The time between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break was always one of my favorite times of the year in class–it’s also one of the hardest because no one has their head in the game! I LOVED teaching about Christmas traditions from Spanish speaking countries. I LOVED using the commercials for the Spanish Christmas lottery (general…
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Today and tomorrow (May 9-10, 2017) is the annual Teachers Pay Teachers sale, and I want to share with you some of my favorite teacher-authors so that you can stock up on materials from their stores!! While many of us sell complete units on TpT that we have created for our own classes, there is…
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MovieTalk has quickly become a favorite strategy for providing comprehensible input to language learners since Michele Whaley brought it to the TCI world in 2012. Developed by Dr. Ashley Hastings as the listening module for the Focal Skills ESL program, MovieTalk is an incredibly effective activity because it provides loads of comprehensible input to students. I just…
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Note to the reader: This post talks about a popular party game that has long been called “Mafia”, although I no longer advocate for calling it by that name. Mafia is a term that refers to crime organizations that are often associated with specific countries and cultures; most notably, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Irish. In the same…
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A good number of you read to the end of yesterday’s post, but just to make sure I catch everyone– Sara Chronister, a Spanish teacher that has been using my curriculum units, started a Facebook group for curriculum support and collaboration for my Spanish Levels 1 and 2. I am really excited about this group and thankful…
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Do you ever just need a day? You look at your lesson plans and think, “I…just…can’t”? A few days ago, I had a day. I got some news that knocked me out emotionally, and since I was 39 1/2 weeks pregnant (now 40 weeks pregnant…come on girl!….)…I just needed a day. I’m not teaching, but I had my three…
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Does anyone else have a Facebook newsfeed that is completely filled with ‘Be like Bill’ graphics? I haven’t generated one for myself, but I have seen lots and lots and LOTS over the past few days. The app that creates them notices a trend in your Facebook activity and turns it into a snarky meme that ends with…
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This is a really fun post for me! After I graduated high school, the my alma mater back in CNY hired a really awesome Spanish teacher to replace one of mine that retired. My younger siblings LOVED her class, and I have saved several projects that my sister completed as a student in her class to use…
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I have a pile of lesson plans in my office that were all created using resources that other teachers, bloggers, and presenters have shared over the years. My intention is to track down the original creator for each one and ask permission to share what I did with their resources on this blog, but mostly the papers…
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When Robert Harrell used the English version of this text in his session at ACTFL 2015 this last weekend, “Inspiring Students to Engage with Texts”, I could not get to my computer fast enough to put together a lesson plan that would explore it through literature circles. While still very comprehensible for language learners, the short…
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