My goal is to provide engaging, communicative experiences for my students that are tailored to their individual learning needs.  I want to spark an innate curiosity for learning about other cultures so that my students lead discussions based off of their own questions.  I want to work with my students to create a positive classroom environment where they feel comfortable exploring their own learning while simultaneously being held to high expectations. 

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Respect

At the beginning of the school year I will establish a "Respect Contract" with each class.  In this contract I will establish my own definition of what respect means and then I let my students define respect in their own words.  We will make the contract based on everyone's input and I will have each student in the class sign it once we have reached an agreement. By letting students have agency over classroom conduct expectations, I hope to create an environment that supports collaboration and mutual respect.

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Engagement

In order to expect students to be engaged, I understand it is my responsibility to make lessons as interesting as possible in order to spark student curiosity.  I do this by differentiating my lessons based on student interest and learning styles. At the beginning of each year I give out student surveys in order to learn about my students' individual likes and dislikes as well as what helps them to learn.  I continually consider their input as I design lessons throughout the year so that they feel a personal connection to the subject material.  We will be interacting with the Spanish language though music, videos, kinesthetic activities and games as well as speaking, writing and drawing assignments.

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Collaboration

Given that the primary purpose of language is to communicate, I strive to encourage my students to be comfortable attempting to communicate in the target language during class time and beyond. Although they are always held to high expectations, mistakes are welcome because this is how we improve our language ability. Therefore, students are encouraged to respect one another at all times and try their best to use the target language to the best of their ability.  This will be scaffolded and supported during small group discussions, jigsaw activities, and other communicative activities where they must work with one another to complete the task.

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