November is racing along, and so it is high time that I post this month’s giveaway, don’t you think?
This month, we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and so our theme for this giveaway is going to be thankfulness. Nothing original, of course, but I hope that it will be a good way to share some resources with each other! To enter this giveaway, you must leave a comment with YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS and one language teaching resource (with a link included, if possible) for which you are thankful. You are not allowed to say that you are thankful for my blog, because anyone reading your comment will already have the link to it 🙂
So what is the giveaway, anyway? Something for which I have been very thankful–a cheap, quality Doc Cam! At my former school, I got so used to using my document camera–a super fancy one made by Promethean–that I could not imagine teaching without it once I started at BCS this fall! But since it is such a small school, they did not have the budget to purchase one for my classroom. I could have put up a proposal on DonorsChoose.org, but that would have taken time and effort, so I just popped onto Amazon.com and ordered an IPEVO Point 2 View.
It has worked very well for me, and so November’s lucky winner will win one for themselves! I will have it shipped to you provided you live in the US. If you are outside the US, you will be responsible for paying for shipping and handling.
So let’s hear it! Leave your email address (so that I can notify you if you win) and a teaching resource for which you are thankful!
**Only World Language and ELL teachers are eligible to win this giveaway. Entries must be received by midnight AKST on November 30**
Hello
I’m. thankful for four wonderful resources.
Textivate – winderful resource that gives students more repetitions of a story or interactive questions or vocabulary practice.
www. Textivate.com
2. quizlet – wonderful tool to help students reinforce vocabulary through interactive activities.
http://www.quizlet. com
3. pixler grabber a chrome or Firefox extension that takes a snapshot of your entire or partial screen. Very useful when creating resources for Movietalk.
4. fotor collage – wonderful tool that creates beautiful photo collages with your images. Very useful for story or oral re-telling.
www. fotor.com
my email
lopeze@mylakecountrychool. org
Thank you Martina for. this wonderful idea. I can’t wait to read what other teachers will share!!!
Saluditos
Elena 🙂
The greatest teaching resource I have right now are two things. 1- The network of teachers sharing their ideas on CI / TPRS and my Promethean board. With the two, I have completely transformed my way of teaching and I could not be happier. nwallace@ucschools.org
Nancy
aaaaahhhh I miss my Promethean board so much 🙁
Hi, so thankful for (I know you don’t want us to say this, but I don’t know what I would do without your blog).
In addition to all of the above from Elena, I’m grateful for the http://www.educreations.com app.
It allows my artist to draw the story while we develop it on individual slides. Afterward, I can go in and record the story along with each slide. It is a terrific tool that can be applied in so many different ways and gets the kids to interact with the reading/listening material in and outside of the classroom.
Looking forward to more tech ideas. Thanks, Martina, for this forum.
Brigitte
Bkahn@msd.k12.ny.us
Oh how I wish my students were allowed to have devices!! What an awesome app!!
I am grateful for several technology resources. (1) First and foremost is the online grade program that my school uses. It is called PowerSchool. I love both as a teacher and a parent. It allows both of us to be aware of where a student stands at any time. (2) My second is the website, Edmodo. It is like Facebook for teachers. I post things there for the kids to write about and they can respond. I can also have them turn in assignments paperlessly. (3) I also am very grateful for the Google Apps. I use Google Voice to record students so I can assess them later. I also use Google Docs to share and collect assignments with my students. (4) Another of my favorites that I have not been able to use yet this year is Glogster. Glogster is basically a program to create virtual posters. I have used it in the past with kids to do projects on Famous Hispanics. Instead of a poster, the kids would create a Glog about ther Famous person. Glogs can imbed music and video so it makes for an even more exciting poster presentation.
Those are 4 that I can think of this morning without having had coffee. I may come up with more later. I will add them if I do. I teach at Old Rochester Regional High School in Mattapoisett, MA. My email is kochoa@orr.mec.edu
I too use googlevoice. I am thankful for the mflresources yahoo group as well as moretprs!
Thanks for this awesome contest! So I teach Spanish and I am thankful for quizlet.com, as well as The Creative Language Blog. I use them, as well as your blog constantly! They have revolutionized my classroom! My email is abeasley@harnett.k12.nc.us! Thanks again!!!
Hi,
http://zachary-jones.com/ is my go-to site for hip authentic materials. In his “Clozeline” there are endless cloze activities for songs of all genres. When I am looking to reinforce a grammar concept, “Panorama Gramática” is a great category. If it is a theme I am focusing on, then his “Panorama temático” is perfect. There is everything from LOLcats to art analysis to interviews with famous people to puzzles. Not only do I use it in class, but I have used it for an engaging “over the holidays” assignment for my Spanish 3’s & 4’s. Students report enjoying the work! Check it out! -Dana Loso, Spanish teacher at Crescent Valley H.S. Corvallis, Oregon (loso@q.com)
His site is amaaaaaazing!
