Learning and Growing in a Spanish classroom

Have you ever had that student who walks through the door and is so petrified of making a mistake because they don't want to look stupid?  I mean, we all went through middle school, so whether or not we have had that student, I'm sure at some point in our lives we were  that student.  We somehow need to get those students to feel comfortable enough to take risks and to be able to make mistakes in front of their peers and not feel the need to immediately melt through the floor.  How do we do that?  Isn't that the million dollar question?      Where'd he go? I don't think that there is one correct answer. Clearly we need to build relationships with our students. Relationships with students in many ways are like a partnership. And partnerships work best when there is feedback coming from both directions.  I think that all too often we give and give and give feedback to students, but don't take enough time to listen to what they have...

When I came to the career of teaching, it was by chance.  I grew up in Dalton, MA, went to school in Manchester, NH, and was about to move to San Antonio, TX upon graduating college for my next big adventure.  I had met my future husband mere weeks before I was moving to Texas to volunteer for a year in a boys' group home as a residential counselor.  I had a degree in psychology, a certificate (like a minor) in Spanish and the desire to help people.  I had a vague idea of staying in San Antonio when I finished my year of service, not having counted on falling for a young, bald, middle school teacher in Dalton before I even finished my first month in Texas. My very sophisticated life plan (stay in San Antonio) already had a monkey wrench thrown in it. My mother started sending me job advertisements when it became clear that I was moving home to marry the bald man and would need to revise my life plans.  One of the ads she sent me was for a teaching position in ...