Do you do Class Recognitions in Spanish class? Both during the year and at the end of the year, it’s nice to find reasons to celebrate and recognize students’ success. Here are some ideas!
Student Of The Month
At our school, each department gets to nominate one student a month to be recognized. But we have a big department, so I personally only get to nominate someone once per year! There’s no reason why we can’t have a student of the month in each of our classes! This allows us to give class recognitions not only for excellent grades, but for work ethic, improvement, positive attitude and the multitude of other strengths and talents students bring to our classrooms!
Spanish National Honor Society
Does your school have a Spanish National Honor Society Chapter? Ours does, and it’s not so hard to get one started! You need an advisor and the support of your school! We just recently had our yearly induction, and in addition to the ceremony we hold, I made a wall of my stars to congratulate them!
I like to do this, because I find that often, a great part of my time and energy goes to our struggling students. Students who are doing ok to great don’t need as much, and therefore can sometimes fly under the radar. It’s really nice to have the chance to recognize the students who are working hard and finding success, especially during these past few years! This is a great thing to add to your class recognitions!
Seal of Biliteracy
The Seal of Biliteracy is an honor bestowed on students who demonstrate proficiency in at least one language other than English by high school graduation. I have a whole post on the Seal of Biliteracy HERE.
There are several ways to earn it, including getting a score of 3 or higher on an AP Spanish Exam, or taking a test like the AAPPL Test and scoring and Intermediate-3 or higher.
This year I made a clothesline with posters of the names of my seniors who have achieved the Seal of Biliteracy, though many of my sophomores and juniors have also met the requirement!
College Acceptances
Speaking of seniors, another great way to do class recognitions in Spanish class, or any class, is by celebrating future plans! This year I made a bulletin board for my seniors’ college acceptances!
I asked them to bring me copies or email them to me. I print, black out their addresses, and then hang them up with a big congratulations and their name.
The seniors feel so proud of themselves! A college acceptance is YEARS in the making, and a pretty grueling application process, so no matter where they decide to go, celebrating all of their acceptances feels really good. And I find that my younger students are really interested in this display as well! They like to see that their 4 years at high school really does lead somewhere, and it’s fun for them to see the variety of colleges and universities the older students are interested in!
Student Leaders
Another way to have some class recognition in Spanish class is by nominating a pair of students in each class to be the class leader when you know you will be out.
I’m not sure if anyone else had had this happen, but… I have not always had a good experience with substitutes. I spend hours making my lesson plans, and return to find that they couldn’t find them (on the front table!) or they put the plans somewhere and the next person couldn’t find them, or they read the newspaper instead of sharing the plans with my students, etc., etc. (And to be fair, not ALL of my experiences have been like this! There are some truly wonderful subs out there!)
Anyway, after I get to know my students, I ask 2 from each class to essentially be the sub for the day. I give them a copy of the sub plans, and I leave in the instructions for the sub that these 2 students will run the class. This allows me to recognize student strengths and talents (even when it may not be in Spanish learning!). It allows me to build trust and rapport. And it makes it far more likely that my students will get something meaningful from the class when I am not there to ensure it.
I can leave activities that would be hard for a sub to understand, but that my students are familiar with. And I change the student leaders up from time to time, letting multiple students know that they are trusted and valued!
Resources
College Acceptance Bulletin Board Spanish & English
Spanish/English All About My Teacher Fill in the Blank End of Year Activity
Spanish Digital Escape Room for Any Level: Spanish and English Versions!
AATSP: To Start a Spanish National Honor Society
