year 2 - TPRS week 2 - Principal observation & quizzing

So last week I had my principal come in on Tuesday during a class and we were still doing the introductory activity where you talk about the different things that students do and then I always try to make it silly as soon as possible because it's much more interesting when it's silly or fantastical.  It has been especially nice because I am teaching at a new school this year and I need to get to know students all over again.  So the first few weeks of class, it's a great activity with very little planning needed since my students have pictures on their desks of something they like to do and we talk about it.

So I can practice sports vocabulary, body parts, useful prepositions like "with", "for", "like","en" and much more.  At the same time, I can learn students names and something about them to help me with learning their names.

But I digress...  so my principal came in class and we'd been having class like this for a week already.  He comes in and witnesses TPRS for the first time.  Mind you, when I interviewed with him, I explained that I didn't have a textbook for my students to use and he thought that it must be either a classroom management nightmare or a genius idea.  The class went very well.  I gave a quiz afterwards and all the students got 3/3 except for one student who got 1/3.  I need to focus on her more in the future and point and go slower.

My principal had written a little note with the following:

Outstanding!  I truly enjoy seeing your enthusiasm for learning.  It is unbelievable how you can maintain your energy and keep students engaged over an extended period of time!

 On the faculty meeting on Friday, he also encouraged all the other teachers to stop by my classroom to see how I am teaching Spanish this year.  So, in short I think it went well!

Now my quiz was a little different than last year.  This summer I attended another workshop with Donna Tatum-Johns and noticed that she quizzed us over the structures.  So she covered the structures up after teaching and asked us what each of the 3 structures were.  So on my quiz, I did just that.  I said the Spanish term that we were practicing and had them write what it was in English.  Since we're just beginning that's ok.  I'm excited when we'll get to the point of much higher level language ability.