5 Practical Tips for New Bilingual Teachers

Welcome to the bilingual teaching world! Whether you are teaching dual, bilingual or Spanish immersion, I hope you find these tips useful. 

My bilingual teacher friends and I have come up with a few tips to get you started.

Substitute Plans:

As a new teacher you will spend school days at new teacher trainings, meetings,not to mention you may get sick, and will need a day off. 
Start early and think about a substitute plan (binders, tubs, plans). This will save you hours, other teachers are also coming up with new ideas, so visit Pinterest often.

Know when to stop working: 

Even if you stayed up for days, chances are, you are not going to finish everything you have to do, so do your best everyday and know when to stop, it is not healthy to stay up working until 3 a.m. everyday. 

Have a cut-off time everyday and make sure you add family and personal time!

Create a diary of your first year of teaching:

School days are full of activities, events, and of course packed of lessons, having documentation on what you did, can help you to be more prepared the following year.

It is wishful thinking to pretend teachers have time to sit down and write in a journal every evening and reflect about your day, you will be too busy, so find creative ways to create a diary, I used my phone. A simple voice note stating things that worked well, lessons that did not go so well and activities that I need at that time of the year.

 During the summer, listen/read the diary and update, create or find the resources that you needed (conference packets, volunteer planning, certificates, posters, anchor charts, etc).

 Stay connected:

As a bilingual teacher, you will find very quickly that Spanish resources are hard to find. Many bilingual teachers are trying to change that, on this website, you will find teachers from all over the world that share ideas, lessons, and activities. 

Ask for help:

Many new teachers think that asking for help means they are not doing something right. Please don't ever feel/think like that, there are systems in place, that you can't just already know. 

You need to ask in order to learn, if you find that some people are not as helpful, ask on forums, Facebook groups, etc. 

Remember we are here to help too, so send us a message on our Facebook page or e-mail me! 

Are you still preparing to land a job in the bilingual field? Need help preparing? Visit The Ladders and find great tips on how to advance your career. 

un carnaval de recursos

What a better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than to have a "carnaval of free resources" for your class? Many bilingual teachers have joined this blog hop to bring you educational material especially designed for your bilingual/dual classroom. 

I can't wait for Spring to get here, our friends up north will probably agree. While some of us are enjoying the nice weather, we have to remember it is still winter, and what better way to celebrate, than with poems.

I have to confess this is the first year I use weekly poems in my kinder classroom, and I have to say that I can't believe how much they have helped with fluency and comprehension, the best part is, my students still remember the past poems and can recite them from memory.

I am learning more and more about how to use them in class, and I also want to share the love with you. I compiled 15 winter poems that you can enlarge o print in different ways(even make little books), and have also added 6 ideas on how to use in class, all in one packet. 

This item will be free only during the hop, so don't wait! Click on the picture to download. 

I hope you continue to find the resources that you need, don't forget that we love to hear what you think so leave a comment in our blog and/or store. 

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