Engage your students from the moment they step foot in your room with classroom décor that brightens up the space, intrigues them to learn more about culture, and gives them language to work off of. When decorating a Spanish classroom, having thoughtfully placed posters and other resources throughout the room will not only bring a burst of color and life to the walls, but will serve as material for your lessons, whether it be specific to culture or learning to describe people, places, and things in Spanish.
Authentic items
Decorate your teacher desk, the tops of cabinets, and more with fun authentic classroom decor items. Students will love seeing things like fun bobbleheads, onyx burros, worry dolls, and sarape bookmarks, which you can use as a jumping off point to teach culture. Easily segue from these decorations and cultural lessons into hands-on craftsfor your students to personalize their language learning and connection to Hispanic culture. You can even use the décor items as classroom prizes, birthday and graduation gifts, and more.
Art and artists
Bring culture and history alive by displaying art throughout your classroom. There are so many ways in which you can reference and incorporate this colorful classroom decor into your acquisition-driven instruction! Cover your door with posters of important artists (like Pablo Picasso or Frida Kahlo) or tone your room’s harsh lighting by using cultural light covers. Each will give the added benefit of exposing your students to famous artists. Brighten up your ceilings or walls with papel picado, especially in the fall as your class delves into celebrations like Day of the Dead. With any of these, use them in your world language curriculum as they meet your needs; in Spanish 1 to discuss colors, shapes, and sizes or later in your curriculum to learn about the artists and places themselves. Extend these lessons and visual references into projects where students make their own versions of famous works of art.
Travel
Interest your students in the beauty of where their language learning can take them by decorating your Spanish classroom with travel posters and banners from various countries, maps of the Spanish speaking world, and your own travel mementos and photographs. Start a lesson by pointing out pictures and posters around your room for a country of your choice, discussing them in Spanish with your students. From there, find the country on the map and discuss where it is in relation to other Spanish speaking countries and your own. Then, have students learn about your chosen country through a presentation, reading, research project, song, or even your own travel stories. At the end of a course, you could have students plan their own trip to the country that most intrigued them.
Language prompts
Decorate your Spanish classroom with common phrases, a calendar talk poster, question words, and more. During class, refer to these visual aids often: point to the “question-words” chart when modeling how to ask new questions or when asking students questions of your own. Have students use the calendar poster when discussing dates and daily routines or use it to begin class each day to discuss the date and weather. Encourage students to reference the phrases and posters during pair or group work, letting them orient themselves visually as they build confidence in using Spanish. Over time, consider rotating classroom posters to reflect new themes so the classroom feels dynamic, not static.
Hispanic heritage month
As you teach through Hispanic heritage month in your world language classroom, consider classroom décor that exposes your students to famous Hispanics throughout history, prompts further research, and serves as a starting point for students to collaborate and create their own culturally rich decorations for your world language classroom.
No matter what classroom decor you choose, think about how it can engage your students by creating a bright, welcoming environment for yourself and your students, while simultaneously exposing them to art, history, geography, language, and culture. Remember to not just decorate your Spanish classroom with items like these, but to reference them as you teach and use them to help students personalize their language learning. Allow your classroom decor to transform the plain walls of your classroom into a vibrant, living Spanish environment—one that supports language acquisition and interest organically.
