I work at a school where there are lots of possibilities to develop professionally. I have attended conferences, workshops, and summer institutes to keep on learning, help improve my teaching, and become aware of the latest trends in language teaching and learning. Also, at school, I have signed up to be part of committees or all-school work groups to tackle specific and relevant topics related to the whole school. This summer, I had the possibility of having great collaboration within the world languages department as part of a summer grant.
I have previously written about how “Personal and Professional Experiences Inform my Language Curriculum” and “The Importance of Professional Learning Communities.” Collaborating within the world languages department was also an amazing experience! For two full days some of the language teachers at the school where I work got together to talk, discuss, and brainstorm ways to align the different language specific curriculums.
I find these two days to be a foundation for the work I am hoping we will do as a department moving forward.
What made these two days so special?
We had…
- a set time – two days!
- a space to meet without interruptions
- a specific goal to achieve
- a full agenda with time to plan in smaller groups
- an enthusiastic group of language teachers
Why is this important?
We…
- got to know each other at another level
- learned from each other
- had fun working together
- started to build a shared understanding, knowledge, and skills on language teaching and learning specific to our school
- all benefited from the work we did together. Individually we would not have been able to achieve the same results
Through this experience we enhanced collaboration within a world languages department to ultimately benefit students’ learning, growth, and empowerment. It felt that by working together, we might create a strong, cohesive, and state-of-the-art language department.
Looking forward to a school-year full of collaboration!
What has worked for you? What suggestions do you have moving forward? Please, share in the comments or at connect@languageteachinglab.com