Creating community in the Spanish class

Building community is one of the most important aspects in the Spanish class.

Personally, I have the feeling that I have failed in the past to build a more positive environment with certain year groups that would have improved the quality of my Spanish lessons and the learning experience of my students.

For that reason, my main objective for this last term and for the whole 2023 is to improve that relationship with my students, focusing on making genuine connections.

This aspect based on my experience is key to creating a better dynamic in the class, a class where the students can find a safe place with low levels of stress and zero anxiety.

My first step to achieve this goal will be to give them the opportunity during this last term of asking me questions in Spanish through an activity that I have called: Interviewing the Spanish teacher.

I think that by giving them certain details about my family, pets, travels, favourite things, and memorable moments will help me to build better connections with them.

Generating an excuse to start a conversation
Secondly, I am planning to have more conversations with the students about things and topics that interest them, of course they must be able to understand the message to start a conversation and the teacher must be the facilitator of the language acquisition.

Introduce more projects that interest them and topics that would like to talk about.
Some of the Term 4 projects:
Year 5 and 6 – Interviewing the teacher. Every student can ask me one question in Spanish.
Year 5 – This is me: the students are going to introduce themselves in groups of two having little conversations asking each other’s names, ages, nationalities, place of residence and grade.
Year 6 – Interviewing a classmate: Asking questions about his or her favourite food, music and sport.

Other little thing on my list that helps to connect and establish better relationships with them:
·         What would my students like to be called? Are they using other names rather than the ones on your class list?
·         How much do I know about them? Hobbies; sports that they practice; siblings…

Learning about each other
The students can also learn about each other to create bonds with other classmates over common interest they may not have discovered yet

From little conversations to great conversations 
Engage them in a follow-up conversation, simplest way is by using WHY?  so, they can express themselves further.

Making learning fun, useful and interactive
In this article’s featured photographs you will find some special moments of the Year 5 and 6 students performing their role-play activities: At the restaurant and at the clothing shop.

At the end of each role-play, the group has been asking questions in Spanish to their classmates about their stories promoting their interaction.

I look forward to a wonderful term of building a strong community in the Spanish class.

Javier Vidal
Spanish Teacher Primary School