When we prioritize getting to know our students, we learn about the students’ personalities and start to have an understanding of their cultural background. In his book Leading Equity Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D. suggests that as we understand individuals and thus their cultures we become more “receptive to the diverse students in [our] classrooms”. If you are wondering if his book has anything that is relevant for language teachers, I would say that every single statement of it is useful in the World Language Classroom. In order to convince you that this needs to be on your reading list, I am going to share with you four activities from the book that work well for language class.

As you head back to school and are getting to know your students, consider these activities at the beginning of class in the first month:

1. Attendance questions: Instead of calling out the students names, as you go through the list of names, ask each student a quick question, for example “What is the best book you read recently? What is the weather today? If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”

2. Personalized greetings: Ask each student to customize their greeting to you, a handshake, high five or a call-and-response. Stand at the door and connect with each student as they enter.

3. Sticky question of the day: Write a question on the board and ask students to answer on a sticky note and place it on the board around the question. Then the teacher can adlib a conversation about answers that were a surprise or anything really. Ask students for thumbs up if they agree with an answer and thumbs down if they don’t, a total participation technique. Share with the students your answer.

4. Two-by-ten: This is a different take on Star Student or Student of the Day. Eakins’ version is to spend two minutes a day for ten days getting to know one student, centering the conversation on the student’s personal interests. 

These four activities are specific activities to do to get to know students while the book is really a more nuanced conversation about making your classroom a more equitable place. Eakins proposes that for equity it is essential that we make personal connections with our students.