The 11th grade students from Ms. Ceci, Ms. Maca, and Mr. Garfield’s English classes experienced an ambitious start to the school year. Their first few classes all took place in the English Hub! The topic: personality. It would be more traditional to kick off a new year of foreign language class with a lesson on culture, grammar, key vocabulary, the importance of English in business and diplomacy, or a review of last year’s material. However this English department is more ambitious.
Mr. VanderZee explained the thinking in an anecdote about a friend of his who moved to Chile without any Spanish skills.
One of her friends said, “I am so sad that you’re going to South America. Everything that makes you you: your sense of humor, your passions, your listening to your friends, your thoughtful ideas… that will all be gone when you don’t speak the language. You aren’t going to have any personality in Spanish.” And in a sense, the friend was right. It is harder to really express yourself in a second language. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it can be awkward and frustrating. But English classes at our school are all about helping you reach a level of fluency where you can share who you really are, to let your personality shine, and really communicate.
Students watched a few intriguing TED talks about personality, and took a personality test to consider the results. One highlight for the teachers was seeing the student’s whiteboard annotations from the talks and ensuing discussion. They not only jotted down key phrases and unfamiliar vocabulary, but also diagrammed big ideas. See the links to the talks they enjoyed and more pictures below!
And just FYI, my Spanish-novice friend in Chile has been taking lessons and is doing great! Just as our students are adapting to using English full time while inside the English Hub, the entire country of Chile has been her Spanish classroom–and there’s no better environment for learning a new language than that.
TED Talk: Julian Baggini, “Is there a real you?”
TED Talk: Dan Gilbert, “The psychology of your future self”
