Hello everyone! Brooks Lindner, co-founder of Sonrisas Spanish here. I hope the school year is going well so far for all the preschool, elementary, and middle school Spanish teachers out there.
We haven’t posted in a while. Doing customer service, talking to teachers and administrators, and training teachers takes up a lot of our time in the fall. But we here at Sonrisas are always thinking about how we can better support teachers who use the Sonrisas Spanish Curriculum.
To that end, I want to remind you that the Sonrisas blog contains a wealth of information about teaching Spanish to children. You can do a search for specific topics or simply peruse the pages here. You will find articles not only about the Sonrisas Spanish lessons, but also about teaching language to children in general.
I also want to share with you some of my thoughts about joy and success in teaching Spanish. The fact is, teaching Spanish to children is super important. You not only develop their minds for future language learning, but you also help them develop cognitive and academic advantages that benefit them for a lifetime.
When you teach children a second language, you open their minds to new cultures, new people, and new experiences. This helps create curious and empathetic learners. It encourages critical thinking which is the most important skill children need these days.
But aside from all these benefits, there is just a pure and simple joy in seeing children learn a new language. This is why you are so lucky to be teaching Spanish to children. Nothing compares to that sparkle you see in a child’s eyes when they have an “a-ha” moment with a second language. This can come from children joyously singing songs in Spanish. Or it comes from students being able to respond to questions in Spanish. Or it comes from children communicating with each other as they do activities in Spanish.
So don’t be afraid to take a step back and just enjoy these simple moments. Remember that language acquisition doesn’t happen overnight. It’s really a series of small steps and small joys that lead to your students knowing a lot of age appropriate and practical Spanish.
The success of this depends on a lot of intention, planning, and effort. It is now early November. The excitement of Día de Los Muertos is over, and you are probably starting to look forward to Thanksgiving break. I want to focus on one thing that will help you experience success in your Spanish class.
The most important thing that helped me achieve success in my own classes was routine and structure. We know from pedagogical research that young learners thrive with routine and structure. It makes them feel more comfortable, safe, and confident in their learning environment.
Aside from that, in the context of a Spanish class, routine and structure help to make things predictable. Students know what to expect in Spanish class. And when they know what to expect, they start to piece things together and gain comprehension.
Here’s what I mean by this: the goal with Spanish class is to create an immersion environment by staying in the target language. When you first do this, it can be challenging for students. But if you have a consistent routine, and you are doing the same things, in the same order each day, then your students start to feel comfortable, and they start to comprehend the vocabulary and phrases you use within the routine.
The beauty of this is that when you stick to a consistent routine and structure, students gain proficiency with the language that you use within the routine. And then you can introduce similar vocabulary and phrases, withing that routine, and students assimilate the new material more easily.
As an example: In Lesson 1 of Sonrisas Level I, you play the Me llamo game. It is a simple game of throwing a ball or hacky sack to a student and then asking them, “¿Cómo te llamas tú?” After you have repeated this game for many lessons, you can switch up the question to something different like, “¿Cuántos años tienes?” or “¿De dónde eres?“. The possibilities are limitless really. Students will be able to adapt to the new vocabulary easily because they are familiar with the routine.
Routine and structure have the additional benefit of making your planning and prep easier. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel for each lesson, but rather you are adding small chunks of new material into a well established routine.
Even if you have struggled with establishing a routine in your class, it is not too late to do it. With the Sonrisas lessons you have the built-in structure of Circle Time, Story Time, and Art Time. Now you can start to execute a consistent and routine way of doing the activities within each of these segments.
If you want to read more about routine and structure in Spanish class, check out this article.
