Become a more confident language teacher.
This is a great low-key lesson to do when your students are worn out…like after a full morning of testing, as will be the case in Anchorage M-W next week! It could also work well as a follow-on for… SOMOS Spanish 1 Unit 14, which targets ‘hace’ SOMOS Spanish 2 Unit 5, which targets ‘hizo…
Read MoreAs Carol Gaab would say, our brains crave novelty! We need new experiences to remain engaged. She shared this assessment (or something like it, at least) with us at our most recent TPRS course webinar. Divide students into pairs (working with shoulder partner is preferable). If there is an odd number, one group can have…
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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…
Read MoreDAY ONE Objective: Students will discuss adventure as it relates to their lives and the lives of others. Campanada: Students write their responses to these questions using complete sentences in Spanish upon entry. ¿Quién tiene mucha aventura en su vida? Escribe una lista de personas. – Who has a lot of adventure in their lives?…
Read MoreI saw this idea on Jody’s blog. I always wrote the daily schedule as a list of one or two word things in Spanish. For example: Campanada Discusión Canción Cuento However, Jody has a much better way of doing it. I write who will be doing what, which gives students the chance to see more…
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An Up/Down Quick Quiz is a simple, formative listening assessment that I use at the end of almost every class period. I first learned about Up-Down Quick Quizzes when I observed a TPRS lesson for the very first time in Michele Whaley‘s class last spring. It is an easy way for teachers to get a…
Read MoreDAY ONE Objective: Students can compare what they have with what they don’t have and what they want. Campanada: Students complete the following sentence starters using descriptive Spanish when they arrive. Yo tengo.. Yo no tengo… Yo quiero tener… Yo no quiero tener… Discussion/PQA: Ask students to share their Campanada answers. Circle each student’s answers,…
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How did you decide how to structure your gradebook? Without exception, in every language class that I took from middle school through college, the gradebook looked very similar. Every graded assignment in the course was placed into a category that matched the assignment type: quizzes, tests, homework, classwork, participation, projects, etc. The weight of each category varied–sometimes,…
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Instead of letter grades, my students receive an abbreviation of one of the following terms on their assignments. Some are entered in the gradebook (summative), but others are not (formative). Formative assessments are given during the learning process and are a way for me and my students to see how they are progressing. Summative assessments…
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