Uncategorized
April 26, 2010
Here’s a shoutout to SpanglishBaby–run over there and be sure to enter their awesome giveaway of bilingual toys from Ingenio! Oh, and don’t forget to follow them on Twitter, @Spanglishbaby.
premium
April 13, 2010
My baby’s been occupying a whole lot of my time lately, draining the life from my blogging and twittering, but in the grand scheme of priorities, she’s above my blog, sorry. 
But now that potty training is going more smoothly I’ll make a concerted effort to get back into things. Way too long ago […]
But now that potty training is going more smoothly I’ll make a concerted effort to get back into things. Way too long ago […]
premium
April 3, 2010
I found a recent broadcast from Radio ONU (incidentally a great source for AP Spanish audio) that uses several verbs in the future tense because it’s about a future meeting of a group discussing what they want to do about the H1N1 virus. Current event + grammar = :o) My favorite thing to do with […]
premium
March 30, 2010
I got a link to this blog post over my Twitter feed from @techforschools and had to share. It’s called “iPod Touch as Language Lab.” A couple of years ago I saw a language lab rep at a conference and of course got all in a tizzy about language labs. He hasn’t visited my school […]
premium
March 29, 2010
Popping in quickly to share an article with a lot of youth appeal (I mean, it has juventud in the article) and some subjunctive for influence. You’ll find it here on univision.com.
premium
January 28, 2010
Imperfect and preterite are terms you will almost never hear in my classroom. Instead, when we focus on narrating in the past, we use phrases like descriptive past and sudden past. In my opinion, that’s the best way in my opinion to contrast them. The trick with putting them together is to get students to use one when they’re […]
premium
January 19, 2010
Past subjunctive is not the easiest thing to find in a song, much less several repetitions of it. I blogged a bit about a couple of songs that do it, but I this song just crossed my radar and wow, what a gem for past subjunctive. It has 17 verbs in the past subjunctive, 8 […]
premium
January 18, 2010
I just tagged on my Delicious all the Spanish-language corporate websites that I’ve mentioned on my blog. It makes it a lot more convenient to find the sites that my students have found interesting. You can find it here: http://delicious.com/wandermami/Corporate_Spanish_sites
premium
January 11, 2010
Last week it was time to start reviewing how the two past tenses work together, and I just didn’t feel like the usual diagrams, writing exercises, prompted conversations, etc. So now that we have our Flip cameras, I told the students to write a movie script. They had to use both past tenses, and they […]
premium
January 7, 2010
A little while ago I made a post about pleasure reading that elicited a few comments from Bethanie: Bethanie said… Could you elaborate on what you do with the reading guides/palabras claves? I would like to incorporate more long reading into my classes in addition to the shorter pieces I already use, but struggle with […]
premium
December 11, 2009
The winner of the Latin Grammy for Mejor Nuevo Artista this year, and nominated in a similar category for Premio Lo Nuestro 2010, is a blond, dimpled native of D.F. named Alexander Acha. One of his most popular tunes is the song “Te Amo.” I had to tell my students to give him a chance […]
premium
December 7, 2009
Switch to a communicative set-up
premium
How is your classroom laid out? Is it conducive to communicative teaching and acquisition? Recently my principal came back from a visit to another school and showed me a picture (on his iPhone of course) of a classroom that made him think of me. The teacher had put several tables together and then cut a […]
premium