their new international friends.
The Talk of the Town
“What classes do you have this year?”
“When’s your lunch?”
“Are you trying out for the team?”
“What clubs are you going to join?”
For a very brief period of time, the period we universally call “Back to School,” your students will have nothing else on their minds beyond…school. Most teachers will use this time to get to know their students, and assess their communication skills, by asking them about their vacations.
But I say, let’s live in the now! If you’ve got intermediate language students coming in, they may not even have much experience with past tenses, so hit them with what’s really on their minds: this school year!
Likely, they’ve already been introduced to basic scholastic vocabulary from the cute signs in their elementary school classrooms: writing utensils, notebooks, bathroom, all that stuff is usually heavily advertised in the target language in the form of decorative materials in your average 7th– and 8th-grade Spanish class. If you haven’t experimented with this classic classroom design, consider it for the coming year as you get your classroom in order. If you’re embarking on Level Up Village’s “Our School Day” asynchronous exchange, it might come in handy for the student who’s looking for that word, and “I know we learned it last year…it’s on the tip of my tongue…” Any subtle hints you can give them will no doubt come in handy.
But, not only should you review it with them so they can talk about the coming year, it’ll come that much easier when they tackle their videos for Weeks 3 and 4: converse about a typical school day, school subjects, and extracurricular learning with peers from another culture and exchange information about the subjects they study in school, why they study those subjects, and what classes they prefer. This is where the meat and potatoes of “Our School Day” lies, and it’s no doubt where your students will learn the most important and interesting tidbits about their international partners’ daily lives. However, your students, when talking about their routines, may at first find the subject uninteresting—after all, the school talk gets pretty stale by the time September’s come and gone. So, let them practice these conversations early and often while they’re still marginally interested in the subject! You’ll be doing them the favor of fluency by the time they shoot their videos!
Apples to Apples
Weeks Seven and Eight in “Our School Day” are really about comparisons. The first video your students will need to create asks them to compare their view of school subjects to their partners’ views and understand similarities, differences, and academic goals. Preparing them for this prompt will build their ability to talk about the information they’ve gathered from their partners, rehash it, and opine on it. Remember, the slider function on the video player in Level Up Village’s secure platform can help them with playback, so they don’t need to understand everything that’s being said the first time around at full speed.
For more beginner language learners, mirroring can suffice—just getting your students to repeat what they heard in the target language back to their international partners can not only be an effective tool in language proficiency—it usually suffices to show that they “got the message.” If your students find themselves nervous and unsure what to say, explain to them how easy and effective this strategy can be: “Oh, you have five classes each day, and you eat lunch at noon. Cool!” That’s all you need! It’s not like the analogous conversations they’re having with their peers in their native language are going to be that much deeper!
This leads us to the final video, where your students will compare practices related to a typical school day, school subjects, and/or extracurricular learning in their own and another culture. If you’ve facilitated these conversations amongst your students early on in the year, you’re now just reviewing and building upon the exercises you had them perform with each other; hopefully, having them repeat these with their international partners will be a piece of cake!
Conclusion
Embracing the “Back to School” excitement can transform how your students interact with each other and with their international counterparts. By integrating these discussions into early classroom activities, you not only make the most of their initial enthusiasm but also set a robust foundation for their future linguistic and cultural explorations. As educators, our role is to channel this annual momentum into opportunities that enrich our students’ educational journeys, making every back-to-school season a launching pad for global connection and understanding.
