Become a more confident language teacher.
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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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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El Día de Muertos is just about a week away, and we have everything you need to teach about this meaningful celebration, in the target language, in Spanish Levels 1+. Why teach about Día de Muertos? There are thousands and thousands of celebrations that happen in Spanish speaking cultures, so why is it that so…
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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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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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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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No matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what content or levels or how you teach, this post is about your Spanish curriculum. It is about how you–how we–include afrolatinidad in our courses. It is about how you–how we–share with our students the many different colors of latino. Wait, what’s that you say? You…
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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…
Read MoreWhether 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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Film, politics, sports, conservation, and activism–these are just a few of the topics that the stories from the new EL MUNDO EN TUS MANOS subscription have addressed. Maris and I are passionate about finding stories that your students will connect with and that will open their eyes to the things happening in the world, near…
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