It’s here! SUMMER! A time for teachers to relax by the beach, beverage in hand, care-free, and happy.

Or, if you’re like most teachers, a time to finally read that professional journal you received in January, comb the local bookstores for a used copy of those theme-related books you need, clean out EVERY drawer in your desk at school, and maybe every once in a while enjoy a show on Netflix without grading papers at the same time.

For me, summer is more of the latter, but hopefully balanced with a bit of the former. 😊

My summer to-do list this year is shaping up nicely. It is so refreshing to have the time to make changes that will affect my coming school year in such a way that doing them in the summer is not a chore but a gold-star, I-rock accomplishment! Take a look at what I’m doing, and perhaps you would like to join me!

Dana’s Dual Language Summer To-Do List

1. Attend trainings that inspire me to be a better teacher.

I am thrilled to be a part of several trainings this summer, some offered through my own district and some offered through the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy. Click here for a list of summer events that still have space! There is nothing more inspiring to me than to surround myself with like-minded educators and professionals. Whether I am a presenter or a participant, I always gain new insights from other presenters and attendees that help me grow both professionally and personally.

I love to share what I do in my classroom and beg, borrow, steal, and collaborate with other teachers about what they do in theirs. It’s what it’s about! Let’s share ideas for oral language development, inquiry processes, how you are utilizing your curriculum map on a regular basis, how assessment works into your units, what the Bridge looks like in your situation…anything and everything! Will I see you at one of the events? Wanna talk??

2. Comb through my units.

I have a bin for each of my content-themed units. My classroom looks rather like a storage unit in the summer. I like to take one or two bins home each week. I check out the Biliteracy Unit Framework I have for the unit and read it over with a fresh mind. Is that what I really did during the unit? What notes and photos do I have regarding student engagement and language development. How did the summative assessment go? Are there more opportunities for inquiry?

And I take time to organize my graphic organizers, art and center samples, realia, student work samples, and all other pertinent paperwork within the unit bin. This makes opening the unit during the next school year more like my birthday every time!

Picture me in November:

Lid comes off bin. BUF on top of bin contents greets me with a smile. Organized folders sparkle below. Realia and manipulatives all greet me with a “Hello! We’re here for you! No need to remember where you put each of us last year!” What? For me?? THANK YOU!

As a result, I am a happier, more organized, more efficient, and more effective teacher THE ENTIRE NEXT YEAR. (Minus perhaps an occasional Tuesday after a three-day weekend.)

Do it. Organize your units. It is SO VERY THERAPEUTIC!

3. Meet with other Dual Language teachers – and my principal.

Next school year, one of my goals is to help our school become more culturally inviting and celebratory of the fact that we have a Dual Language Program! We have just one cohort of Dual Language at each grade level, and the rest of the classes are monolingual. However, as we work together to raise the status of Spanish in our society and celebrate individuals who are bilingual or multilingual, we need to make some changes at our site!

That means I have some work to do this summer. I am going to meet with the other Dual Language teachers regarding things that they would like to see at our school that celebrate diversity and multilingualism. Our Dual Language Advisory Council (made up of parents, teachers, and community members, see my last blog on how that got started) came up with a great list at our latest meeting. Here’s some of what we hope for:

• Bilingual signage across the school
• Bilingual office presence
• Bilingual aide/intervention teacher
• Making after-hours school events more culturally-inclusive
• Several Dual Language information nights for families
• Staff education on DL (to help the monolingual classroom teachers understand why we have a dual language strand at our school)
• DL program participant social night (vertical alignment)

We are going to meet with our principal, who is very open and wonderful, to share some of the great things that are happening in our school’s DL program (she already knows, but it never hurts to restate the positives when you’re wishing for more!). We then plan to get her support on those items we brainstormed. Talking together in the summer, when things aren’t so hectic, will hopefully make our wish-list seem less demanding and more reasonable. What’s on your wish-list? Do your colleagues and admin agree and know about it?

4. Practice my Spanish.

I am the English medium teacher in our Dual Language Program. Yes, I do all my teaching in English with the exception of an occasional sentence or phrase or word in Spanish during the Bridge (that my students or teaching partner have taught me). However, just like my students, I want to become more bilingual!

Our school started a Spanish Club for the kindergarten and first grade students, and it is meeting once a week during the summer. I plan to attend – and participate – along with my 6-year-old daughter! I want to show myself and my students that with perseverance and continued practice, I can and will improve in my Spanish language capacity. I also hope that during my participation in various workshops through the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy, I will gain more Spanish vocabulary simply by engaging in the workshop!

This summer it doesn’t look like a visit to a Spanish-speaking country is in the cards; however, locally in Reno I plan to take my family to cultural celebrations around the city where Spanish is spoken, attend bilingual library time, and attempt to watch movies in Spanish each week. Who knows, perhaps by the end of the summer I should rename my blog “How I Fit In – Teaching for Biliteracy as the English-Medium Teacher Who is a Developing Bilingual but Becoming More and More Bilingual Every Day.” Seems catchy.

Whatever your summer to-do list may entail, I encourage you to check things off with gusto! Use a Sharpie! Feel good about improving yourself, and also remember to take time for yourself. However many things on your list that are work-related, you need at least that many that are personal-related. 😊

Enjoy your summer, and I hope to see you at one of our workshops! I’d love to see some of those Sharpie lines on your summer to-do list.