Calendar Talk often comes up in conversations about “essential” techniques, and for good reason: it can be a fantastic way to participate in the lives of your students, and provide windows into other cultures! The class is able to share about important events and moments in their lives, and the teacher keeps their finger on the pulse of what is current and important to the students in their class. (The older I get, the more I find myself thinking, “The what? Why is that cool? What are they doing? My lower back hurts. This is just a rehash of the 90s. What is happening.“)
Why should you use Calendar Talk in your classroom? Calendar Talk allows everyone to talk about the things that matter in their lives lately, while also providing an opportunity to learn about and connect to important dates in other cultures, and can thus build deep, powerful connections between classmates and the instructor for maximum joy and acquisition.
When do I use Calendar Talk?
Calendar Talk is a very flexible technique: it can be incorporated into instruction as just part of an opening (or even closing) routine, or it can be a standalone activity itself. In any case, Calendar Talk generates a lot of language that is personalized to the class.
As for when in the school year to use this technique: literally whenever! I find myself starting the year with it because it can be a very safe activity, but I find my use of it ebbs and flows based on student (and instructor, hello) interest. But then, it can be a great palate-cleanser between lots of new activity types, units, or at points in the year when everyone just needs a win (and some connection to go with it). It can be the comforting home base to return to when the class has taken the midnight train to Crazy Town. (This never happens to me, what are you talking about…)
How do I do it? – Logistics
First, get ye a calendar! You want to find a format that works for you.
I typically draw a calendar grid onto a large piece of butcher paper or a giant Post-It. You want it to be big enough to be visible to students and also usable for an entire month. I have joined the legions of Mr. Sketch-addicted teachers to draw and mark the calendars. I find that you can use one calendar for all classes, though sometimes classes get a lot of information out onto the calendar OR feel a strong sense of ownership that might require you to get separate calendars for certain classes. Take into account cost and materials and do what makes sense for you.
Much more economically friendly is just printing a blank calendar template from online onto printer paper, and writing on it using a doc cam. I typically search “[month] calendar” in the Target Language to see if I can get relevant cultural celebrations already built into the calendar, and because the format is often different from US-American calendars. (German calendars, for instance, start on Mondays, not Sundays. Culture!)
If you want to go a digital route, get a template that is easy to use and reuse. During distance learning, I used this free calendar I found online (in German and in Spanish) with easy to copy/paste graphics to move around the calendar pages. It is also easy to make copies of pages so that each class can have its own calendar, and you could even link the calendar slide in view-only mode to a course website.
An alternative for both of these is to just use Small Talk Slides that can help cover the same sorts of information, but without the same calendar visual. A disadvantage is that the actual calendar page serves as a visual scaffold and memory bank – I would venture a guess that most students have seen a calendar and would have its format as a starting point for understanding – but an advantage is that having a closed set of choices can help students be more expressive and not be intimidated by trying to come up with what’s going on in their lives lately, in the L2, when they might not feel quite comfortable doing that. (But also: accepting relevant L1 as part of Calendar Talk can help lower the affective filter, and if you can just rephrase into comprehensible L2, students can acquire personalized, highly relevant vocabulary.)
Pick a format that feels easy and workable for you and your classroom context! And if you have found any sweet templates in your internet browsing, please share them in the comments.
How do I do it? – Procedure
- Display the calendar of your choosing so that all students can clearly see it. Or, if you want, you might just draw out the calendar live in front of your students, narrating what you are doing in the L2. “I am going to draw a calendar. I am drawing a line, a line, etc. Hmm…let’s think. Monday…Tuesday…Wednesday… What month is it? Oh, it’s September!” etc.
- Introduce the calendar in language at your students’ level. This can range from: “This…is… a calendar! Look…at the calendar! Wow! Let’s talk…about the calendar!” to “Today, we’re going to talk about what is going on in your lives lately, and what’s going on at our school. Let’s also learn about what’s going on in [Target Culture community]!”
