Dear colleagues, One thing that I have learned over the years (this is my 22nd year of teaching Spanish) is that without reflecting on my own practice, I cannot move forward. Additionally, I have continually experienced the power of reflecting and sharing in a collaborative...
Hello everyone! It's Allison from Mis Clases Locas. This past December like many of you I participated in the 12 Days of Fluency Matters giveaways. I was lucky enough to win e-course subscriptions. I will be honest, at the time I was a little skeptical...
Most of us are three-quarters of the way through the school year. Some of you may have spent some time during Spring break, a snow day, or a recent weekend considering how your classes have gone so far this school year and are fine tuning...
Tasks in the Language Classroom By Eric Herman Many thanks to Eric Herman for sharing this informative post on task-based language teaching. If you are serious about understanding tasks, both from BVP's perspective and from the perspective of facilitating acquisition you'll need to settle in for a cup a...
Who creates readers? Pernille Ripp, an ELA teacher says that WE do, their educators. Her latest post connects beautifully to what I learned at iFLT. She even includes Krashen’s research to support that WE as teachers must plan for reading enjoyment. Students need to read...
Modifying authentic resources which has received a lot of attention on Twitter over the past year in the #langchat community. The #TCI community taught me that modifying authentic resources or “semi authentic resources” are very useful to our students because it can then become comprehensible...
This session was wonderful! We got to be students in Kristy Placido’s classroom. She is one of my favorite Spanish teachers so it was wonderful to experience. I posted a few videos to Twitter if you want to check out her session. One of my...
I love Nelly Hughes! I have been getting to know her on social media for the past few months and I finally got to meet her in person at iFLT17! She is so enthusiastic and easy to talk to! Her presentation today was as awesome...
Readers Theater with Karen Rowan was exciting! She opened the session with this song. She divided the class into two teams. Half of the class sang a line of the song as Don Quijote. We sang, “Yo soy yo Don Quijote”. She had it posted...
[caption id="attachment_54465" align="alignright" width="400"] Darcy Pippins[/caption] I have been so excited about this session since the iFLT schedule came out. This session is something that is dear to my heart. I teach students who are on the path to AP and I want to make sure...
[caption id="attachment_54475" align="alignright" width="451"] Kristy Placido[/caption] What an amazing experience being at iFLT has been! I have met so many of my favorite Spanish teachers! I am completely star struck! Today I got to attend the powerhouse session of Kristy Placido, “The Wonderful World of Intermediates”. She...
[caption id="attachment_54476" align="alignright" width="229"] Carrie Toth[/caption] I am so happy I was able to be a part of Carrie Toth’s “Becoming Proficient in Proficiency”. She is extremely knowledgeable about this topic and I am confident that all the session participants left today feeling much more informed...
[caption id="attachment_54461" align="alignright" width="520"] Señor Wooly[/caption] Señor Wooly (aka Jim Wooldridge) kicked off iFLT 17 with an amazing keynote! He spoke about the role of authenticity versus inauthenticity in his life. He used his story as a musician to explain that he felt as if his...
[caption id="attachment_54465" align="alignright" width="400"] Darcy Pippins[/caption] Darcy’s Intermediate session was all about adapting novels to our classroom. She teaches levels 3, 4 and 5AP without a textbook and ENTIRELY WITH comprehensible input. She reiterated that using novels as the foundation of your curriculum gives compelling input...
[caption id="attachment_54451" align="alignright" width="300"] Jason Fritze[/caption] Today marks my first workshop at iFLT 17 and it was wonderful First, I spent some time with Jason Fritze. He has great energy! We learned many techniques that he used with his elementary students that would work really well...
The other day I was catching up with an ex student of mine from Ohio, when he mentioned he was going to spend 3 weeks in Costa Rica, taking part in a biology course. Before I had time to think about what I was saying,...
One Teacher’s Suggestions for Surviving the Last Few Weeks of School If you are an educator, or know someone who is an educator, you know that the last few months of school, especially after spring break, can be brutal. The weather gets nicer, attention spans are even shorter,...
[caption id="attachment_34293" align="alignright" width="532"] This guy understands[/caption] Let’s kiss. No, not like that. Let’s K.I.S.S. Let’s Keep it Slow and Simple in our language classes. As the school year progresses I have found myself speaking in English more and more and in Spanish less and less. My adrenaline is...
Chances are, you’ve seen an “Escape Room” pop up in your community. Or maybe you have one of the hugely popular “Escape Room” apps on your phone like “The Room” series or “Can You Escape?”. Escape rooms are an exercise in problem solving and teamwork where...
You walk in your room. You see the slack faces and hear the groans as you say “Get out your book and open to page...
Last year, I began to implement leveled readers and novels in some of my novice/intermediate low classes. I had always used stories in my classes, but I saved a lot of reading for upper level classes. One of my colleagues and I were able to...
[caption id="attachment_31610" align="alignright" width="440"] Joey Dziedzic teaching Spanish during the iFLT 2014 Conference Language Lab[/caption] The reinforcement of the targets can be a long process, and can get old when a teacher is hitting the same topic day after day. Particularly at the upper levels, no...
[caption id="attachment_31597" align="alignright" width="497"] Arianne Dowd makes novels come alive in her Spanish classes![/caption] Have you ever read Pernille Ripp’s blog “Blogging in the Fourth Dimension”? She is an excellent blogger who is very passionate about “helping students fall in love with literacy again”. She describes...
If you’re like me, you LOVE using TPRS/CI methods in your classroom. You have seen your students’ enthusiasm and proficiency skyrocket, and your own professional satisfaction is off the charts. And even though it’s not easy, it makes teaching joyful in a way that it...
When we enter our classrooms, we encounter students who will be superstar language students. These anomalies are easily able to learn language no matter what style of teaching, what text type, or minutes in the class hour. We also find students with different strengths, weaknesses,...
[caption id="attachment_29325" align="alignright" width="300"] Eric Herman[/caption] The following post is reprinted with permission from Eric Herman. It is an abridged version of a supplement to Issue 4 of the weekly Acquisition Classroom Memo, a review of must-know second language acquisition research and the implications for classroom...
[caption id="attachment_963" align="alignnone" width="1204"] Don't miss Annabelle's webinar: Brain Breaks & Transitions! Nov. 10.[/caption] As teachers of CI and TPRS, we are very aware of the level of rigor in our classrooms. Many who observe the silly nature or the high level of engagement often assume,...
Sometimes we all just need a little reminder that there are a variety of ways to provide comprehensible input to our students. Here are a handful of great ideas contributed by some fabulous teachers to help you bring a dose of novelty into your classroom! Do...
If someone would have asked me six months ago what TPR (Total Physical Response) is, I would have replied that basically, it is giving commands in the target language, with the student responding to that command physically. I mistakenly thought that simply by telling my...
[gallery type="slideshow" size="large" ids="918,919,920,921"] As I start my 19th year as a Spanish “meaning maker” I decided to do things a little differently. First off, I’ve never been a big fan of grading. I used to call it a necessary evil, but now I’m wondering if it’s...