I am thankful for all the TPRS teacher’s who have blogs that I constantly go to in time of need. As a second year teacher nearly totally self taught I would not have survived my first year without Ben Slavic’s resources. I have both of his books TPRS in a year and PQA in a wink. I am also a member of his blog at benslavic.com. Because he is a French teacher I was able to pull resources directly in French when I was complete stuck for lessons. He has a very different approach to TPRS then most other teachers and it seems like his number one focus is the mental health of the teacher. If you are in good spirits the students will learn. His blog is $5 a month but this is to ensure the blog is “safe” for any questions or comments people would like to make without fear of outsiders judging. I highly recommend his sight and books.
My email is loribelinsky@gmail.com and I am a French teacher at Christiana High School in Newark, DE.
Ben Slavic’s blog was crucial to my success as a beginning TPRS teacher. I am not a member now, but so thankful for it anyway!
I am very grateful for Lingt. It is a free site that allows you and your students to record their voices. Students don’t need to have an account. You just send them the assignment link. You can record your voice asking them questions in dialogue form so they can record their answers and send it back to you. I can add a YouTube video or a picture and have my students describe it online as homework. It’s awesome. Grading is easy. Check it out.
Love it! I didn’t know about it!
I am very thankful for “VideoELE” (Videos para aprender Español como Lengua Extranjera)! They have vídeos in Spanish with subtitles for all different levels of Spanish (from beginning to advanced) and with all types of vocabulary (food, clothing, city…). When I want an authentic source of Spanish for my students I can usually find a video from them that fits in perfectly with the vocabulary or grammar structure that we are learning.
They have a Youtube channel where you can find all of the videos: (I think this is easiest to access them) https://www.youtube.com/user/papitus/videos
They also have a website with information about them:
http://www.videoele.com
I hope this is valuable for other Spanish teachers as well!
Lisa Peskar (lapeskar@gmail.com) – Spanish Teacher at Tippecanoe High School (Tipp City, Ohio)
Thanks so much for sharing! I always forget about that site!
¡Hola!
What a great idea! Who better to tell us about good websites to use than other teachers who use them?
My first favorite resource is of course your website. It’s provided useful information for a new teacher also new to TPRS without feeling overwhelming. Second, I love Dropitto.me, a site connected with DropBox, where students can submit any file to you as long as it fits size requirements. Students can send you videos they created for class, that essay that was due Sunday night, and more. Plus, the more people you connect with, the more free space they give you! Third, Ben Slavic’s blog and the official TPRS website also provide valuable, numerous resources to help teachers incorporate TPRS into their classrooms.
I’m so glad I’ve found all these sites and resources so early in my teaching career. It will really help me grow!
Thanks again!
Deirdre Kelly, Spanish 1 & 2 teacher, Pearl River High School, Pearl River NY (deirdre.e.kelly@gmail.com)
I didn’t know about Dropitto–awesome!
Another wonderful idea from Martina!
I am thankful for all of Senor Jordan’s entertaining grammar videos which I often use to help students understand a concept during “pop-up” grammar times while using TPRS. He’s also got some great “chistes” which are fun to use for ‘campanadas’. Here’s the address – http://www.senorjordan.com/
Also, I recently discovered a great song to help students conjugate regular present tense -AR; -ER; -IR verbs ‘Gangnam Style’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XnM3S_Gv1M
My email: jolson@monumentacademy.net
So fun! I love Jeremy’s videos!
I’m thankful for Cindy Hitz! She’s my friend and mentor and writes the most amazing, helpful and reflective posts at http://palmyraspanish1.blogspot.com/
I am also thankful for Cindy, her blog, and her cookies!!
Wow – there are some neat resources I haven’t heard of before! I love the Dropitto and lingt websites. I have heard of many of these websites, but there are two that have not been shared that I’d like to add.
Vocaroo (vocaroo.com) – Voice recording site. You can email, embed, etc. the audio after. It could be used for an assignment that might be assigned to be done with Google Voice, but as I’ve had problems with GV I find this to be more reliable. I like to use this when I do listening tests, because I can put the mp3 file directly onto my iTunes and use the same audio for each level.
Practicopedia (http://practicopedia.lainformacion.com/) this has a lot of videos that can also be used as audio on a variety of topics. There is also a section for photos with descriptions.
