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Wanted: Suggestions From Teenagers On My New Job!

I will be starting my new job on January 6th. I will be a full-time Spanish teacher on a Private Catholic High School (mostly girls, only 5 guys in the whole school).

This will be the first time that I 'formally' teach in a school, I have been teaching for the past 5 years but never in a school, so what I need from you all is some hints, suggestions, counsel that I can use to have sucess as a Teacher in a High-school. So maybe if you can share what do you like the most about certain teachers, it may help me, I don't know, just tell me what things I can do to make the class fun and at the same time where they can really enjoy the language and learning. Also, the Principal told me that because is a all girls's school they tend to talk too much and in the classrooms are a total of 40 students. Any suggestions on how make them to stop speaking and paying attention?. Just feel free to say your opinion, I'm all ears

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Play bingo with them alot. Thats like all our teacher does, its great! You will probably have to say Escucha may alot.....I can't really give you tips from my teacher because shes a bad teacher so yah..

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mm.. bingo in spanish is a good idea. Just don't do that too much or they'll start thinking you don't know anything else to do.

Besides the usual subjects, take some songs with the lyrics, play it and after ask them to translate. You can also give the lyrics with missing words or phrases and ask them to complete while they listen to the song. Girl usually like to sing, so it will be good to sing with them.

Let me think of something else... A classroom with 40 girls must be hard. I can't think of anything to catch their attention, but I know some games we used to do in my spanish classes.

Once the teacher brought some papers with professions in spanish and a picture/drawing above it, so we could learn the professions in spanish. She asked to each one of us to pick a paper and to mimic the profession we got, and the others had to guess what it was. Since there are 40 girls there, you can split them into groups of three, four or five, and each group picks up a profession to do the mimics (they can't choose, scramble the papers and ask them to pick one). The other groups have to guess (in spanish, of course) and the group that gets more points gets a prize or something (e.g. a candy to each one).

It's important to show some differences between the language in Spain, Argentina and other countries, like slangs and words they use with different meanings. If there are enough computers there you can take them to enter a chat room to talk to other spanish speakers.

Of course, be always nice with them and tough when it's necessary. If you are a friend to them, they will be your friends too.

Try to stimulate their contact with the spanish language as much as you can. If they are already have a good level of spanish they can read some books too. Talking about books, be sure to take some texts from famous writers like Miguel de Cervantes and Isabel Allende. We read a very nice text written by Isabel Allende once. Not long texts, but short stories.

Oh by the way, teaching some bad words in spanish will catch their attention for sure

If I have any other idea I'll post here. Good luck!

Edited: darkagent on 3rd Dec, 2003 - 5:36pm

Job New On Teenagers Suggestions Wanted

Lei, Bingo??? I don't know if its the same game I'm thinking of. Tell me more. Thanks for the suggestion.

Great idea! I do this with my students at home. I play the music of Luis Miguel or Alejandro Sanz and ask them to translate the lyrics, they love to do that! or I ask them to bring their favourite lyric in english and they translate it into spanish. Is so much fun!.

Great Idea agent!!! I will definetly use this one . I was also thinking in some really hard tonguetwisters in spanish , they're so much fun!

Yes, I will show these differences and about the computers, I doubt there are enough computers, but I will ask them next week since I have a meeting with the Dean of Studies.

You're something else *rolling eyes* hey, is a private catholic school and the Principal is a nun, you want them to kill me?

Great! thank you!!!

Another question, I love outdoor teaching, any good excuses to take the girls out once in a while?

Job New On Teenagers Suggestions Wanted

Sure! Once we left during the morning on an english class to have breakfast at a cafeteria, and we had to order everything in english, and also talk to each other in english. That was even part of our test.

That was possible because there were not too much ppl in the classroom, so it would be hard doing that with 40 girls.

But you can always take them out, tell them to speak ONLY in spanish (that's good to improve their speaking) and teach them the name of the plants in spanish, like flowers, trees, fruits, and also objects like cars, buildings (town hall, hospital, police station, library, etc.), bus stops, sidewalk, shops (supermarket, shoe store, bookstore, etc.) and many other things.

You can also play some game, I just can't think of any right now

Wanted: Suggestions From Teenagers On My New Job!

Hey I forgot to mention something.

Outdoor classes are great to teach the directions! Teach them how to explain how to get somewhere, like that:

- Excuse me, how can I get to the library?
> Oh, it's easy. Walk down this road as far as the police station, turn left and go straight ahead for 3 blocks. The library is on the other side of the street, next to the church
( and so on )

I hope they like it


To xtrasweet: oops I didn't know that, thanks for telling me

Edited: darkagent on 3rd Dec, 2003 - 6:26pm

Wanted Suggestions Teenagers On New Job!

@darkagent.. Sorry to be the one to bring the bad news but double posting is not allowed here. If you wish to say something that you forgot then you will press, 'modify' and correct your error. Review the FAQ Board for further information and/or the Rules page.

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darkagent, thanks a mil! wow, you have great ideas that I will use!!! Muito Brigado!