I’ll be presenting on REJOINDERS at Mitten CI on April 21. Rejoinders are authentic words or short phrases you can use to keep a conversation going. In teacher-speak they are memorized chunks of social language. They help my students communicate their feelings, opinions and personality in the target language while they’re on the path to proficiency and before they’re able to express themselves with a larger vocabulary.

I first got into them when I bought Bryce Hedstrom’s
Stuff for Spanish Class.
Since then, I began compiling my own and have produced
high quality posters for your classroom.

These memorized chunks of social language have completely transformed my classroom. I’m excited to share video of my students and discuss how I introduce them, encourage their use, empower introverts and rein things in when the extroverts get a little excited.
In anticipation of the presentation, I requested some feedback from my students. One question I asked was:

What’s good about rejoinders?

Here are their answers (in all their unedited glory), which I’ve grouped into seven categories.

Join me at Mitten CI on April 21, 2018 to learn more.

Rejoinders help maintain Target Language 90%+ 

They help keep the flow of Spanish and help keep people engaged in the Spanish.

Using rejoinders helps students remember class content

They are groups of words that you learn at one and can allow you to learn words that you are not focusing on in class.
They help you remember more Spanish.

You say them so many times that you can’t really forget them
It makes me laugh and it’s always going to stick in your brain.

Learn grammatically “challenging” phrases

They are after easy to remember and it can show you how to use a word right even if you don’t know how to often use it grammatically accurately.
When i am struggling to make a sentence work I can try and deconstruct these phrases and get the words I’m looking for as well as make sentences starting with these that make more sense
There a good way for people who don’t know much complex Spanish to say more complex responses.

Rejoinders facilitate meaningful, spontaneous communication

They’re fun to use and after a while they become a spontaneous reaction.
They help Learn new phrases and how to respond back to different conversations and questions .
They make me want to speak in Spanish because they’re words I would actually use
You can learn how words work together in actual phrases and you can say things in Spanish that you might have just said in English
It’s a creative way to learn Spanish that is fun, relevant to conversation and makes it easy to participate in class
It helps us be able to be part of the conversation without having to interrupt or come up with something on the spot.

Rejoinders help students demonstrate comprehension:

They are phrases that give you something to say when you don’t know what to say in Spanish. A filler/shows that you understand what is being said.
They can help you express what you are thinking and help grant know when you understand what he is talking about.

Rejoinders empower students to express their own opinions, emotions and personality:

They allow us to give our thoughts on what is being said without using sentences
They’re better than saying just a one word response to something and it gives you a chance to use more feeling when responding.
They can help us express different feelings and emotions and are simple are fairly easy.

As a Spanish learner, rejoinders are something I can say in Spanish to express how I feel about something without having to worry if I’m saying it right because they’re simple to say. I can also teach them to my family very easily

Rejoinders provide an easy way to respond to questions/comments with a lot of variety in what we can say and we can also combine the phrases to help them become more fluid in speaking Spanish.
They are easy to learn, applicable to many situations and provide an easy way to participate in class.

Rejoinders facilitate engagement:

They are catchy.

They keep class interesting and help me gain more Spanish vocabulary, which helps me feel like i am actually learning something.

It keeps the conversations in class we have more exciting especially when we have certain emotions on the topic or what was being said.
Student Voices – Reasons to Teach with Rejoinders

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