Curriculum
August 28, 2014
I’ve been asked several times lately, particularly by teachers starting out their AP Spanish classes, exactly how I teach the novel La ciudad de las bestias as part of the course. Here’s the answer. If a class has higher proficiency, I set deadlines for chapters. We do read on one set day per week, but students […]
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August 26, 2014
When I posted last year about my latest update on the Elige tu propia aventura homework choice activity, the post quickly became one of the top 10 of the year. Accordingly, I frequently receive requests for my list of options and how I divided them into a point system. The problem is that I was experimenting […]
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August 17, 2014
In trying to tell a French teacher what I do the first day of school, I realized that my explanation of the first 12 days of Musicuentos Spanish 1 was, well, all in Spanish. So, here’s some English for you. There are so many, so very many great language learning principles, right? So much second […]
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June 30, 2014
Well, last Friday came and went and the first official Camp Musicuentos is a wrap! I had the great privilege of working with 20 outstanding teachers from across my own region and even beyond – I was joined by teachers from Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Virginia! Our learning, for […]
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June 19, 2014
Hello this time from Merillville, Indiana, where I’m learning with a group of teachers from that school and other schools across the region. What fun! This workshop’s focus is proficiency-based lesson planning. We can say that we’re proficiency-based teachers but where the evidence of that can really be found is in our lesson plans. Do […]
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June 12, 2014
It’s a busy season for Musicuentos, can you tell? I feel like I just said that. I’m breathing a huge sigh of relief as an excellent cohort of teachers and I wrapped up a year-long project to lay the groundwork for something that has not existed in entirety before: an elementary curriculum map for the […]
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June 10, 2014
Have you ever stopped to think about why we teach the past tenses separately? When I first started investigating TPRS as a teaching method, a lot of things clicked with me (and some didn’t) but one of the tips that made the most sense was that it didn’t make sense to teach past tenses one at […]
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June 3, 2014
Time for you to get feedback?
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For many of you, especially in the southern U.S., this is coming a little too late, but some of you may still be in school and have a chance to do this. If you haven’t thought about surveying your students, it’s a great way for you to get feedback on the one thing that really […]
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May 28, 2014
The Merrillville (IN) High School is hosting me for a professional development workshop and is inviting teachers across the region. Here are the brief details, and you can view the description more in-depth in this flyer. Where: Merrillville High School, Merrillville, IN (near Gary in the greater Chicago region) When: Thursday, June 19, 8:00 A.M. – […]
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May 27, 2014
Stop calling this easy & fast
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As you navigate the internet, and particularly with Google and Facebook getting so smart and marketing to what seem to be your interests based on your internet activity, I’m sure you’ve seen some of these advertisements. You know- the ones that promise that you can learn any language you want. It’s easy! It’s fast! It’ll […]
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May 14, 2014
What if a summer day changed your whole school year for the better? Come join me on Friday, June 27 and see how one day of intense, collaborative curriculum mapping will make your 2014-2015 school year feel easier and smoother and filled with proficiency-based teaching and assessments. I’ll warn you, it’s not going to be […]
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May 13, 2014
If you haven’t heard, you have many amazing professional development opportunities this summer. You can mix with the people who really know TPRS at NTPRS and iFLT. Also, if hands-on collaborative planning is your thing, you do not want to miss at least one of two opportunities to work with fellow teachers on proficiency-based curriculum planning […]
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