Language Barriers

Do you ever feel like you're talking to a wall when you're talking to kids? Some days I stand in front of my class, and I swear they must think I'm speaking Spanish to them. Sometimes it's my fourth graders who don't understand, sometimes it's my sixth graders... I rarely get it from my high schoolers because, let's be honest, they don't listen in class anyway.

This happened to me on Friday in my fourth grade class-- the blank stares from a room full of students, all of whom are thinking the same thing: "I didn't know Miss C. can speak Spanish! I don't understand a word of what she's saying!"

I was trying to introduce a new concept to them in Language class. I explained it the way the book told me to. It didn't work. Okay... New technique. Maybe write it on the board and give one example for every student! Nope? Hmm... Maybe if I dance around the classroom and make up a catchy song that explains this new concept to my students, they'll get it... The only thing those children learned is that their teacher doesn't dance or sing well.

For the first time in my year of teaching I literally threw my hands up in the air and said, "AHHHHHH!!!"

Nobody knew how to respond to their exasperated teacher except one boy. "Um... Maybe you need to go on that medicine for stress and anxiety, Miss C. We've never seen you like this before!"

I'm fairly certain that every single one of those children went home that night and told their parents that their teacher sings, dances, and screams-- all within the same lesson! "What's the lesson?" their parents will have asked...

They still don't know.