Become a more confident language teacher.
I have completely recreated my syllabus almost every year that I’ve been teaching. I have gone back and forth trying to balance not overwhelming students with information with setting clear expectations. Can a Syllabus contain too much information? Well, that’s an interesting question– of course, you don’t want to have a 20 page syllabus that…
Read MoreI’m thinking that this would make a great first or second day of school activity for a second year language classroom. I can’t say for sure because I’ve not used it yet, but if the structures fit, use it, right?! Begin the lesson by introducing the structure me hace pensar en – it makes me think…
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I’ve been working on compiling some ideas for creative book reports/story re-tell props/presentations. One idea that I came across are tissue box book reports (see Joy in the Journey for an example). I also stumbled upon some awesome pictures of tissue box monsters and other fun tissue box creations, but I didn’t see anyone that…
Read MoreI have my very first ever student teacher!! (Well, I guess they are called ‘interns’ around here, but you know what I mean.) Her name is Julia, and she is super fabulous. She just spent…a long time (a semester maybe?) with an awesome French/Spanish TPRS teacher at a high school in our city, so she…
Read MoreThis is a unit that should be taught within the first few weeks of Spanish I. I teach it after we have learned girl, boy, school, student, teacher, says, likes, what’s your name, my name is, how are you, I am… Everything marked with an asterisk* can be downloaded here. DAY ONE *Campanada: Translate «Éste es…
Read MoreThe alphabet is one of those annoying things to teach. It’s easy enough, I suppose, and lends itself well to playing different games and whatnot, but it gets old after a few years. Also, it IS important, and it ISN’T important at the same time. Students don’t NEED it to communicate in the target language,…
Read MoreToday was just one of those days. Ellis has Rosalea (probably because his mom deals with 175 middle schoolers all day long!) and was up every half hour last night, so the hour and a half that I slept was after I turned my alarm off–oops. So much for my calm, organized, productive morning! Thankfully,…
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I just updated my first day of school plans. I’ve been reading a lot of different blogs and archives from various listservs about what people do, and there are many teachers out there that do what I used to do: use only Spanish and a lot of gestures to tell a story or talk about…
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