Quote:
Originally Posted by Villa
Any suggestions for my Spanish class I'll be teaching?
Starting this Monday April 19th 2010 I will be teaching a beginner advanced beginner Spanish class to adults in an adult school. This is an on going Spanish class that started in Sept. 2009 with another Spanish teacher and has repeat students from Sept.(and previous years) and new students along the way plus the new students that will be enrolling this Spring semester.(The class goes to June 12th or so and then starts again in Sept. 2010. I have to teach to new students that know virtually no Spanish and to other students that have been learning Spanish for the last 2 and even 3 years.  (This is not a normal Spanish class where they start over every year or semister) Probablemente there are at least 3 levels if not more we're talking about. At any rate I've been teaching Italian for the last 3 years to adults with this same 3 or more level of languages learners so I have a pretty good idea how to handle the class.
What's exciting about teaching Spanish in this class is that the school is full of Spanish speakers that are taking ESL(English as a second language) so I'm thinking this will be a tremendous resource for my students. Now how do I get them involved with each other? At 7:10 there is a break and everybody goes to the cafeteria for coffee and a snack. Why not have my student interact with these Spanish speakers?! Could have them give some kind of survey or have some kind of conversation written down they could do with these Spanish speaking students of ESL? What do you think about this and any other ideas you might have. I have a Spanish book I'll be using with the class and have tons of songs we will be singing in class along with poems in Spanish ect. etc.
A proposito/By the way I have a master's degree in Spanish and taught Spanish for years a few years ago. Was a bilingual teacher before that and worked with native Spanish speakers teaching them all the subjects in Spanish.
¡De todos modos estoy muy entusiasmado/emocionado ansioso etc. etc.
¡No veo la hora de empezar!
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Sounds like you're an enthusiastic and interested teacher, and obviously that's going to help you a lot. As an experienced teacher you know as well that what you teach will depend on what the objectives of the course are (Like are they working towards an exam? Do you have to include all 4 skills? Are they "only" doing survival Spanish?) - so what are they??
Or do you have to decide that along with the students?
The cafeteria sounds like a good idea and as someone suggested, an intercambio could work at some point. As you have a mixed ability class maybe you can get them to work out a list of questions together so that the beginners will be able to say something when they meet their counterparts. Perhaps the more able students can correct/ translate.
Another idea for class work is to maybe get the more able students to take part of the class - even if it's just 10 mins.