Women’s History Month in French and Spanish classes

March is Women’s History Month, and we have the BEST resource for language teachers looking to celebrate amazing women in their language classes! We have paperless, printable, projectable, multi-version biographical texts about 31 inspiring women from throughout history that represent many different cultures and career fields. Here are 10 ways to use our Women’s History…

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Caretaker letter for Día de Muertos: Free template!

Many Spanish teachers will soon begin learning about Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) and its related celebrations throughout América Latina. One hard part about this time of year is navigating conversations with caretakers who aren’t sure that they want their children to participate in lessons about Día de Muertos or any other celebration,…

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Use Map Talk to foster interculturality

Map Talk is a content-based, communicative language teaching strategy that our guest author, Benjamin Tinsley, has been using with his classes and empowering other teachers to try in their own instructional contexts. During a Map Talk activity, the class views a map while the teacher describes what is visible and leads a conversation that combines…

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Create digital versions of your favorite manipulative activities

If you’re anything like me, you love a good manipulative activity. Here are some common manipulative activities used by language teachers: sequencing events from a story that are printed on strips of paper matching chunks of authentic texts to paraphrased summaries sorting quotes into groups based on who said or would have said each one…

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Representation Matters – a guest post by Kia London

My parents were the first African-Americans to speak Spanish to me.  When they did, I thought, Wow! That’s cool.  They know how to speak another language. Their knowledge of the language came from their professional experiences.  Little did I know at the time, this would have an impact on my life. The Importance of Incorporating Afro-Latin Content Into…

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Get news articles for Spanish learners in 2019-2020 school year!

For the last three years, Spanish students have been able to follow the top stories from the Spanish-speaking world in El mundo en tus manos. Each week, Maris Hawkins and I identify important and interesting current events and write up comprehensible summaries so that beginning language learners can understand. As we prepare for the 2019-2020…

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Gasolinazo: What’s happening in Mexico?

Head’s up, USA: “Gas Shortage in Mexico could mess up your Super Bowl party by causing a guacamole crisis“. You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Language teachers share authentic perspectives Perhaps you have heard mention of the gas shortage in Mexico. In an effort to crack down on the costly huachicol (petroleum theft), Mexico’s newly inaugurated president Andrés Manuel…

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20+ stations for proficiency oriented language classes

Whether you call them Stations or Centers, you probably love them—and so do your students. Stations give you a laissez-faire teaching day and provide lots of movement and small group interaction for students.  Stations do not, however, come without challenges. Stations often take quite a bit of prep work. For the proficiency oriented, comprehension based…

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