what ever may be, the future is not ours to see
Contribution by Ms Marinieves Fagel – MYP Spanish teacher
A motto that now shines a different light on our current circumstances, doesn’t it?
My Spanish classes normally started with a handshake, a buenos días and a qué tal, some chatting and then we continued with the real stuff, always keeping in mind that communication in Spanish is our primary goal. The great part was the interaction between the students and myself as their teacher: asking questions, giving the students the opportunity to answer in Spanish, to learn (also from each other), to be involved, to make mistakes and try again. Keeping track of the learning process was already a big challenge in the pre Covid 19-period, but in the last 9 weeks all of us teachers have been faced with even bigger challenges. The future is definitely not ours to see!
There was no time to stop and evaluate what was happening in a relaxed mode: we had to continue. In the first 2 weeks my students received adjusted tasks to work on and meanwhile I worked out an Spanish home lesson plan, accommodated my study to a virtual classroom and started to communicate with the individual students.
Thanks to everybody’s flexibility, creativity and help, I can organize my weekly Spanish online lesson, including a real whiteboard for instruction on the spot. I make instruction videos and set assignments in Google Forms (that really works well!) and we do online Kahoots to keep up with vocabulary. The situation gives me the opportunity to let the students catch up with difficult subjects and I can also spend more time with students that need extra support.
As a teacher and person I’m learning every day, especially from my colleague teachers at ISD Secondary. We share tips on convenient apps, online materials, teaching skills, computer programs, the daily routines and how not to panic when your screen or mic stops working all of a sudden during an online lesson.
But even if we have managed as a community of teachers, students and parents to cope with this new and unusual situation, there is something that is irreplaceable, and that is the real contact with my students. As Doris Day sang, the future is not ours to see, but with everything we have learned up till now, we can certainly get a better grip on the situation, I’m confident of that.
Que será, será… ¡Hasta pronto!