Are You Already Falling Behind? Maybe You’re Not...

Before the school year begins, we usually spend a lot of time carefully planning our goals, thinking about what we want to accomplish and the mistakes from previous years that we want to avoid.

Are your goals for the year still intact?

Very often, once the honeymoon period at the beginning of the school year is over, I realize that the picture I had in my mind of how the year would go is simply not working. I’ve only been teaching for two weeks, and I’m already behind!

The first thing I ask myself is, “Why am I behind?” Immediately followed by, “Am I the only one who is behind?” And I begin to panic. But then I remember that this is not the first time this has happened to me. So I stop, take a breath, and look at the situation more carefully.

The first weeks of the school year are usually spent doing team-building activities and learning our students’ names. But beyond learning their names, we should also use this time to really get to know our students. This is a valuable opportunity to observe each group and find out:

• how they learn

• whether their level matches what we had planned for the class

• what their goals are

• what they need to learn

  
  

Once we do this, we begin to realize that every group is different. Their learning styles and levels may be different, and their goals may be different as well.

So, how does this affect us?

For one thing, we may realize that our own goals as teachers should not necessarily be the same for every group.

We may need to use different activities from the ones we had planned or approach certain concepts in different ways. But this should not discourage us, because this is precisely part of our responsibility as teachers.

We have to start from where our students are—the students in front of us, in this particular group, during this particular school year. And the best time to do that is right now, during the first weeks of class.

Many times, when students are not at the level we expected, we try to figure out why. Maybe the previous teacher did not teach them well. Maybe the students themselves are very restless, do not pay attention, or do not want to learn. Or maybe they simply forgot everything over the summer.

But finding an explanation does not change the group we have in front of us.

Our job is to adapt to our students rather than expecting them to adapt to our goals, to what we want to teach, and to the way we want to teach it. Because, realistically, that is not always going to happen. We are there to help our students, wherever they are in their learning, and sometimes that means moving away from what we originally planned.

So why do we spend so much time planning before the school year begins?

Planning helps us, as teachers, know where we need to go, but it does not tell us exactly how to get there. Planning is like a map that shows us the different stops along the way, with many possible roads leading to each one. The route we choose will depend on the group.

With one group, we may be able to stop and explore more along the way, while another group may need us to slow down or take a more direct route. We can still reach the same destination, even if one group arrives with more souvenirs from the journey than another.

So, does it matter if we are not following our original plan or if we are falling behind?

Yes, it matters, but it should not be our first concern.

Our first priority should be taking the time to get to know our students—not just their level of Spanish, which can be easily assessed with a test. Let’s use these first weeks to understand their needs. From there, we can adjust our plan and help them succeed in Spanish class.

Slowing down, reviewing, or changing our route does not necessarily mean that we are falling behind. Sometimes it simply means that we are taking the path that this particular group needs.