5 Card Flicker Stories (http://5card.cogdogblog.com/index.php) – this makes a great free-write writing prompt. There are also stories written by natives available that your students could read.
I hope these three are useful to someone!
Email: eldentlinger at yahoo.com
Elizabeth, you overachiever 😉 Thanks for posting THREE great resources!!
Great giveaway Martina! I have been trying to convince my school to get me a document camera!
I am thankful for my Anne Matava scripts books (Volume I and II) – http://www.benslavic.com/story-scripts-volume-1.html and http://www.benslavic.com/story-scripts-volume-2.html
I wouldn’t have survived my first year of TPRS without these scripts to fall back on! She is supposed to be launching a Volume III e-book version soon too!
I am also thankful for your blog and willingness to answer questions by email! 🙂
Email: kristindunc@gmail.com
Yes, I love her scripts books! Many of the first scripts that I used were Matava scripts, and many of the stories that have become a standard part of my curriculum are spin-offs of her scripts (with just slightly modified vocab)!
I am first thankful this month for you and your site, you really have shaped my teaching this year and I am thankful everyday for your guidance. The other sites that have really helped me change from a book-based teacher to a tprs teacher are:
1. http://www.musicuentos.com/blog Not only does she have great ideas, but she makes me think about how to become a better teacher.
2. http://tprstorytelling.com I’ve bought now 3 classroom sets of novels to use in my classes with my own money and it’s been worth every cent. The comprehensible input is so powerful and my students love them. I’ve used Brandon Brown quiere un perro, Un nuevo Houdini and I’m starting Esperanza this week.
3. http://benslavic.com/blog I joined this PLC this summer and it has helped me so much. I love having a place to go with my questions.
4. twitter! Wow, there are some amazing teachers out there on twitter.
Oops, my email is megangreen@generalmclane.org. I always forget that!
Gracias!
I’m thankful for
http://www.textivate and http://www.socrative.com
senorrobertsspanish@gmail.com
AWESOME resources! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I am very grateful for all the resources that you share and have had so much fun using them. Thank you so much! Your you tube video of Cierra la puerta sent my classes to such fun story lines! I also love miscositas.com with little Nico and his videos. Voces has awesome vids with native speakers. Senor Wooley is one of my and my students favorites. His videos are awesome and he now includes pop up grammar for many of them and a resource packet as well. I have been a paid member of his site for 4 years and am paid up through 2014. It is well worth the cost!
May I sincerely thank all if you for your love, support and motivation. I teach in a small, rural school in which 60 percent of our kids are on reduced lunches. The last few years, my classes were all 45 students plus with multiple levels in most! I was burned out but CI and TPRS has brought fun into my teaching again. Thank you all!
Shirley Rosenau
Sarosenau24@aol.com
Hello
Thank you for this amaizing blog and all the resources.
I am thankful for my Doceri app. http://www.doceri.com. I haven’t got an interactive whiteboard but this app allows me to control the laptop from my Ipad and also to make presentations for movie talk or comic strips with movement.
I am thankful for all the wonderful help I get from your posts that makes the life of a newbie TPRS teacher less confused!
My email: pilar_reyes_sierra@yahoo.co.uk
Oh my word, how did I not know about this?! THANK YOU!!!
There are Sooo many resources that I am forever grateful for as a young teacher. http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com was the first really great resource I stubbled upon, which led to so many others.
http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/ is the best place for pre-made authentic resources.
Pinterest has been an AMAZING way for me to find new Spanish teacher blogs (like this one!), resources, videos, and all things Spanish teacher.
Thank you for so freely sharing all of your great ideas!!
Allison.Bickle at gmail dot com
A lot of mine have been mentioned already. Hopefully I didn’t miss any and these haven’t been said yet: This Spanish authentic resources wiki: http://spanauthenticresources.wikispaces.com/, and El Mundo de Birch’s database of Spanish songs. It’s so easy to search for a song that has what I want, whether it’s a vocab theme or grammar point. I love it! I’m also loving Señor Wooly more than ever this year now that he has so many additional resources to go with his songs! Oh, and I’ve been using Edmodo a little more this year with my classes — I always forget about it, but I’m sure if I used it to its full potential, it would be a lifesaver! There are so many more I could list — I’m really grateful to anyone who has invested their time and effort to share resources!
csweet@prairiecentral.org
A truly great idea! A fun website I just learned about recently at a professional development is called Poll Everywhere. You can post a poll question and students then text or email – it shows as a running conversation on the board. Pretty fun. http://www.pollev.com. My email is theresetucker2002 at yahoo dot com.
