As back to school is quickly approaching for many of us, we find ourselves starting out the school year in a very different way from years past. One of the most important things during the first few weeks of school is getting to know our students and building a strong rapport with them.
Many of you, myself included, are wondering “How am I supposed to get to know my students virtually?”. “Is it even possible to get to know students that I have never met before online?”.
The answer is YES! Yes you can get to know your students! It just is going to look a little different. I have always felt that being a French teacher, and as foreign language teachers, we have an advantage of getting to know our students a little better due to the content that we teach. This will make it more fun and much easier to break the ice for all of us getting to know each other or reacquainted! (Being a foreign language teacher we tend to see the same students more than once 😉).
Below are some ideas that we can use in our “virtual” classrooms to get to know our students a little better. I would recommend doing the activities yourself and sharing them with your students or I always used a PPT about myself. The PPT allowed me to introduce myself to students and it was a fun way for students to get to know who I was, what my background was, my likes, dislikes and some personal information that I didn’t mind sharing. The more you are a “real” person with your students the more they will open up too and feel comfortable. This will make all of us meeting face to face even more special!
*These are not the complete activities, please visit my TPT store for the downloadable materials and detailed instructions.
Questions pour les premiers jours:
This is an activity that can be used during the first week of school or start of a new semester to get to know you students. It has the students answering questions about themselves. This is an activity that I use just for me, I do not share it with anyone, that way students feel comfortable opening up. You will be surprised what some of your students want you to know, especially when they have a safe place to say it.
This is an activity in which students will fill out a poem about themselves. Here they can be creative and have fun!
This is a fun speaking activity to get the students up and moving around the room to get to know each other. To do this virtually you could do a Zoom Call, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams, or the platform that your school uses. You could divide the class into groups or you could do it as a whole class with students taking turns asking questions and having students raise their hand if it applies to them.
Remember, there is no right or wrong way to do these activities! Use them how you see fit virtually and in the classroom.
As always, I hope that you have found this information useful and helpful to you!
Merci,
Amanda