Greeting students at the door has numerous benefits including creating a personal connection, setting an example of polite etiquette, and for us language folks, using the language! The learning starts at the door.
To me, greeting students is the MOST important routine that I’ve done for all 12 years of my teaching career. I’ve written about Greetings and Goodbyes before, and I want to share how I’ve expanded it over the years. Now I’ve been connecting a greeting to each unit that I teach.
1. Pick a question based on the current unit
I start with “How are you?” and move to “How do you feel?”. When I taught the “Sick” unit, I put up “What hurts?”. When I taught a unit about Costa Rica, I put up different greetings from there. That one was really fun!
2. Pick a few answers
The fewer I choose, the better they learn them. My first attempt (above) had 20 possible responses and they stopped looking for new answers.
Sometimes the answers are the part that supports my current unit the most. For a “Media/Movie” unit, include answers like “exciting,” and “scary” with a question about how their day is going.
3. Create a poster with the question, the answers and pictures
The pictures helped them learn the vocabulary and reduces the time needed to translate. Sometimes students make the posters as a “Real World Homework” activity. The “Me duele” poster above was made by a student on the PicCollage app. She loved that I used hers on the door. A side lesson was that she learned to be culturally sensitive by including different races in the photos. This poster is actually her second version.
4. Greet ’em!
It takes practice to get to the door before they start coming in, but I love starting class with this positive interaction. I leave up some posters just so I can mix up the questions and have a reference. I also have a generic “Rules” poster that lists items they cannot have in the classroom. I used this when the new rules came out to quickly remind them.
My last change up is to let a student be the greeter. Less talking for me, more talking for them! But I’m still there to at least share a smile. 🙂 I like to list that as an option for every unit on my Real World sheets.
How do you greet your students?
I love the ideas….it is hard to be at the door greeting but students are creatures of habit and the enjoy it. What I’ve been doing this year is saying goodbye to them and at the same time taking the opportunity to touch base with students who might have been struggling. It’s gotten to the point where students actually wait for me to get to the door.
I absolutely LOVE this! I make it a point to be at the door; sometimes your ‘buenos dÃas’ and smile are the only politeness some students may experience throughout the day…sad but true. To step it up and have questions, I think this is brilliant!
Thank you for sharing!
Fantastic tips!
Reblogged this on Olas de Palabras.
Love it! I do this with my students, but I think it is a great idea to have the posters to support the m/point them in the right direction. I usually tell them the day before what they will need to “get in” the door, but I think the posters are great!
A great idea. I like how you have the posters on the door with possible answers. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, love these new ideas. Thanks for sharing.
Love the posters! I can’t see where you got them though?
We made most of them on an app called PicCollage.
This app is fantastic! My mind is running with all of the possibilities! Thanks for the suggestion. Do you have any other favorite apps that you’ve been using lately?
This is our favorite by far. They are always adding new designs and its easy to use. Check out our “Techy Stuff” category for other apps we use. I do need to find some new apps though!
Just downloading it now – can’t wait to give it a try!
The greeting them at the door is easy– and required at my school– but it’s always been a thorn in my paw that I usually don’t get much, if any response. Even though I’ve taught greetings, goodbyes and other courtesy phrases, having a few posted reminders of possible answers seems like a guaranteed way to get more responses. I’ll be trying this tomorrow 🙂
It takes a few weeks to get them talking back in my experience. I don’t force it. After about 3 weeks is when I start using student greeters. After they do this, they understand how it feels to not get responses. It dramatically improves how much they participate in the future. Let us know how it goes!
I have found that this has been an effective technique with my most challenging class. I started the semester by greeting them with “hola guap@”, and now they do it to me and to each other. I’ll also ask them what they are listening to on their iPods, which serves a triple purpose: it shows interest in what they’re into, it makes them talk to me, and it makes them take out their earbuds 🙂 Meeting them at the door has really helped to change the mood of this difficult group to a positive vibe rather than a combative one.
I love this, but we’re not allowed to have any paper within 3 feet of any door per the fire marshal which makes me sad. I’ll have to think of another way to get “beyond bien” at the door!
I like the idea of using student greeters so they can feel what it’s like when you say hi and get a blank stare right back. Nothing makes me more annoyed than that!
Wear it like a sign? Hold it up?
Have you ever been to Trader Joe’s and seen the “ask me” employee? They have a sign on a stick that they hold up…I think that’s what I’m going to try, using a page protector so that I can slide the prompt page in and out as needed.
Challenges make us more creative!
Such a simple and creative idea! I love the way you guys think!
I always say a form of goodbye and ask my students questions on the way out of the classroom, but I can’t do greetings because I change classrooms every period, and frequently the students beat me to the room. I am a traveling teacher 🙂 My upper level students, after studying “La Conciencia” started calling me la Vagabunda!
I love the idea of incorporating this into my routine for next year. Do you actually have a chance to ask every student as he/she walks in or do some sneak by as you’re talking to a student?
Most days I catch all of them. I’m sure one may sneak by every once in awhile. When I have students do the greeting, they hold each other accountable way better than I can!