You´re a Star!

19 Jan 2012

After yesterday´s class with 1st grade, I decided that something had to be done to motivate them to behave better.

A friend of mine gave me some great advice--which worked like a charm (at least for today!).

The idea is that I have a little certificate that says "You're a star!" on it. At the end of class, I choose a student who has been especially good--following directions, keeping quiet, participating, etc. That student gets to be the STAR for the day.

At the beginning of class today, the students saw the certificate and started asking me what "star" was in English.

I explained to them that one of them was going to be a STAR at the end of the class.

To which, one of the students replied, "Como tú? (like you?)" pointing to the star sticker on my shirt.

Lucky for me, one of the students in the class before gave me a pink star sticker--so I was able to say, "Sí. Puedes ser una estrella como yo. (Yes! You can be a star like me!)."

Throughout the rest of the class, they were on their best behavior! I could hardly believe that they were the same students from the day before. However, at the end of the class, it was clear who was the star of the class.

One of my students is working really hard to learn English. She always participates when asked a question, and she tries to use English whenever possible.

In fact, she uses a made-up English when she doesn't know something in English.

Before each class, their classroom teacher tells them that they can only speak English and if they don't know how to say something in English they should be quiet.

This girl has taken that to heart. When she doesn't know how to say something in English, she starts to babble words--like "hhhhumm ha unnn ha pah." With gestures, of course.

It's super adorable. I really appreciate that she doesn't just default to Spanish but really tries to speak in English!