First Day(s) of Spanish 1 Class

Me on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala this summer

I've been teaching for nearly 20 years, and in two days I will meet my newest set of Spanish 1 classes, 8th graders at a middle school in Philadelphia (I also teach Spanish 4 and AP Spanish - we are a 5th through 12th grade school). I am excited and slightly nervous, as always! Here's what I'm planning for our first day :

Exciting find at Target! 

I have my own classroom this year! (We are overcrowded so float every other year. Last year I was in 14 different rooms!) This year, my classroom is decorated with papel picado, posters, books, a Mexican blanket, and a peace lily. I think it looks inviting :). Before class starts, I'm going to put on music in Spanish (not sure yet about this year's opening day song, but maybe something by Celia Cruz) and place these cute ¡Hola! Me llamo cards  on everyone's desk. I found them in the dollar section of Target a few weeks ago, but of course plain paper/cardstock would work too.

I'm going to meet students at the door as they walk in, hand them a ticket (more on that later) and greet them in Spanish (Hola, Buenos Días, etc). From experience I know that some will greet me enthusiastically, some will try to duck by without saying anything, and some will look at me in confusion and try to answer. They also might be slightly confused as to why I gave them a ticket, a problem I usually solve with a smile, a finger held up, and a "un momento." I don't worry about assigned seats or a syllabus at this point. I want to set the tone early that in this class we will be speaking Spanish, negotiating meaning, and (I think) having fun (I do assign seats and go over a syllabus/rules on Day 2, or later in the week). Once everyone is in the room and sitting down, I move to the center of the room and greet the students (i.e. ¡Buenos Días! Es la clase de Español 1. Me llamo Señora Gentlesk).  I point to myself as I say Me llamo Señora Gentlesk. Then I ask quizzically ¿Me llamo ________? and fill in a bunch of names of people I obviously am not (Oprah Winfrey, Lionel Messi, Megan Rapinoe, our principal/other teachers). The more ridiculous the better. This all happens pretty quickly. I then move to ¿Cómo te llamas? with different students around the room. Some will already have figured it out (or already speak some Spanish) and will answer, while others will look confused. With them, I will also fill in names of people they are obviously not, maybe even pretending excited to meet that person (¡Te llamas Carson Wentz! Wow! ¡Clase! ¡Carson Wentz está aquí!). I always try to get the whole class engaged in this "game." Once I notice interest waning I move on to the next person (once I have gotten the student's name, of course). For students who cannot figure out how to answer, I get the class involved, saying ¿Cómo se llama? and pointing while taking a guess at names from my roll. Again, this is all happening VERY quickly. We are only a few minutes into class, and I have learned the names of perhaps 5-8 students, when I say ¿Me permite hablar inglés?, wait for permission (for students to understand I may quickly act out inglés, hablar), and then, when they give me permission, I speak in English to explain why I gave them a ticket when they walked in the door ("You're probably wondering why I gave you this ticket ..."). I explain that the ticket is to reward exemplary students, which I consider all of them to be, with a homework pass at the end of the week. They can hold onto it by only speaking Spanish in class unless they ask for and receive permission to speak English (¿Me permite hablar inglés?). I am also held to this system and must ask for permission to speak English.

Behind me on the pulldown screen (some rooms in our school have SmartBoards but my room still has an LCD projector, which is fine) I have my presentation for the day projected. On the first day of class in Spanish 1, I actually have Slide 2 of this presentation projected first ¿Cómo te llamas?/Me llamo because what we are doing flows right into our partner talk. I explain in English that they will have partner talk almost every day of our class. They do not need to write anything - only talk. I do this in Spanish 4 and AP as well, though the conversations are longer (2 minutes). I explain to my Spanish 1 students that they will build toward that. For now, they will ask each other what is projected ¿Cómo te llamas? and answer. This takes about 30 seconds. I might ask a few students ¿Como se llama? and point to their partner afterwards as well. Then, I'll have students write their names on the Target Hola. Me llamo cards (¡OK! Ahora, escriban sus nombres en estos .. etc etc while acting out). I want them to leave enough room for a Spanish class name that they will choose later in the week (yes, I still do these, even though I know some people are against them. Students always have the option of keeping their own names. More on this in another post!). This year, thanks to inspiration from other teachers I follow on Twitter, I also plan on having them draw a picture that represents them to use in card talk (more on that in another post as well!).

¿Me permite hablar inglés? Now's when I switch to slide one of the presentation for the day (see above), which has the day, date, a saying, and a "Latino of the Day." My classes will have this as part of their routine every day, which is something that I explain (I've developed these slides over many years of teaching, starting with some really basic stuff, so in no way do I suggest that new teachers attempt to put this all together for every day of teaching, unless you don't want to sleep!). That said, I've enjoyed figuring out who the "Latino for the Day" might be and find that talking about that person, VERY briefly, while pointing to pictures, using cognates, etc. allows for cultural, comprehensible input. This whole first slide, in fact, is about comprehensible input, and I work with students, while pointing to the calendar, to realize that they DO in fact understand me when I say "Es el tres de septiembre" even though they've never had Spanish before. We talk about how their job this year is always trying to figure out what things mean ands sometimes getting that wrong, but that's ok! We repeat ¡Sí se puede!, our motto for the year. (Part of my classroom routine is having students come in and write the day, date, saying, and person (NOT all of the information about them, just the name, birthdate and BRIEF description i.e. Roberto Clemente, 18/8/34-31/12/72, jugador de béisbol). While this sounds like a lot, it only takes a few minutes (maybe a bit longer on the first day).

Finally, I switch to teaching students, using TPR (Total Physical Response), the "survival kit" for the year, phrases they'll need to know in Spanish to get by in the class (Tengo una pregunta, ¿Me permite hablar inglés?, ¿Me permite ir al baño?, etc -see the presentation for the day, above). On the first day, we do NOT get to writing these, and perhaps we don't even get to saying them, but they will, on the first day, be able to recognize what all of them mean and react with the appropriate action. We'll continue practicing all week in about 10 minute increments (to avoid boredom). Finally, I give the night's homework (a quick sheet on Google Docs that I post on Google Classroom that involved filling in "Me llamo, Se llama, etc and answering a few questions ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Cómo se llama ...? etc), turn up the music, and say ¡Hasta mañana!. The whole class takes about 35 minutes, as we have 40 minute classes on the first day due to opening procedures. If we have a longer class, I can spend more time on the "Survival Kit" list with TPR.

Thanks for reading! What do you do on your first day of Spanish 1?

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.