I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the kind of environment I want to create in my classroom. I want students to feel free to express themselves, and make mistakes because that’s how you learn. In order to feel comfortable making mistakes, students need to feel supported in a space that invites them to be silly and lower their affective filter, that “invisible, psychological filter that either aids or deters the process of language acquisition.” Essentially, it dictates the “fight or flight” response in language learning. In a situation full of unknowns, do I shut down and retreat into “playing school?” Or do I reach out with curiosity and embrace the unfamiliar, bumbling happily until I understand? I remember pivotal moments like this from learning Spanish in an immersion environment as a teenager in El Salvador. In 8th grade drama, a required class at my school conducted exclusively en español, our first assignment was to memorize ten lines from a book. I found Cat In the Hat in Spanish and memorized that sucker (no one said it had to be a complicated book…and I didn’t speak Spanish yet!). On the big day, we sat in a circle and went around performing our memorized lines for the class. When I got to the end of mine, everyone sort of nodded and stared at me, then a few people said, “TuviÉramos.” I had said it more like, “TUviéramos,” ignoring or missing the helpful accent mark. I could have let that moment, so early in learning to speak Spanish, shame me or scare me. Instead, I repeated, “TuviÉramos.” Trying to recreate similar situations for brave language learning has proven difficult with your average student’s average level of motivation. But, to this end, we’ve been dancing a lot. Dancing is silly and fun and you have to lower your inhibitions in order to participate. Bingo: lowering the affective filter! I read about baile viernes for literally three years, circling back to Mis Clases Locas’s blog every time a pic of her students dancing popped up on my Instagram. But I wasn’t convinced my students would dance. Does anyone else ever feel like teenagers are like stray cats? You don’t want to spook them, but you when they finally come near you or do something cat-like it’s hard not to freak out because you’re so excited! That’s how I feel about Baile viernes. I try to be chill, but I’m actually thrilled when they want to dance and be silly. Or when a student recently wrote an original rap in Spanish about shark conservation in the Atlantic off Mexico. “Can I rap for the class?” Me (inside): “Whaaaaaat??? That’s awesome! Yes! Absolutely!” Me (actually): “Yeah, sure.” So, we end class on Fridays (and sometimes Thursdays...or Wednesday brain breaks...) with dancing. My most outgoing class obviously has been dancing non-stop since I introduced Baile viernes. Not all of them every time, but most, and they find me during Study Hall to suggest videos for Friday’s routine. But this past week, I hooked the juniors. A reticent age and a shy group. WIN. But I was cool about it. "Can we dance, too?" "Oh, sure." 😎
On another note, it’s my 6-month blogiversary! I have some goals for the next 6-months:
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AuthorSC native, Salvadoran at heart, Spanish teacher, trivia nerd, and novice blogger. Archives
January 2018
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