Activities
January 25, 2013
A while ago this comment was left on the old Musicuentos site, on the post “Do something drastic – kick the vocab quiz“: “Can you give us some examples of what activities you do to ensure mastery of the vocabulary? And do you have any advice on how to promote this kind of teaching/learning in […]
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January 10, 2013
Looking for a few songs to make talking about the present a little more engaging? Take a look at this post about stem-changing verbs. Or try the songs I’ve picked for this series, starting with this one. Note: I believe that students’ primary challenge is in speaking and so you’ll notice that these are primarily […]
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January 4, 2013
It’s no secret that I advocate using almost all authentic materials from the beginning. Using authentic materials with novices is both possible and critical. Here’s an example of an activity you could do with novice learners in a unit on entertainment or technology, with communicative goals like expressing likes or dislikes or talking about your […]
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October 25, 2012
Best and worst games I’ve seen
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I don’t think many teachers truly believe that having fun is the only prerequisite to learning. Even with my preschoolers, whose teachers I often tell that our 20 minutes may look like chaos but is really learning through play, I have to carefully structure our fun in order to maximize acquisition. So why does it […]
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September 26, 2012
Success with Stations
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We did it! Under much inspiration by @muchachitaMJ and @viajando_kj (with Megan’s presentation on stations the only general session I was able to attend at KWLA 2012), this week we did a stations day for the first time. Overall it was a great success, more so in Spanish 3 than in AP. Here’s what I learned. […]
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September 6, 2012
Fun activity #7: Conecta cuatro
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Last year I blogged about what a boring teacher I really am and how I was inspired by some conference workshops to make things more fun in the classroom. This is the seventh post on the activities that came out of those experiences: a twist on “connect four.” Students hate vocabulary. And if you’re talking […]
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August 31, 2012
Screencast: Edmodo
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Have you heard about Edmodo? Not sure how it works or whether it’s worth exploring another social media platform? Give me five minutes to show you how I use Edmodo in my classroom. We now use Edmodo for blogging-type out-of-class social interaction in grades six through twelve at my school. A couple things I didn’t have […]
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June 17, 2011
Activity #5: Gira la botella
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Fun activity #4 is ‘Gira la botella,’ or ‘spin the bottle.’ I forget what the original purpose of this game was (as described at the conference I went to, that is), but I tweaked it to be a game to practice idioms. I find that one of the hardest parts of vocabulary acquisition is getting […]
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June 13, 2011
Symbol Illustration
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This post is part of my project to get rid of papers I haven’t looked at in forever (but still contain good ideas) by making them ‘digital’ here. The symbol illustration idea is from a course I took in graduate school on teaching literacy to (mostly elementary) English-language learners. It seemed to me an idea easily […]
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April 26, 2011
Activity #4: Drama Inmóvil
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Fun activity #4 is “Drama Inmóvil,” idea courtesy of Paulino Brener. My students LOVE this. They beg for it- even the ones who will never talk in class. You must try it, and if you’re anywhere around a unit building on present progressive, you should do this every day for the first five minutes at […]
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April 21, 2011
Have you used PhotoPeach?
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I have to thank @vivianagabi for giving me the idea to use PhotoPeach to do a project called “25 things about me.” Her (Brazilian) students are at lower levels than mine, and take Spanish for less time per week, but it was a brilliant way for her students to connect with my students (by posting […]
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