You’re ready to try a Socratic Seminar in your Spanish Class or you’ve tried it and just not seeing the results you’d like. Keep on reading- I’m sharing some of my secrets to being successful starting tomorrow!
If you’re wondering just what is a Socratic Seminar, you may want to check out this post first and then come back here for all of the inside secrets- these are the strategies that have really helped me take Socratic Seminars in my Spanish classes to the next level….and they will also save you 9,000 (approximate) hours of trial and error.
1-Be Clear on Your Expectations:
This will be a new process for your students. What does their role as a student in a Socratic Seminar look like? What are they expected to do?
Before assigning the Socratic, you want to make sure you know what you’d like your students to do. How many times do you want them to participate? How should their participation look?
Once you know this, share it with your students so that they know exactly what they need to do in order to be successful. To do this, I like to do a practice question together in class. I usually make it a point to show them what a good answer looks like and what a not so good answer looks like; this is really helpful for them.
2-Small Groups make for a better Socratic Seminar
Trust me on this one- I’ve tried holding a Socratic with 29 students. It works, it just doesn’t work WELL.
So what is the solution for those of us with larger classes?
Break your students up into smaller groups. I prefer a Group A Group B scenario. Day 1 Group A completes the Socratic with me while Group B works on something independently. On Day 2, the groups switch roles.
There are other options such as inner circles, outer circles and student coaches but after many years the two day Seminar has worked out the best for me.
Having smaller groups brings so many positives to the discussion:
- students have more opportunities to participate
- students feel more comfortable speaking in front of a smaller group
- each student can participate multiple times
- the conversations are more relaxed and more familiar
3-Give Your Students Support
This is especially important during the first few Seminars. Your students are nervous. They don’t want to say the “wrong thing”. Let’s make their lives a little easier with some type of support.
What does this look like?
Try Reference Sheets, Anchor Charts, Word Walls, or whatever else works for your teaching style. You want your students to have something to lean on when they need it.
Won’t they just read off of it?
At first, yes. They will heavily lean on that support. But you will be surprised at how quickly your students start to move away from the Reference Sheet. They will use it less and less until they eventually don’t even take it out of their backpack.
Chat Mats are a great way to support your students! Click here to try some out!
Are you ready to try one out?!
If you’ve answered yes and want a little more guidance, be sure to grab my Quickstart Socratic Seminar Guide. It has more tips for running successful Socratic Seminars in your Spanish Class and I have included 10 great question starters for any theme or topic.
If you want to hit the ground running and grab some already done-for-you Discussion Questions- you can find more of those here!
