#ALLTOGETHERNOW Campaign In 'High Octane' Drive
Hear From Teacher Rebeca Shiffrin About the First 10 Weeks
ALL TOGETHER NOW!
Let’s take a closer look inside the Cooper experience from the perspective of Middle School Spanish teacher Rebeca Shiffrin.
Let’s take a closer look inside the Cooper experience from the perspective of Middle School Spanish teacher Rebeca Shiffrin.
The goal of the Middle School Word Language (MSWL) program is for students to communicate effectively in writing an orally in the target language. In Cooper, our MSWL program promotes and supports the development of adolescent students intellectually, socially, emotionally, ethically, and physically in the classroom. Our 8th graders are curious, risk-taking, motivated, and unafraid of using the target language in this case Spanish. Their behavior allows an environment full of collaboration and social interaction with creative and innovative ideas.
Students start with dialogues between themselves. They introduce and greet each other the way people in Spanish speaking countries do, talk about their day during or after school, and discuss their plans for the weekend. They also have conversations about their school, subjects, sports, likes, dislikes, families, and friends (a favorite of students). They learn additional regular and irregular stem-changing verbs and vocabulary so they can express themselves more naturally. They watch videos in Spanish projected on our Epson Brightlink “interactive wall”. They learn and reinforce irregular verbs by playing games on the wall with the touch projector connected to my computer.
After covering these concepts, they work in groups of two, three, or four to create their own substantial dialogues. To work on their free topic dialogues, they sit on our beanbags or stretch out on the floor outside the classroom in the spacious area near our new conference room.
Students have a lot of fun creating in the language, applying it to real life situations, and talking about something relevant to them. During our “Morning Meeting” at the Glenn Performing Art Center, they perform.
My one wish is to provide more tools to our students to enhance their learning experience such as 1) a pretend café annex to my classroom in which they can act out ordering in a restaurant or any other engaging activities with the language or 2) the use of Skype to communicate and share with students from private schools in Spanish speaking countries.
The John Cooper School
From Curiosity to Wisdom
The John Cooper School is an independent, non-sectarian, co-educational, college preparatory day school. Our mission is to provide a challenging education in a caring environment to a diverse group of select students, enabling them to become critical and creative thinkers, effective communicators, responsible citizens and leaders, and lifelong learners.
The John Cooper School seeks to attract qualified individuals of diverse backgrounds to its faculty, staff, and student body. The School does not discriminate against any individual in admissions, educational programs, personnel policies, general practices, or employment, on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, physical disability, or age.
The John Cooper School seeks to attract qualified individuals of diverse backgrounds to its faculty, staff, and student body. The School does not discriminate against any individual in admissions, educational programs, personnel policies, general practices, or employment, on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, physical disability, or age.
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