Goals for Native Spanish-Speakers in Spanish 3 Honors
Students should:
• gain experience in using Spanish for academic tasks.
• increase their vocabulary in Spanish and English.
• develop critical thinking skills.
• increase their ability to analyze language.
• develop strategies for analyzing their own use of Spanish and
understand some of the reasons behind it.
• increase their skills in reading and writing Spanish.
• gain experience in understanding and using written accents in Spanish.
• deepen their understanding of Latin culture and history.
• increase their understanding of how to help second language learners.
• feel that they are an important part of the class and that their knowledge
of language and culture is valued.
• value being bilingual and feel confident speaking Spanish in front of
native English-speakers.
Meeting Native Speakers’ Needs in Spanish 3 Honors
Create a Class Climate of Mutual Respect
• Build relationships with the students.
• The native Spanish-speakers are experts whose input you seek and
value. You are an expert as well. Earn their respect by the way you
manage the class (content and students).
• There should be an atmosphere of respect and appreciation for each
person’s contributions.
• Keep a tight rein on classroom behavior; follow through on
consequences in a caring way.
• Class rule: If you cause a problem, I will ask you to solve it.
If you can't solve the problem, or if you choose not to, I will take action.
• Monitor the messages you’re sending to the other students about native
Spanish-speakers.
Capitalize on Their Strengths
• Use them as a resources. Different students will have different
strengths.
• Have a native-speaking T.A. Coach your T.A. on how to help/correct
you.
• Try to have a native speaker in each small group for group work.
• Enlist native speakers to teach culture.
Contextualize
• by creating thematic units that kids will care about.
• conversational activities so that students have social permission to
speak Spanish to each other.
• grammar so that it will be intuitive for native speakers.
• verb tenses so that native speakers know which tense to use.
• conjugations. (Pretend you’re telling your mom what Tomás did. Él......)
• by using popular songs as a way to focus on grammatical structures.
Teach native speakers to use contextualization as a strategy to check their own
usage or answer the questions of a non-native speaker.
Teach non-natives to create a context when they ask native-speakers for help.
• Ask for the word you need in the context of a sentence.
• Give the native speaker a blank to fill in.
• Give them a choice between two words.
Challenge Them
• Design assignments and activities that require critical thinking. (This
will encourage the participation of all class members, and make use of
their strengths.)
• Give them tasks that require them to use Spanish for a cognitive
purpose. (Expecting them to practice language as an end in itself will be a
gigantic turn-off and they won’t do it.
• Present grammar inductively.
• Give them reading material at an appropriate level. (I give a vocabulary
test to each student on the first day to determine their level.)
• Design activities that give them scope for creativity.
Give Them Structure
• Plan your units out in advance.
• When you begin a new unit, give each student 2 overviews of the unit.
One is kept in a folder that stays in the room; the other stays with the
student. This way, each student has assignment descriptions, due dates,
test dates, etc., and knows what will be happening in class each day. This
helps the students to take responsibility for their work. It allows you to
enter one grade in the computer for all unit work.
• Use the unit overviews to review their performance with them.
• Each student is required to have a class notebook (organized to your
specifications) that they bring to class every day.
• Have enough activities planned that you have to push to get
through them each day.
Carol Lynn McConnell 2009