Teaching Material

Interaction

In my classroom, I present learners with the opportunity to strengthen communication and foster a connection with their peers in the classroom. I begin with arranging desks a “U” shape, allowing constant visibility to the front of the room, the educator and their fellow peers. This approachable set-up encourages learners to ask questions, share opinions, and gain insight from other's experiences. Through a sociocultural approach to collaboration, learners in my classroom reflect on areas of confusion, seek peer guidance and feedback, explore connections with community and culture, gauge for interlocutors understanding and work together to resolve miscommunications or misunderstandings. Using this collaborative approach, I facilitate the use of multiple modes of communication, task-based activities and interpersonal communication, where learners can connect with one another, engage with the language and build confidence with their linguistic abilities at a comfortable pace. 

Material

When planning classes, I use authentic material to contextualize the target language, raise an awareness for linguistic variation and foster an appreciation for the uniqueness of communities surrounding them. This approach encourages learners to create authentic language use and creatively engage with the content. With an ever-growing presence of technology, I pursue to introduce learners' different methods of communication, by presenting them with materials like articles, interviews, podcasts, social media post and many other resources. This exploration of multiliterate encourages discussions on register, interpretation of media, pragmatics, miscommunication, and opportunities for sociocultural comparisons between Spanish communities and their own surroundings.  By seeing the language's practical application, learners are able to solidify the target language as a part of their identity through understanding and personal involvement. 

Feedback

I primarily use mixed methods of feedback to promote language production, offering metalinguistic feedback to clarify any misunderstandings. These forms of correction highlight errors in communication while explaining the implications of its use, how it can be corrected and most importantly, it clarifies why the correction is necessary to avoid misunderstandings. Through the use of this oral and written feedback, I have been able to introduce learners to examples of linguistic variations, recognize their prior knowledge and linguistic variations, and learners' in my classes have expressed reduced feelings anxieties related to production in the class, through the reassurance and encouragement provided to always attempt to communicate focusing on the message they want to convey, rather than on accuracy. In prioritizing constant generation, I am also able to assess learners' comprehension of provided input and gauge their interest and involvement towards investing effort into the class and its materials.

Participation

In the classroom, I remain active in motivating learners to participate interactively throughout every class and taking time to listen to learners' experiences, investing time into learning about my students as individuals. I encourage my students to participate with language in the same manner. Through a variety of different mediums such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing, I assess each learner's preferred learning styles and help them participate and engage in the most effective manner. Although the classroom is teacher-led, emphasis in my classes is placed on student-centered learning and active engagement.