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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Greetings
*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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BINGO! as a springboard to writing
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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Write, Draw, Pass
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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Introducing Vocabulary
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…
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Gestures
When 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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Cornell Notes
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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Four Square Vocabulary
Another four-square worksheet to explore vocabulary words. This is a good worksheet to leave for emergency sub plans 🙂 !! I recommend copying it front to back so that each student explores two words (1/4 sheets), four words (1/2 sheets) or eight words (if you give them the full sheet of paper). This is another…
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Salad Bowl communicative game
I learned how to play Salad Bowl from my sister back in college! It is super fun to play with friends, and it works well in the language classroom as a PAT game. But before we learn how to play… I’ve got two important cautions. This is NOT an input-based game. In fact, it’s a…
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