Become a more confident language teacher.
Ready for the easiest listening activity you’ve ever rolled out? “BEEP!” Is a simple listening activity in which students listen to the teacher read or describe a familiar text or familiar information that contains errors. Whenever the students hear an error, they interrupt the teacher with a loud, “BEEP!”. Listen to me describe the game…
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Pencil Grab is a super simple activity that I learned from Carmen Andrews-Sanchez via Kristin Duncan’s blog (update: her ‘TPRS Teacher’ blog is no longer active). Pencil Grab requires zero preparation, is easy to play, and it’s fun for students! Update: You may also know this activity as “The Marker Game“! What is Pencil Grab?…
Read MoreA good teacher is always looking for ways to vary his or her assessments. Administering varied assessment types allows for differences in student strengths and weaknesses and provides novelty. Novelty is important because it makes the assessment feel less like an exam and more like an activity, which reduces anxiety and lowers the affective filter,…
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I’m always on the hunt for new and different tasks for students to complete when listening to songs or other authentic resources, and this activity shared by Sharon Birch is a great one! Its flexible design allows it to used as a reading activity as well. What is Q&A Match-Up? In a Q&A Match-up, students…
Read MoreIf you haven’t guessed it yet by some of my recent posts, I am working on a unit about Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. And, if you can believe it, it is for students in Spanish 1!! Usually, heavier topics like this are not tackled until upper-level courses when students have the vocabulary…
Read MoreIf you haven’t noticed, I’ve been trying to use more authentic listening texts lately 🙂 Well, I was, until the school year ended. While I was out on maternity leave, my awesome substitute was a native speaker from Puerto Rico. My students were overwhelmed (and discouraged) listening to her speak in Spanish, and became whiney…
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Here is a fun idea that I learned at a ‘Stellar Strategies‘ workshop with Liz Warner several years ago here in Anchorage. It was a great workshop, and I walked away with many ready-to-use strategies for teaching vocabulary and language in general. THE STORY ELEMENTS GLOVE The Story Elements Glove was one easy-to-implement strategy that…
Read MoreCynthia Hintz posted a link on her blog to one of Mr. Tejeda’s Podcuentos. These videos are awesome! He has some in Spanish and some in French. He speaks verrrrry slowly and circles each new piece of information very thoroughly. Cynthia used the story about the Chico Peruano to reinforce first-person singular verb forms…
Read MoreThis is a great reading activity that will give students experience with ‘testing vocabulary’ and require them to use higher levels of thinking. You could also use it as a listening activity, but you’d probably want to have done it with a reading first since the immediacy of listening would make it more challenging. Begin…
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I administer four kinds of summative assessments to my students: Reading comprehension assessments Listening comprehension assessments Presentational writing assessments Presentational speaking assessments (Read here about why I don’t administer summative Interpersonal assessments.) Each quarter, I try to get three or four grades in the book for each of the first three assessment categories. I adopted…
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