Tomorrow begins the first day of second semester and also the first day of my intern teacher’s 10 week lead teach. I have every confidence in her, but I also remember how nervous I felt 16 years ago when i was in her shoes! I just want to do justice to such a promising young teacher and be a great mentor teacher! I also am not sure how I feel about the 4 hours a day I will need to occupy myself with something other than teaching! Knit? Cross stitch? Write a book? Pinterest and twitter? Now we’re talkin’!
One challenge we face is we have a group of about 30 students who have been in Spanish 1 since September with us, most of whom are staying in one hour, but several are scattering throughout the day. Then, we have another 90 or so kids who took 1 semester of Spanish a YEAR AGO at the junior high who will be joining us! Yikes! We are a little nervous about blending everyone together, but thanks to my friend Nancy C., a German teacher at my school, we decided to do a little bingo game ice breaker.
After we have them play bingo, we will do some “circling questions” to provide personalized comprehensible input and get the kids back in the saddle of listening to Spanish again. Hopefully it will go well…if not, we have 18 weeks to improve!
Kristy Placido 
Hola Kristy! I realized you posted this a while ago, but the bingo link is broken. Is there a different way we could find it? Gracias! I love your stuff!
Can you help me out with which page of my blog you saw the link on? Thanks!
Hola Kristy,
Tienes toda la razón. No es fácil enseñar por vez primera, ni tampoco hacerlo año tras año cuando tienes grupos tan diversos como el que describes. La idea del bingo está muy buena, vaya que tue scuela tiene suerte de contar con maestros tan capaces en el área de lenguas! Otra cosa que yo hago al comienzo de cada nuevo curso, especialmente con los niveles entrantes, es asegurarme de hacer varias actividades de pronunciación. Estoy conmvencido de que el aspecto de la pronunciación es determinante en la motivación de los estudiantes para seguir adelante sus estudios de L2.
¡Un abrazo!
Diego
It means a lot that you want to be a great mentor teacher and make a difference in her learning experience! I will soon be student teaching and know I would definitely appreciate someone like you guiding me along the way. Best of luck! 🙂