(This is the first post in a multipart series.)
The new question-of-the-week is:
What introductory activities are you planning to do, or have done already, with students to begin this highly unusual new school year (specifically鈥攆irst day, first week, second week)?
We鈥檝e got a crazy year ahead of us.
And the first question we鈥檝e got to figure out is what do we do on the first days of school?
This series may help with some ideas.
Today, my colleage and co-author Katie Hull Synieski and I share a book excerpt from a chapter on long-distance learning with English-language learners. It鈥檚 coming from our upcoming second edition of . The publisher, Jossey-Bass, has agreed to let us release a full draft of the chapter early and free-of-charge (with no registration required). You can .
Though the focus of this excerpt and the entire chapter is on ELLs, many of the ideas are applicable across the board. Remember, good teaching for ELLs is good teaching for everybody!
In addition, you might find these two resources helpful:
Links to all related previous posts appearing here can be found at .
You can see tentative remote teaching plans I鈥檝e developed for all my fall classes at
Emphasize relationship-building
Researchers have found that is a key element needed to create conditions that support student intrinsic motivation. In other words, will the activities that students do bring them into relationships with those they respect and like?
The first step toward respecting and liking someone, of course, is getting to know him/her!
Whether you鈥檙e in a hybrid-teaching situation (two days face-to-face and the rest of the week online) or working entirely online, we think that it is critical to spend substantial time on relationship-building at the beginning of a school year鈥攎ore than we would ordinarily do in a normal school situation.
That being said, however, it鈥檚 never too late to build or solidify relationships! Though it鈥檚 ideal to start the year with these activities, they鈥檙e good to use at any time during the school year.
Working online creates obvious barriers to getting to know someone well. When you add to that challenge the complication of teachers and students speaking different languages, then it鈥檚 time for teachers to put on their creative 鈥渢hinking cap.鈥�
Consider having a 鈥渜uestion-of-the-day鈥� that students can answer about themselves. If the responses are just a sentence or two (teachers may need to provide sentence starters), it鈥檚 fine to do it as a class. A key is making them simple and accessible even to Newcomers with no background in the English language. If answers are going to be longer ones, rotating groups would be the way to go. Doing this online could make this activity less intimidating to students, so there are some advantages to distance learning!
Here are some potential questions:
What was your best experience in school, and why was it so good?
What was your worst experience in school, and why was it so bad?
What do you like to do in your free time and what do you like about those activities?
What is your favorite subject and why?
What are your future goals?
In the best of all worlds, teachers are able to use these relationship-building activities to also help teach English. However, remember that relationships are the primary focus at this time. If that鈥檚 the case then, once again, being online offers some advantages. If you have students share their responses in small groups, after they answer in English, they could be encouraged to become more expansive in their home language while all students use a tool like the free . The Translator lets you speak in your home language while others see it simultaneously (more or less) translated in the language of their choice.
鈥淪how and tell鈥� can also be a nice relationship-building activity. Ask students to identify three-to-five items they have that are important to them. Provide them with this sentence starter:
This is __________________ It is important to me because ________________________.
69传媒 can make these 20-second class presentations once a day for a few days. Teachers could even provide 鈥渜uestion starters鈥� for the 鈥渁udience鈥� members to ask, like:
鈥淲hen did you get the ___________?鈥�
鈥淗ow much time do you spend using _____________?鈥�
鈥淲here do you keep the ___________________?鈥�
鈥淭wo truths and a lie鈥� is another old standby that can be used to help students get to know each other. Once a day, a student can share two things that are true about them and one thing that is a lie. The teacher can model it the first time and offer to help students ahead of time with how to say their 鈥渢ruths and a lie鈥� in English. Classmates can write their guesses in the chat box.
If ELL students have not been born in the United States, it鈥檚 important for teachers to know their immigration 鈥渟tory.鈥� However, if they have been in the U.S. for awhile, they might be tired of telling it鈥攊t鈥檚 an assignment they might have had to do countless times in multiple classes. In class, we鈥檝e had students tell it in different formats鈥攍ike in comic strip form鈥攖o make it more interesting to both those telling and those listening to it. Here, again, teaching online might offer advantages鈥攖here are many tools available for creating , . These same tools, of course, can also be used on devices if you are in a physical school.
All these activities can help build relationships. In addition, learning students鈥� personal stories and interests can be helpful when teachers are developing lessons. By taking this information into consideration, teachers can increase engagement by tying into another critical element needed to create conditions to support student intrinsic motivation鈥�. In other words, the work must be seen by students as interesting and valuable to them and useful to their present lives and/or hopes and dreams for the future.
It鈥檚 also important for teachers to make time for individual conversations with students鈥攊n the physical or virtual classroom. A weekly or bi-weekly 10-minute video conference call to review student work and to check in on their social-emotional lives can go a long way toward building and solidifying a relationship. Obviously, the frequency of these calls are dependent on the number of students you have in your classes.
We think that staying in touch outside of school hours is also an important way to solidify relationships. We have given our cellphone number to all students and their parents for years, and it鈥檚 never been abused. If we get a text when we鈥檙e doing something else, we just don鈥檛 respond until we have time. And if you鈥檙e not comfortable giving your number out, just have everyone sign up for or a similar app where you can send a text to any student, or to the entire class, and they can send one to you, but it goes through the app so no one knows anyone鈥檚 real number.
And we can鈥檛 forget about building relationships with parents! They can be critical allies for teachers. Look for reasons to call home with positive comments about their children and ask for their advice, too鈥攆or example, learn from them about the times they think their kids have felt most positive about schools and what their teachers had done at those times (learn ).
It鈥檚 going to be a crazy year. Positive relationships we had built earlier in the year are what sustained many of us teachers and our students during the spring emergency closures. Now, we鈥檝e got to build them from scratch and we will.
We must.
Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
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Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It鈥檚 titled .
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