Uncategorized
November 27, 2008
Things to be thankful for
premium
It’s Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving. :o) Hope you’re enjoying your days off of school or whatever you’re up to this holiday. As I think about what’s been going right in my class these days, what to be thankful for there, I thought I’d let you know that in my difficult period, I finally had to give […]
premium
November 21, 2008
Grammar learning vs. acquisition
premium
My 38 Spanish 1 darlings just turned in a stack of projects–they had to describe and illustrate five family members, at least one of them a plural set, at least one outside their immediate family. They had to tell me 1) what their name was, 2) ¿cómo es?, and 3) ¿cómo está? We worked on […]
premium
November 21, 2008
Forced to give grammar tests?
premium
Diane from foreignlanguagefun.com left me this comment on my previous post: “I teach using immersion, stories, TPR, music . . . but then I have to give common assessments. Although they are proficiency-based, there is a lot of isolated grammar, etc. I’m fascinated by the “no warning” tests. Of course, it makes perfect sense and […]
premium
November 18, 2008
I’ve been grading these Spanish 1 tests lately. This is the test (for some reason the clip art didn’t publish well on Google docs). They did extraordinarily well on it. The average was somewhere around 32-33 out of 38 points possible. And keep in mind, all my tests are given with no warning at all. […]
premium
November 17, 2008
Another Spanish 1 reading
premium
Here’s the story we did in Spanish 1 for the 2nd quarter. My version is about an elephant who wins the lottery and goes out shopping with his friend Minnie Ratoncita. In the student version, students collaborate to fill in blanks and make the story their own. The questions they confused were the ones about […]
premium
November 17, 2008
New media list!
premium
I’ve revised and updated my song list for Spanish class. Here it is! For an explanation of my list, read this post. Hope you find it helpful!
premium
November 13, 2008
At the ACSI conference in Dayton
premium
Attending conferences where other teachers share what’s working for them is always exciting and enriching, right? