I am not yet a teacher, but I like to draw from my experiences from when I was a student in a second language class to think and plan on how I would teach. One of the topics that I thought about lately was having fun while learning. While of course not every single class can be entirely without memorization or learning difficult subject matters, I think a fun class ever so often would inspire and motivate a student. This would be very much the case if the student was young.
I took a month long German summer class when I was twelve and it was one of the most fun I've ever had in a classroom. We would sing a song in German with the aid of a songsheet that had the lyrics both in German and English. The teacher would then go over the similarities of the two languages from the translation and then why some concepts were so vastly different.
The best class of the month had to be the last, being it was themed as Christmas in July. We sang Christmas carols in German and the teacher brought in German dishes and desserts. The food really showcased the culture and it didn't seem so alien to me. Of course, my favorite part of the day was when the teacher gave out small toys that he had gotten from Germany. They were very inexpensive, but as a twelve year old it delighted me to have a toy from a different country. I kept it for years afterward and when I saw it sitting on my desk, I would speak the small bit of German that I remembered from the class.
When I was speaking about this subject to my mother, she brought up that in her High School German class, she would give her teacher some money and he would buy her some German comic books to read. She said she read them everyday when she was a teenage. It also help her a lot in the language being she would translate them herself. She loved the comics so much that she still has them to this day.
I think that if a student sees a class as fun, then they would want to learn more and be able to retain the knowledge they learn.
-Kaylynne
Active Engagement in Learning!
Role playing, storytelling, drama
Very true! I remember my Spanish teacher in high school did the same thing, but she made us choose a dish to make and bring, like a potluck, and we all tried different dishes that we made out of scratch. Of course I had my mom help me with the project because I couldn't cook to save my life. We also had a Spanish production that we performed in front of the entire school. It was fun.
ReplyDeleteWhen I took Spanish in high school there was not such days as experiencing the different dishes, it mostly paper, pencil and repetition. I only remember learning one song during my Spanish class, and it was anything but fun.
DeleteMy 12 year old daughter studied Japanese with 5 year old Japanese kids in a class. I was worried if she would become those kids' babysitter. She did in fact, not in the class (they had a very good teacher) but on the playground during the break time. She said the class time was superb but the break time was better because she was exposed to the natural interactional speech of the language. As she loved those moments, playing with those much younger classmates and chatting with them, she has unforgettable memories of the class together with the language itself. I think it is one good way of retaining a learned language.
ReplyDeleteI love fun activities in the classroom! It's amazing how much we remember about those fun classes. In 7th grade I had a science teacher who was able to make science interesting and fun. This class gave me such a different outlook on science. I never found it to be interesting until he exposed me to the "fun" side of the subject.
ReplyDeleteSo true! I can remember the days when I was able to teach my own students through cooking, outdoor activities and other extra curricular activities that included taking field trips to different places. Today, teaching has changed in ways that we can enhance student learning by using different types of media, and not just the old pencil and paper routine. The only thing is that not all teachers have the luxury of owning their own laptop, projectors or other media equipment to help enhance student learning.
DeleteThat is so true! I recall taking practicum a semester before I graduated. We were assigned to different schools to teach the content areas on Saturdays. One of my lessons in social studies was focused on the different cultures we have here on Guam. I did a power point presentation on the different cultures for my students. My students really loved it and at the end of the lesson I brought desserts made from the different cultures that they explored. The expressions on their faces let me know that they really enjoyed the lesson as well as they learned something from the different cultures that we explored in class.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading several comments, the idea of fun seems to include food. Being a Chamorro, that is one way I show my gratitude towards others, is by offering a dish that I have made for them. Getting together for a meeting, I find myself bringing a snack of dessert to to share. It is a social thing! It always seems to bring people together and makes people happy, whenever there is food around to share. In our classrooms today... depending on what school you are at, birthday parties or any type of party is forbidden. School days that involved food with the children not only brought about a little to no stress level, but it encouraged parental involvement. Parents were seen at the school more often. We don't even have Thanksgiving Lunch Days with our parents! Teachers are expected to find other ways to make learning fun, but not without have restrictions!
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