During Levi's spanish class this week they have been working on foods, ordering from a menu and using more complete sentences. Levi had to come up with the name of his restaurant (Caliente Dolar), a printed menu with all the restaurant information and menu. The fun part is that he has had only had 1 trimester of spanish and had to come up with all of this on his own, including the descriptive paragraphs of the foods, and then present it to the class - all in spanish. He designed this picture for the front of his menu (kinda funny that his US dollar has spanish writing on it) and really did a creative and fun project. Then today in class his teacher had a table set up at the front of the classroom that had a bunch of foods on it. Each student was given a card with three spanish food words on it and they were randomly asked what they would like to eat. They had to respond in spanish with the food listed on their card. One kid asked for cereal. So the teacher walked over and poured cereal on his desk. Another asked for milk and the teacher poured milk on the desk. I'm sure the janitors love this teacher!! He was trying to get the kids to use complete sentences: I would like a glass of milk, a bowl of cereal, etc. According to Levi the room was busting with laughter and a big mess. They also learned about a couple of spanish foods and had so much food that Levi didn't even eat lunch.
Levi has loved this class because from day 1 they have not been allowed to speak any english. It has been hard for him at times but the teacher uses alot of hand gestures and pictures on the board to teach them. He also doesn't focus on vocabulary as much as sentences.
According to high school parent/teacher gossip, this teacher was accused of not really teaching the kids well enough for them to pass college entrance exams for spanish so he left all the textbooks behind and started teaching his own way. Against district policy at first, but has since had great success with kids who have gone on to college using their spanish. The only sad part for us is that he is retiring this year. Why can't the really good teachers stay forever???
4 comments:
I loved Senora Rumsey, but I wish that she had taught more in this style. I learned a lot of vocabulary, but not everyday stuff like this. Very cool.
I felt the same way about Mac retiring the year before I got into his class. I ended up taking AP Government from some football coach that had no clue...Go Marsh Valley!
What a fun class and a great teacher. At least Levi will have a really good foundation and hopefully the replacement can build on that.
That sounds like an awesome class. Lots of fun and plenty of learning going on.
I wonder if the teacher went on a mission. That is exactly how they teach you in the MTC (minus the food mishaps :)). That call it SYL (speak your language). Anytime anyone in our district would speak english everyone would say "SYL" to remind them to speak spanish. I liked it a lot because I was in a companionship with a spaniard and didn't get to speak much english for awhile there. You learn it better when you HAVE TO communicate that way.
That's sad the teacher is retiring. Hopefully the next teacher will do as well.
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