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How to Make Language Learning Meaningful
How do you make language learning meaningful? This can be such a difficult questions for all teachers, especially so when teaching a foreign language that many of your students know nothing about or are only in your classroom because they are required to be. Here, you will find different techniques, activities, and resources to support you when creating that sense of meaning and engagement for your students.
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Techniques
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Below are two articles you may find helpful when attempting to make your classroom the most relatable and meaningful it can be for your students. The first are just some simple techniques to engage your students and the second contains techniques specifically for how to support/engage students who are struggling in your classroom
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Sometimes being a language teacher can be discouraging; most of the students are just taking the class to fulfill a requirement, so it may be very difficult to get them to find the content meaningful. This may make it hard to put all your time into creating great lessons and activities for them, or even find joy in your career. One way to look at it, however, is to think about the middle third of your classes:
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Your top third is your high-achieving students who either love learning the language or just love getting good grades.
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Your bottom third is your students who are never going to care or put effort into your classroom no matter what you do. Although sad, it’s reality. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do what you can to support and engage them, but it is realistic to consider the possibility of there being a third of your classroom who will not change their ways.
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However, there is the middle third. These students are on the fence about caring/engaging or checking out. Because of this, they are dependent on your lessons and if they are going to do well in your classroom or not. If you focus on these students, you may find success and in turn happiness in what you are doing
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Finally, here is an article on giving meaningful feedback to your students. It gave me a great perspective on feedback; I think teachers often forget about this step, but it is very important, especially in a foreign language classroom. ​
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Consider having days dedicated to writing in the target language, much like grammar days. Instead of asking students to write and turn it in for a grade without any prior feedback, have one-on-one meetings/conversations with your student about their writing, providing meaningful feedback. Then allow them to make adjustments to their writing and learn from their mistakes
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Activities
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I think one of the most important things you can do at the beginning of the year to create meaning in your classroom and for your students is to talk about why you are teaching them French or Spanish or German. Why is it important in the big picture of things? Why should it be important to them?
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I have created a text set, which is a compilation of different texts to be used in one lesson. Each student would be assigned or would choose a different piece of text and would be given the task of reading, listening to, or watching the text, taking notes, and being able to understand it well enough to explain it to a partner, group, or the whole class. These texts all have to do with why learning another language is important/beneficial. You could assign different texts to each member of a group and then have them share with each other, or you could assign a text to each group and have them share with the whole class.
Resources
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Here are a few examples of the texts I used in my text set: