Classroom MGMT
✔   Rules (DEA & CWB)
✔   Routines (Routines, Student Jobs, Interjections & Rejoinders)
✔   Brain Breaks

Comprehensibility
✔   Inclusion (Safety Nets, Gestures & Question Posters)
✔   Shelter Vocab (Super 7, TPR ppt, TPR Wall, and Word Wall)
✔   Unshelter Grammar (TPR Scenes)

Camaraderie
__ Secrets

Student buy-in is huge. If the kids aren’t enjoying themselves, there’s no way their parents will have nice things to say. If too many parents cause a fuss, admin gets annoyed by all the extra work that your CI program is causing them. This doesn’t usually end well. So, Camaraderie is all about creating opportunities to keep students compelled. 

I choose to make the distinction that providing compelling input is neither the same as just keeping students happy, nor goes as far as to be concerned with motivating students to do something. On Tea with BvP, Bill VanPatten has called into question whether it’s our job to motivate students, but recognizes class must be enjoyable, and Stephen Krashen has revised his hypothesis to state that Input must be not only be interesting, but actually compelling.

How do we create opportunities to keep students compelled? Start with class passwords. Bryce Hedstrom has written about his program. It’s a fun and simple way to build camaraderie and use colloquial expressions used as “rejoinders” in CI classrooms. An evaluator of mine recently commented that requiring a class password seemed like one more tool to effectively use the target language. He was right.

Class Password
In a nutshell, you tell the class a phrase they need to say to you in order to come into class. Once you’ve done this a bit, give a different phrase for each class period, and rotate them each week or so. You’ll find that students take ownership of being in a special club, and help each other out. If a student forgets the password, have them wait near the door and listen to many other students say it.

Here’s a presentation with some ideas for passwords in the last hidden slide:

Class Password