Thanks again!
Super fun and new to me!
I’m very grateful for having found your site, Martina. Another that I use a LOT is http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo. It is particularly helpful for native speaker material, and for upper levels. The humor is fun, and they have helpful leads for video material from around the Spanish-speaking world.
His work is amazing!
I’m grateful for all the bloggers that are willing to share their knowledge and creativity with the World Language teaching community. Places where I find great ideas are (besides your site): http://palmyraspanish1.blogspot.com, http://senoritabarragan.com, http://embeddedreading.com, http://mrpeto.wordpress.com, http://kplacido.com, http://somewheretoshare.com, and many more. All this teachers inspire me to be a better teacher everyday. I’m also thankful for my PLN on Twitter. Check out the #langchat for support, ideas and inspiration. I teach HS Spanish and my e-mail is hughesn@benjaminlogan.org
I am thankful for so many things as a language teacher! I feel that I have so many resources at my fingertips–it’s truly wonderful! 🙂
The first ones that pop to mind are:
I’m so very thankful for the blog http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com–I get so many great ideas from this site!
I am also thankful for educreations app as well–and use it SO often with my little students.
Finally, I am thankful for picture dictionaries! I feel they give my students the chance to learn how to use a dictionary and develop language skills without translation! 🙂
Hannah
hlane (at) prairieschool (dot) com
Which picture dictionary do you use?
I’m soooo grateful for the number of TPRS novels! Authentic children’s book in French are so difficult to use because of the passe simple. These novels are a life and timer saver. My students have really enjoyed them and they have given me a good idea in what structures I should focus on and when. Email: cpike@prairiecentral.org
Amen!
What a good idea Martina. Now we all have more sources from which to find materials.
I am very thankful for Michelle Whaley’s blog http://mjtprs.wordpress.com/ . It is through her that I learned about movie talk and it has been a great addition to my classes.
Laura
You betcha! I can’t imagine my life without Michele Whaley! She introduced TPRS to me and everything that comes along with it!!
I am Very thankful for your blog and all of the lessons you post on Teachers Pay Teachers!
Some of my best tools are related to working on my own fluency. I lose my Spanish so easily and feel less confident when I am out of practice.
I used to listen all the time to programs on RadioLingua.com, particularly Coffee Break Spanish and News Time Spanish. I like to watch Spanish programming on Hulu and Netflix. If you go to the desktop version of Netflix, you can search movies have been dubbed into Spanish. I love to watch “Despierta America” on Hulu to get some daily news,
There is an app called “TuneIn Radio” that I like. You can listen to radio stations all over the world. You can also choose the format of programming you prefer: Talk/Pop/Oldies/Religious
For students, I love the BBC videos, Sr. Wooly, and NuLu.com. NuLu is a site that compiles interesting stories to practice Spanish. The news stories are followed by comprehension questions.
For teaching ideas, I check the blogs listed by others above, Twitter and MoreTPRS on Yahoo.
Thanks for the opportunity to win this doc camera. I love that it is so compact and useful!
Sincerely,
Ruth (rstimart@ccsk12.com)
Love the reminder that we need to be working on furthering our own fluency!
OMG, I can’t even begin to tell you how overwhelmingly amazing your blog is. I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon it a couple of weeks ago, but it is awesome!
I am only a second year Spanish teacher, so I can’t think of any sites that I frequent that haven’t already been mentioned. In addition to your site, the others for which I am VERY thankful are:
-Teachers Pay Teachers (I swear, someday I will return the favor and post lessons that I have created!)
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com
-The Creative Language Class
http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com/
-YouTube
Thank you so much!!
Jessica (springer@horizonlorain.org)
I recently moved back into the classroom after teaching via ITV for 9 years. I am very thankful to be able to interact face to face with my students and thus am thankful for the CreativeLanguageClass blog as well as Pinterest to help create interactive activities to keep students engaged.
Thank you for sharing your work as well –
Bethany Pflug (pflug.bethany@gmail.com)
My name is Jessica Davidson Almudever. I really enjoy using your blog as a resource but some other resources that I have used are:
http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/great-minds-think-alike/
and
http://bryankandeltprs.com/story-scripts/
Both of these are teacher blogs as well. I find that having a place to investigate my next step in my classes is really helpful.
Agreed! I love both of those blogs!
I am thankful for the UCLA Language Materials Website (http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/k-12/lessons.aspx#k12layout). It is completely customizable for any language (not just those less commonly taught as the header suggests), and it closely follows Realidades 1 which I must use to be in vertical alignment with the Spanish curriculum taught at the nearby high school.