- To ease into the activity, it can be nice to start with just the date, and the weather. For upper level students, or level 1s who are familiar, just asking “What day is today? What is today’s date?” gets the job done, where beginner students will need more scaffolded questions. You might point at the relevant spots on the calendar and ask this-or-that questions, like “Is today Tuesday…or Wednesday? Is tomorrow Wednesday…or Thursday? Is today or tomorrow Tuesday? Ah yes, today is Tuesday, and tomorrow is Wednesday.” Writing new-to-your-students vocabulary on the board in L1 and L2 can help support making this early-in-the-year activity 100% comprehensible. Writing words like “today” directly onto the calendar can help with this, too.
- Then, you can move on to the weather! Beginning with “How is the weather?” you might offer choices again (“Is it sunny…or cloudy?”) with visual supports (drawings or writing in L1 and L2), show the class a list of options, or with students who are ready, just let them answer however they can. You can draw that onto the calendar to record it and scaffold understanding.
- If students are familiar with Calendar Talk, everything before this was just the warm up…here’s where it gets interesting! Now, ask the class if there is anything important or interesting happening today, or this week/month. Anything! This can be birthdays of students or their family members, sports matches, performances, school events, holidays – anything! It is likely that students will offer these ideas in L1 – that’s totally okay. You can just let them share, or set a limit for how much L1 you accept, and then rephrase their sharing into comprehensible L2. Aim to use high-frequency vocabulary in doing so – leaning on the Sweet 16 verbs and writing new vocabulary on your board – so that your students can use and reuse that language when talking about their own lives. “Oh! Soandso…has a football game…on Friday! Does Soandso have a football game or a football practice on Friday? etc etc”
- Ask lots of natural follow up questions to what students share. “Where?” and “With whom?” are great questions to get more information out of a student’s sharing, and these added details allow you to see a fuller picture of your students’ lives. “Where will you play the football game?” can lead into discussions about how students get to and from their sports practices, how much time they invest in their extracurriculars, and so much more. “With whom do you play video games?” can easily lend itself to a discussion about favorite games and genres, the trials and tribulations of online gaming lobbies, what gaming systems they had when they were younger, and if students have favorite streamers they like to watch play. Generally relying on question words (which I always have posted in my classroom) gives you a lot of ways to go with whatever students share, but also – follow your own curiosity! Especially if you don’t know much about a student’s hobby, this gives them a chance to teach you something. All the while, check frequently for class comprehension, and ask processing/circling questions about what is learned.
- See if you can connect events and happenings to as many students as possible. If you’re discussing a birthday, poll the class on who has birthdays in what month, if it’s better to have a birthday during the summer or during the school year, how old everyone in class is, who’s the oldest and youngest, etc. (We had a student in one class last year that we affectionately dubbed “Grandpa” because he was an older junior in a class of freshmen, and the next oldest student was “Uncle Soandso.” I, of course, was “Great Grandpa FishRod.”) Sharing about video games or sports can lead to questions about who also enjoys playing, or who just watches, or who has a sibling who plays. The discussion is never just about any one kid – it always can involve the whole class. Any new words are going up on the board, and getting repeated in processing/circling questions frequently throughout.
- Discuss upcoming events for as long as students maintain interest and attention! This is something you will just have to feel out. Sometimes, students are quiet, but engaged, and you can continue discussing for a while. Sometimes, the rambunctious sharing energy is too much, and you just have to move on. Sometimes…you just want to get to the next activity. Move on when you’re ready to move on!
What do I do with it now that we’ve finished?
At the end of a session of Calendar Talk, I try to review the new information we just learned about our classmates. This can be as simple as oral questioning, or could be playing The Mysterious Person game. This can help students acquire more of any new language through more comprehensible repetitions, and give you a chance to shine the spotlight one more time on the students in your class.
I also like to make sure I have saved what is learned on the calendar in some visual way. Whether it’s writing key words in L2 (“Football game” “New video game” “No school” “Tech week”) onto the calendar, or just drawing little icons to jog everyone’s memory, recording what was learned onto the calendar visual stamps the lives of your students into an important classroom document. This can serve to remind you later to check in with students about things they mentioned: “Hey, how was the track meet? Where did you end up going to eat on your birthday?” Nothing makes someone feel more special than getting checked up on.
The visuals on the calendar can also serve as great scaffolds to start a Write and Discuss text. This gives students a chance to see more complete written sentences, and notice anything interesting about how the L2 is written. This can also serve to reinforce any new vocabulary that came up spontaneously during the sharing from your students’ lives, which ends up creating a sort of personalized vocabulary list for your class.
