Become a more confident language teacher.
Last year, I printed dictionary pages for my students’ binders so that they had an organized way to keep track of the target structures that we learn. These were really simple– a column for Spanish words and a column for the English meaning, nothing more. Students took notes on the pages at the start of…
Read MoreThis is a great way to get your students thinking logically. They will need to put themselves in order based on a series of clues that you read to them (download a template for the clues here.) Begin by assigning students to groups of four. If there are extra students, they can be the“director”for…
Read MoreThis excellent activity comes to you from Kyra Rice via my awesome ex-maternity sub B.Lo. (Today is my first official day back–a planning/grading day, thank the Lord!) Kyra called it “You Are What You Eat”, but it can be modified to suit just about anything; B.Lo. used it to present likes (foods, music, activities, etc.)…
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Have you ever played the game “Spoons” at a party? This was one of my favorite games throughout high school and college. We played it backstage at all of our school plays, in the lunchroom, in our dorm rooms, in the evenings when I lived in Mexico, at holiday family gatherings…whenever we could! The games…
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*Reflection, 5 years later…I left the classroom three years ago, and I have attended many, many conferences and workshops since then. I’ve read a lot of research, books, and blogs, and I think that I can say honestly that I have considered all of it. I am confident that output doesn’t lead to language acquisition, so when I said…
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This is my attempt at legitimizing a fun activity (BINGO) that doesn’t actually help students learn language. BINGO works well for review, as a P.A.T. option, or for a sub plan activity… but language acquisition? The value is about ZERO. Before you play BINGO There are three things that you’ll need to do before class…
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I first played Write, Draw, Pass at our Bible Study end of the year party, and it quickly became one of my favorite party games! At a recent PD class, my colleague Ashley VanHemert pointed out how perfect it is to use as the starting point for communicative input in language classes! Ashley first made…
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One of the most important steps in Comprehension Based™ teaching, and one that I neglected for a long time, is introducing the Core Vocabulary before jumping into a story or piece of content. As I focus on this step of the process this year, I am already noticing gains in comprehension by students that struggled…
Read MoreWhen introducing new vocabulary for a story, it is very important to establish a gesture for each term. Often, I come up with a gesture and teach it to my class. For more difficult terms or for “fun” terms, I ask students to create a gesture. This week, the second strategy was immensely successful with…
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Developed “far above Cayuga’s waters“, Cornell Notes are an effective note-taking strategy that can be used across grade levels and content areas. I was first introduced to Cornell Notes by my administrator in a 6-8 public school in Anchorage, Alaska. She didn’t have to sell me on it too hard since my grandfather, my parents,…
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