Aggressively Supportive

Everyone who can communicate in one language has the ability to learn to communicate in another.

Last year, I reflected a lot on how to get students to let me know when they needed something clarified. I tried putting the onus on myself, “Let me know when I’m not clear”, “It’s my job to be clear, your job is to let me know when I’m not”, “Let me know when I use a word that I haven’t clarified”.

The sentiment is a good one, I truly believe that. I also believe that this mindset works for a lot of people.

This year, more than years past, I am unwilling to let a student slip between the cracks by pretending they know what I’m saying when in fact they have been lost for who knows how long. I am going to be aggressively supportive of them to make sure that every single student knows that I will not leave them behind, but they have to step up a little bit as well.

Embedded in my school’s core values are statements of taking ownership of learning, and knowing what is unknown. In order to instill those values, which I do believe are… valuable… Some explicit changes needed to be done.

But first, something to remember about comprehension-based communicative language classes is that though a teacher may have 4 sections of the same class those classes hardly ever learn exactly the same vocabulary. That’s because every section is its own unique language community. Heck, this past week one class talked about walking tightropes while another talked about bike factories, but both went along with the exact same language structures. Arguably, vocabulary is one of the biggest dividing factors at the beginning of the year when learning what each of my classes can do and what input I still need to use with them.

One way I’m being aggressively supportive is by reminding students as often as I can that we cannot assume what other students know. Reminding them that a word they know really well just may not have been used as much in another class, and asking “high fliers” to stick with me while we all get on the same page because we can’t move forward if it means leaving others behind.

Next, I remind students Every. Single. Day. To stop me the moment they’re confused. Not only do I remind them, I included this expectation in my letter to caregivers, and the moment a student asks for clarification not only do I thank them, but have the rest of the class follow suit.

“Thank you SO much for making sure everyone is on the same page so we can move forward together!” “Thank you for taking ownership of your learning and making sure you understand everything” “Asking questions helps everyone because clarification can reinforce language for one person while teaching it to someone else” “Thank you for making sure everyone in our community can follow along”.

On to some practical tips for being aggressively supportive.

I keep this sign at the front of my classroom on a magnet. Anytime I ask a question and am not sure where I’ve lost students I point at it until someone lets me know when I lost them.

Another practical tool that I am implementing is gibberish. Maybe this is a little tricky, but it’s just a training tool. If I know NO ONE will know what I’m saying and no one stops me to ask for clarification I know that we aren’t feeling comfortable enough yet to speak up. I can use this as a teaching moment to reinforce how happy I am that they DO stop me.

All-in-all, being aggressively supportive, to me, means making sure that I take advantage of every opportunity to be supportive of students. Giving them the tools to ask for clarification, and making sure they use them. This is going to be a great year of learning and in the moment I notice it’s not, I’m going to make sure that I reestablish norms to support students and get them to ask for the support that they need.