Just try and figure it out FIRST!!!

So last night was Meet the Teacher night and it went really well. We didn't have many parents come out but the ones who did really did seem genuinely interested in what we were going to be doing this semester and excited about the fact that their child would have two Spanish teachers this semester. We explained our expectations for the students to their parents and that the students would be held accountable for the time and effort (or lack thereof) that they put into the class and the parents seemed to agree with that expectation.

However, I find it to be extremely interesting that the biggest thought in my head by the end of fourth period was "Just try and figure it out on your own FIRST!!!!" The students were writing a script for a flip camera project and I was really excited in 2nd period by how into it the students were. They were really trying to make it interesting/funny/correct. They really wanted to use Spanish. (This was one of the first times I have seen these students excited about Spanish.) But my excitement was short-lived because I quickly became a walking English-Spanish dictionary in a classroom where the students were speaking completely in English to write their Spanish scripts. At first I was just telling them how to say things, then I started making them say "Como se dice _____?", and by the end of fourth period, when I was asked how to say things, all I could think to say was "tenemos diccionarios aqui." I was not irritated at all by the fact that they wanted to know how to say something, but rather by the fact that they did not even attempt at any sort of Spanish version of a question or to look in one of the 20 dictionaries lined up on a shelf in the classroom. How ironic that we had just discussed that very same idea (that they must put forth effort) with their parents the night before. I feel like there are a few posters of "non-negotiables" that must be made and a whole lot of ignoring questions in order to force students to put forth the effort instead of asking for everything to be fed to them on a silver platter...