Half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education.
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When acquiring a second language, in a Level 1 class, it is important to make the learning engaging and fun-especially when learning grammar patterns. Drawing is an effective way to engage all learners with an activity that provides a lot of comprehensible input. As the teacher retells a story, the students use their whiteboard to illustrate the scene. Students then pass their board to the student on their left. Everyone has a new board! Before the teacher starts describing the new scene, the teacher reviews the previous scene (that is already drawn on their boards). Students point to the story detail as I describe it and if they don’t see it, they are to draw it in. Now the teacher describes the newest scene which students illustrate. I repeat the cycle until the story is complete or I’ve run out of time. The students carefully stack the boards and when my Spanish 2 students come to class, they take a board and as I retell the story they are to point to the drawings that match each scene. All of my students are engaged and learning through repetition and meaningful experiences.
About my class
When acquiring a second language, in a Level 1 class, it is important to make the learning engaging and fun-especially when learning grammar patterns. Drawing is an effective way to engage all learners with an activity that provides a lot of comprehensible input. As the teacher retells a story, the students use their whiteboard to illustrate the scene. Students then pass their board to the student on their left. Everyone has a new board! Before the teacher starts describing the new scene, the teacher reviews the previous scene (that is already drawn on their boards). Students point to the story detail as I describe it and if they don’t see it, they are to draw it in. Now the teacher describes the newest scene which students illustrate. I repeat the cycle until the story is complete or I’ve run out of time. The students carefully stack the boards and when my Spanish 2 students come to class, they take a board and as I retell the story they are to point to the drawings that match each scene. All of my students are engaged and learning through repetition and meaningful experiences.