My high school has a vast untapped resource for Spanish teachers - native speakers! Being in Ohio, we don't enjoy the large numbers of native Spanish-speakers that schools in the larger metropolitan areas or southwestern U.S. do, but we do have a decent sized Puerto Rican population on Cleveland's west side. During the last 15 years I have seen the numbers of Hispanics grow in our schools by leaps and bounds. I know they are out there, but because they didn't need to step foot inside my Spanish class, I rarely got to meet them. Over the past few years I have been working on ways to identify these students and bring them into my classroom for some conventional and unconventional activities. They add definite credibility to the classroom because, unlike teachers (wink wink), they are real people!
Here are some simple ways that you can start to include native speakers from around your school building in your own class:
1. Guest Spot - get one native speaker per unit to come in and quickly model whatever topic you are working on talking about. If you are working on likes and dislikes, have them come in and talk about what they like to do or what they don't like to eat. If you are talking about family, have them come in and describe their own. I try to get the same student for each class period so that over the course of the year my students get to know them.
2. Grading Panel - Whenever your students give an oral presentation, get a panel of 2-3 native speakers to come and listen and give their opinions on how easy (or difficult) it is to understand the student when they speak Spanish.
3. Conversation Leaders - When you are working on interpersonal conversation, bring in native speakers to be the conversation leaders. Have them sit with a group of students and to help them keep the conversation going when it starts to falter.
4. Culture Share - Invite a student to share a person, place, or thing that is significant in their culture. Kind of like an older student's version of show and tell.
5. Peer tutor - Native speakers are usually very willing to help struggling students. This works out well, especially if you run a proficiency-based classroom.
6. Favorites - Have a native speaker share their 5 favorite Spanish language songs, books, movies, words or television shows. These things are becoming more and more accessible in the U.S. and may inspire some students to start exploring Spanish outside of the classroom.
7. Playground Games - have a native speaker demonstrate to your class a game that they used to play outside as a child.
8. Guess Who - give students facts about one of the native speakers in your school and give them a week to find out their name. To prove they figured it out, they must actually approach the student and have them write the "secret word" (which we arrange ahead of time) on their paper.
9. Guest Reader - Have a native speaker come to your class and read your students a children's book in Spanish. My high school students love this!
10. Survey - Have your students develop a survey to give to Spanish-speaking students in your school and have them make some observations about the results.
Here are some simple ways that you can start to include native speakers from around your school building in your own class:
1. Guest Spot - get one native speaker per unit to come in and quickly model whatever topic you are working on talking about. If you are working on likes and dislikes, have them come in and talk about what they like to do or what they don't like to eat. If you are talking about family, have them come in and describe their own. I try to get the same student for each class period so that over the course of the year my students get to know them.
2. Grading Panel - Whenever your students give an oral presentation, get a panel of 2-3 native speakers to come and listen and give their opinions on how easy (or difficult) it is to understand the student when they speak Spanish.
3. Conversation Leaders - When you are working on interpersonal conversation, bring in native speakers to be the conversation leaders. Have them sit with a group of students and to help them keep the conversation going when it starts to falter.
4. Culture Share - Invite a student to share a person, place, or thing that is significant in their culture. Kind of like an older student's version of show and tell.
5. Peer tutor - Native speakers are usually very willing to help struggling students. This works out well, especially if you run a proficiency-based classroom.
6. Favorites - Have a native speaker share their 5 favorite Spanish language songs, books, movies, words or television shows. These things are becoming more and more accessible in the U.S. and may inspire some students to start exploring Spanish outside of the classroom.
7. Playground Games - have a native speaker demonstrate to your class a game that they used to play outside as a child.
8. Guess Who - give students facts about one of the native speakers in your school and give them a week to find out their name. To prove they figured it out, they must actually approach the student and have them write the "secret word" (which we arrange ahead of time) on their paper.
9. Guest Reader - Have a native speaker come to your class and read your students a children's book in Spanish. My high school students love this!
10. Survey - Have your students develop a survey to give to Spanish-speaking students in your school and have them make some observations about the results.
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