| Body | This activity was created by Becky Peterson, this week's author of the Topic of the Week, in collaboration with CASLS staff.
This week’s Activity of the Week was created to support world language teachers and departments in exploring Erik Carter’s research related to belonging.
Objectives:
Teachers will be able to:
- Build awareness of Carter’s ten aspects of belonging
- Articulate a plan for increasing belonging in the classroom
Materials: This week’s Topic of the Week, butcher paper
Procedure:
- As a department (or with at least one other collaborating teacher), read this week’s Topic of the Week. As you read, consider the potential of the world language classroom to reach learners of all abilities, and star any parts of the text that you find particularly poignant and insightful.
- Discuss the parts of the text that each of you starred. Explain what you found to be insightful.
- On butcher paper, write each of the ten aspects of belonging (one per piece of paper) and post them around the room.
- Provide each participant with a green marker and a blue marker. In museum walk/carousel format, each person should walk from paper to paper and document strategies they already implement in the classroom to enhance belonging in green. They should document ideas for improvement in blue. If an idea is already listed, each participant can simply star the idea with the appropriate color.
- Once the museum walk/carousel is complete, participants should speak about the different strategies that appear on the board. Specifically, consider the extent to which each strategy involves multimodal approaches to communication and incorporates/supports learners with limited communication abilities.
- After this discussion, establish a department goal for improving strategies that promote inclusive practices and belonging for all learners. This goal may include gathering more research related to multimodal approaches, reaching out to trainers, or engaging in peer observations to better understand the strategies in practice.
Notes:
As an extension, practitioners may consider adapting this activity to include learners in the classroom.
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