Let’s talk about five different tips to build classroom community and relationships with your students! I know this is something we talk about a lot at the beginning of the year, but back to school can just be really crazy anyways so I thought right now would probably be a good idea to do just kind of like a little refresh check-in see how that’s going and just talk about some different strategies and ways to really build relationships and classroom community. Those bonds you have with your students always grow throughout the year!
Hopefully some of these ideas are going to be things that you maybe forgot about doing, and might cause you to dig back in the shelves and pull something out and try that out. None of them are brand new ideas, but they are all great strategies and I don’t think the reminder is a bad thing. So, let’s get started!
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase an item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you!
Watch the Video
Special Person Interviews
Tip number one is to try out Special Person Interviews. Special Person Interviews were developed by Bryce Hedstrom and he’s got a ton of resources for it on his blog. Basically, you pull one student up to the front of the class and you interview them. It’s like show and tell except you’re talking to them about like their lives and their interests! I like to use this as a weekly routine, so I’ve talked about it before here, but it really is a good way to grow the classroom community.
It is amazing how much you can learn in just 10-15 minutes. It really is a whole community builder because if the student that you’re interviewing shares something, it is inevitable that one student in your classroom will be like, “oh my gosh I have three dogs too!”. I like to just do one interview a week, but do it throughout the year.
I also like to finish up Special Person Interviews with a write and discuss. Write and discuss is exactly what it sounds like. You are going to discuss what you just did and you are going to write it down. I personally prefer to just type it out on the screen where students can like watch and follow along. When you do this it turns any activity into a text. Then you can do reading activities with that selection.
I have a whole bunch of ideas for reading activities, but one of my favorite options to do after Special Person Interviews is to play a guessing game. Give them a few paragraphs with the names removed and see if they can remember who said what. That way they’re kind of paying attention to that information about their classmates (or sometimes they’re reading it and they’re like oh this is me!). That really does build that relationships and build that community.
Another option is to take 10 of them, hang them up, and then do a gallery walk with them. Students write down like one thing that they understood from each paragraph or try to pair paragraphs with people.
You might not think your students are into this, especially if you teach older students. I think it’ll surprise you! Give it a try if you haven’t yet. It does not have to be very long. In fact, I find it more engaging when you keep it like shorter I would not go longer than 15 minutes (unless you know sometimes you have one of those days where it’s like everybody is really into it and then you of course lean into that). Generally I would say a Special Person Interview is like 10 minutes or less.
I do have a few blog posts to help you get started on Special Person Interviews:
- Special Person Interviews
- Special Guest for Special Person: Bringing the Admin In
- Reflections on Special Person Interviews
Need help getting started with Special Person? Check out this set of slides and printables to use with your students!
Recommend Books Based on Their Interests
Tip number two is to recommend books to your students based on their interests. You might learn interests from them during Special Person, during your start of class routine, weekend chat ,or maybe you’re just talking in between periods. I found that things go a long way if you personally select and hand a book to a student.
This is particularly great for FVR to help your students to be successful. Also, just make sure that you have books available that are relatable and interesting for them. Sometimes a kid is looking and they just can’t find anything. If you come back the next day (or like you know a week with shipping time) and you have a recommendation just for them, that will do wonders for that relationship. And, hopefully that student will really enjoy reading the book that you picked out for them.
If you want to learn more about procedures for FVR, check out my post here. If you need ideas for books for your students, check out this post with a helpful list for you here.
Check In With Guardians
Tip number three is to take a moment to check in with guardians. Here’s something that helps me with that. Once a week I pick one student from each class period and I send a short note to their guardian. I have a couple of notes in my Google Keep and I copy and paste it and then I tweak it for the student. Then I send it on its merry way! This is not something that takes me more than 10 minutes to do five emails or six emails. It is so worth it! I note who I have sent a note home for on my roster because I don’t want to miss anybody. I try to make it all the way through all of my classes each semester. Then I just start over again the following semester.
If you’d like to grab my templates to use you can see them here. It’s a short note that says something like, “hey your student was doing great in class this week. I just wanted to point that out to you, I love having them in my room. Signed, Profe”. The guardian will say, “hey I heard from your Spanish teacher that so and so was going really well in Spanish class”. Then that student knows that you are telling good things about them to their guardian, and that relationship is strengthened all the way around. What guardian doesn’t want to hear good things about their kid, right?
Share About Yourself
Tip number four is to share something about yourself to relate to your students. There’s a whole spectrum of comfort levels for how much you want to share. I’m not saying you have to tell them every single detail of your personal life! However, I do think there’s something to be said for sharing some of those little tidbits with your students.
Weekend chat is a really great way to hear about your students’ lives, what they’re up to, and what’s important to them. You can take those tidbits that you learn and use them to connect your own personal experiences. For example, maybe you remember how it feels to home at 12:30 AM because there was a drive home from a game. Or, maybe you remember what it was like to strike down a set. Any of those sorts of things that your student might relate to that you have experience with! Sharing those things with them this helps students make connections with you as a person and not just a teacher.
Play Games With Your Students
Tip number five is to play games with your students. I know we don’t really always have a lot of time for playing games, but one really really easy way to do this is if you are playing a digital game like Quizlet Live or GimKit, or Kahoot or whatever and the digital game is running itself, log in and play with them. They like to see if they can beat you! It’s good to be silly and laugh together!
Sometimes like we have those weird schedule days where assemblies are happening or fire drills are planned or whatever it is. On those days, bring in board games and just play games with your students! Forbidden Desert is a great one for that or Forbidden Island because those are cooperative games. Ticket to Ride is also really fun – any of those sorts of games are really easy to just pull out and play with your students and you can do them in the target language or you can just… not. You know, it’s okay to just play!
A really fun game my students have enjoyed playing in the past is the what do you meme game. I have a version for it here (it’s a free download), but that is a really good option to make sure you just like throw in your file cabinet. Students love it and that’s a really fun one to like jump in and play with them.
How to Build Classroom Community with your World Language Classes
There you have it five tips to build classroom community and relationships with your students! I’d love to hear if any of these were great reminders for you or if any of them are things that you haven’t tried before that you’re planning on trying.
I would also love to hear in the comments below, what’s your favorite way to build classroom community with your students? I love to read them, but I also really love that anybody else who’s reading this post can see them, too! Maybe somebody else is looking for tips on building relationships with their students and those other people will be able to see your comments and we’ll all be able to learn together. So if you have a second drop me a comment and let me know what’s your favorite way to build classroom community!