To round out the experience, you might also administer a Quick Quiz as a formative assessment. This can give students even more repetitions of new, relevant vocabulary, and can be a real confidence booster.
Pro Tips!
- It is not about teaching calendar stuff! Sure, we can use the calendar to learn the words for “today, yesterday, tomorrow,” the weather and numbers, etc., but the calendar is really a springboard for asking students what else they are doing in their lives besides just being your students, and how they are doing in their lives. If we focus on the “calendar vocab” instead of on the lives of our students, we are missing out on opportunities to learn more about their lives, connect with them, and connect them to each other. Calendar Talk is about building community, and discovering the cultures of your class.
- Share from your own life! Don’t be afraid to put events from your own life on the calendar, because you are also a member of your classroom community. As much as you feel comfortable sharing, this can help build even more connections between you and your students.
- Favorite day of the week! I have learned some fascinating things by asking the class what their favorite days of the week were. Many students pick weekend days, with specific reasons why one day is better than another, but sometimes students will pick a weekday for an interesting reason. One student picked Thursday and told me that it was because it was the day her favorite webcomic dropped new panels. Glad I asked instead of just saying “we all love Saturday, right?”
- Find the style that suits you! Some teachers feel comfortable with sprawling discussions that can take from 10 minutes to the entire period, and feel comfortable managing the flow of new language into the activity. I try to ride the energy of my class, which is variable every day, and feel comfortable improvising a bit as students share their various life events. Some teachers want to keep an activity like this more controlled. In that case, offer choices that students must choose from, as opposed to leaving things more open. “Who has a game this weekend? Do you have a football game or a lacrosse game? etc.” And if you are ever feeling so overwhelmed that it isn’t feeling worth it: move on! It’s okay! You can always try again.
- Day of the Day! There are tons of declared holidays around the world, some interesting and historical, some just wacky. Writing them into your class calendar and discussing them with your students as a way to personalize the calendar can be really rewarding and fun. You can use this excellent website for ideas, or look at calendars in your Target Language to see if anything comes up.
- Make cultural connections! Keeping an eye on current events and holidays in your Target Culture(s) can make Calendar Talk a natural opportunity to introduce more of the Target Culture(s) into your classes! Write them onto the calendar ahead of time to remind yourself, and open discussions that allow students to make cultural connections and comparisons. My students have always been interested in holidays that offer time off of school in the Target Culture (haha!), elections, regional festivals…
- Make connections with people from the Target Culture(s)! It can also be fun to introduce celebrities from a Target Culture, perhaps on a day when they did something significant, or on their birth or death days.
- Hire a meteorologist! Once discussing the date and weather loses its luster for the whole class, you can hire for the class job of “Meteorologist.” This person can stand up at the beginning of Calendar Talk, sometimes to the applause of their peers, and briefly report on the date and weather. One of my students used to run out the door to get the absolute best read on the current weather and return in a dramatic burst, and another used to give some sort of encouraging message to the class to start the day. Great fun!
- Look up the weather in Target Culture locations! While you’re on the topic of weather, it can be fun to look up the weather in other cities around the world. This naturally allows you to make comparisons between your city and the other city or cities, and might also teach your students about Fahrenheit and Celsius! You might find a link to a weather website in the Target Language – I always use wetter.de and show students the capital cities of the German-speaking world, as well as the city where I used to live.
- Do it however you like! This blog post is informed by years of practice and learning from other teachers, and I’m hoping it offers you lots of options for how you might go about doing Calendar Talk. But! Don’t feel like you have to do it all. Again, Calendar Talk is only kind of about the calendar. Mostly, it’s about learning more about your students’ lives and cultures, and connecting them to each other and you. If you focus on that, you can’t go wrong.
What if I want to learn more?
Here is Claudia Elliott’s post about why she uses Calendar Talk, including a video of her doing it with a Spanish 3 class. She also has a whole episode of her fabulous podcast on the topic!!
This is Maris Hawkin’s post about Calendar Talk, which comes with some very helpful linked resources!
I also loved this post from Spanish with Stephanie that includes lots of great resources and examples.