First Day Fun

On the first day of school, I try to avoid covering policies and procedures in my classes.  Why?  Well, to be honest, students get that from every teacher in every class on the first day.  If they are in my first period, they might have an interest but 2nd-7th periods have zero interest in hearing me babble on about rules, grading, and how great our year is going to be.  In LOTE, we dare to be different and think outside the box!

I have heard some teachers who start the first day with a story or a children’s book filled with cognates so that kids can see that they already know a lot of words (this works especially well in level 1), others who play the name game, some who have students make name cards and introduce themselves in the target language.  I also loved the idea of creating a PowerPoint about my lifestyle to go with an introduction to me and my class.  Like many of my students, I get stage fright when I have to be center stage.  On the first day, I am too nervous myself to put on a show (later on, usually by day 2, I get over it and am wiling to make the biggest fool of my self whenever it makes the environment for engaging).  I am visual, so the name cards would probably help me but the name game does nothing for me since I’m not an auditory learner.

So what do I do?  Well, first I hand out the calendar and we have our first Tapa del Día.  But after, I do a mingling activity I call Lotería Social–or “Social Bingo.”  I create a 4×4 bingo card with a question or topic in each box.  Students must roam around the room, asking each other questions to find someone different who answers “yes” to each box’s criteria.  I model it by asking a random kid a question I think they will answer “no” to.  Then I explain (in the TL of course) that I must now ask a different question.  I ask until the student says “yes.”  I next ask for their name and demonstrate writing it on my paper.  The students then get some time to complete the activity–and I participate too.  After several minutes, we regroup and I ask who they had on their papers for each box.  It’s a lot of fun to see who said “yes” to which question.  The greatest feature of this activity is that it’s easy to adapt to different levels (from level 2 and up).  For level 2, I used sports, movies, activities, books, etc and the kids usually fashioned questions about whether or not the person likes, plays, participates, reads, etc the item in each box.  For level 3, I make it all in the past–former teachers, did you see __ movie?, did you read___?, etc.

Lotería Social is only one of the activities I do on the first day.  Throughout the entire class period, I work on setting the tone for the year, something I will get more into on another post soon.