In Chapter 3 of Pobre Ana, Ana meets Susana and they talk for about five pages about all sorts of interesting things. However, they manage to do it in an extremely un-interesting way. Today, my students’ assignment was to re-write their conversation (using false information, if desired) so that it was interesting. This could be…
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Same and Different
This 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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El Nuevo Houdini
Class novels make the BEST long-term sub plans. I have to give a HUGE shout out to Carol Gaab for the amazing teacher’s manual that she wrote to accompany her equally amazing novel, El nuevo Houdini. My 2A students will be reading the past-tense version of the novel (the novel includes two versions: one present…
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Ghost Stories Part II
Thank you so much to Emily Baker at Barlett High School for sharing the reading that she made about ghosts in Anchorage! I adapted it only to include some of the target structures that we’ve worked on so far this year. I am so excited that I now have a ghost reading for my students…
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Expanding a writing piece
This makes for a great activity to include in sub plans or a filler activity, and is a way for students to create their own embedded reading. Begin with a short story without many details. I usually type up one of my student’s Free Writes and give them credit for it at the top of…
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Carrie, la perrita bailarina
I have used this video for several years now. Below, I posted the basic lesson plan that I first used for a 45-minute class period. Since then, I’ve expanded it quite a bit by adding more readings, songs, and reading activities. You can download the new plans here. They include four readings, two songs, a reading interview…
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QAR
Note: I first heard about QAR in a workshop with Carol Gaab during our 2011 AFLA Conference. I began to dig into it and published this post soon thereafter. Imagine my surprise when my principal brought in consultant Susan Van Zant just two weeks after I published it, announcing to the staff that this would…
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New Versions
Team Responses
The Alaskans For Language Acquisition Conference was last weekend, and we were blessed to host five incredible speakers for the weekend (Carol Gaab, Terry Waltz, Laura Terrill, Hiroko Kataoka, and Uwe Kind). I spent much of my time in the sessions presented by Carol Gaab, president of TPRS Publishing, Inc., as three of them focused…
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Colorado Cat article
Here is a fun article that I found about a cat that was found on 9/14/2011 in Manhattan after disappearing from Colorado five years ago. I re-worded it a bit to make it comprehensible for my Spanish 2A students, who are dabbling in past tenses. I like it because most of the verbs that are…
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