6 Tips to Transition to Comprehensible Input Teaching
Making the switch to comprehensible input teaching can be a difficult, scary transition for teachers. I’ve been there and I completely get it. I reflected on some of the things that are most important to get started or to help you feel more comfortable making that transition. Here are the six tips that I think will help get you started.
1. Have Patience
Your students more than likely will not have any prior exposure or experience with comprehensible input. It’s normal for students to be resistant to your new teaching style. Be patient with students throughout the process.
2. High Frequency Verbs
Focus on high frequency verbs like the Super 7 and Sweet 16. Students may not be as comfortable or confident with those verbs. Introduce or reintroduce those verbs to give students more contact with those verbs. Repeated use of these verbs with stories and activities with serve students greatly.
3. Stories
Use stories to give students more input with the language. Make the stories as fun and engaging as possible. Twist and turns, plot twists will definitely keep students attention.
Creating stories together may also be a great option for your students. Using OWI, One Word Image, is a great option for getting students involved in story-asking.
4. Use what you know
You know what your students know best. Use that knowledge to your advantage. Incorporate vocabulary and cognates that students have seen before. This can be a great review and reinforcement of what they know. Meeting students where they are with what they know is only going to help ease that transition.
5. Support Students
Make sure your students feel supported in your World Language classroom. You can support students by making sure they have access to the tools they need to succeed. Those tools may be posters, reference sheets, gestures while speaking, and even routines.
If students feel supported and more comfortable, your transition to CI teaching and their transition into a CI classroom with run more smoothly.
6. Find Your #SpanishSquad
It’s so important to have someone to talk to or look to during your transition. It could be someone in your school, district, or on a social media platform that you use. There are many teachers that use comprehensible input that on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
These tips are great to keep in mind when making the transition. However, the most important thing to know is that there is no one way to use comprehensible input teaching in put in your classroom. What works for someone else and their students may not be for you. Your comprehensible input teacher journey is about doing what is best for you and your students.
Any others tips for transitioning that you’d like to share? Drop them in a comment below!
If you liked this post…
If you liked this blog post, you may be interested in these:
- 5 Important Reminders for Teachers
- 5 Growth Mindset Tips for CI Teachers
- Introduce the Super 7 High Frequency Verbs
Want updates on new blog post, teaching tips and hacks, and new resources? Subscribe to my newsletter below.
Already subscribed? Use the password at the bottom of every newsletter email to access the Free Resource Library hosted on my blog.
Don’t forget to pin this post to check out these ideas for later.
Jade Greene
