Most of my previous questions related to how to actually incorporate inquiry-based learning into a language classroom. I have taught Spanish for 11 years and will be teaching ESL next school year, so I appreciate having some more strategies to effectively incorporate inquiry-based learning. The past two weeks in this course have provided examples of and opportunities to create inquiry-based lessons.
The idea of facts vs. concepts is an important concept that we try to teach at the secondary level. The activity of sorting the facts vs. concepts cards is similar to an activity that I currently do in the classroom. I have students respond true or false to common misconceptions about hispanic culture and language. I realized that I could adapt this activity, as well as many other activities, to make it more inquiry-based.
I also found that investigable and non-investigable questions are often asked in my classroom. I feel more confident through this course to guide students through researching their questions. I also like the idea of changing a non-investigable question to an investigable one. Sometimes it can be difficult to answer all of the questions that secondary students have, and it could be time consuming. Allowing the students to modify the questions and do the research, with our guidance, empowers the students and reduces the teacher’s workload.
I do not currently have any burning questions. I am looking forward to using the website that I have created to correspond with my Day of the Dead unit. I hope that I can come up with more ways to incorporate inquiry-based learning in my lessons to engage my students next school year.
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