Lauren Shaffer, OWLA Executive Recorder & Editor of The Cardinal
Spanish Teacher, Dalton High School

High school language teachers: Are you interested in having your students participate in this program? Check the link at the end of the article.

Last May, as my students eagerly awaited the end of the school year, I had the chance to let them break from the routine and step outside their usual roles: instead of being students, they became teachers. This opportunity came through the Ohio Distance Learning Association’s One World, Many Languages program, which connects high school classrooms with elementary classrooms for live, remote language lessons. Through the program, high school students plan and lead a 25–30-minute lesson for an elementary class, giving them the opportunity to apply what they have learned and share it with an authentic audience.

I participated in this program with my Spanish III and IV classes, both of which are College Credit Plus classes at my high school. With these classes, the college semester typically ends earlier than the high school semester, and I often struggle to find ways to keep students engaged until the end of the year when they know their final grades have already been submitted. When I learned about One World, Many Languages, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to keep students engaged with something fun, while also holding them accountable as they prepared to teach their lesson live.

As a class, students chose the topic they wanted to teach. I offered suggestions for structuring the lesson, possible components to include, and considerations for working with elementary students, but ultimately left these decisions up to the students. Once the class had an outline for their lesson, they broke into small groups to prepare their portion to deliver. We worked for about a week to prepare and rehearse the lesson, and students got to experience firsthand what it’s like to plan and teach a class. At one point, after significant preparation, one of my groups rehearsed their lesson and found they only had 9 minutes of material! They had to go back, reevaluate the lesson, and find ways to expand on their original plan, engaging them in problem-solving and creative thinking.

I’ll admit that I was met with mixed reactions when I first introduced the idea to my students. Some of them looked forward to it, while others were disappointed to know that I wasn’t going to let them play on their phones for the rest of the semester. Despite this, their attitudes quickly changed on the day of the lesson. The minute my students saw the elementary students on the screen, they were all smiles. They radiated energy as they sang songs, danced, and played games with the kids. There were, of course, moments that didn’t go as planned, causing my students to think on their feet and adjust, just as teachers do every day. I received a lot of positive feedback from my students, and the elementary students seemed to enjoy interacting with the “big kids.” Overall, I believe it was a positive and memorable experience for everyone involved.

I highly recommend the One World, Many Languages program to other high school language teachers. It allowed my students to work together toward a common goal, think creatively, take ownership, and gain a greater appreciation of the effort that teachers put into their work. In addition to what my students gained from the experience, I hope that the elementary students left excited to continue exploring language learning, as they are the next generation of language learners and the future of our profession.

---

If you are interested in having your classes participate One World, Many Languages, please refer to this information from the Ohio Distance Learning Association:

One World, Many Languages is a collaboration developed and delivered by the Ohio Distance Learning Association (OhioDLA) to connect HS world language classes to elementary classrooms through the state of Ohio. A free, annual collaboration project, HS language classes connect to elementary classes via Zoom in order to share fun learning and activities in the target language. Languages such as American Sign Language, French, Chinese, and Spanish are offered. Last year, more than 30 HS language classes offered sessions throughout the week to more than 28 elementary classrooms, many of whom signed up for a different session each day. This program reached more than 800 elementary students in all!

Ohio Distance Learning Association is a chapter of USDLA, and works collectively to bring relevant and engaging topics and learning opportunities to classrooms, Pre-K to 20, in the field of Distance Education. The Ohio Chapter is proud to offer a wide variety of free classroom-to-classroom collaborations throughout each year as well. 

Here is the link to sign up as a HS offering classroom for the coming year:
World Language Class Sign-Up

For questions regarding One World, Many Languages, please reach out to Michele Carlisle (michele.carlisle@ecoesc.org), Elle Benak-Dammarell (elle.benak@clev.frb.org), or Paul Hieronymous (paulhieronymus@nrcs.net).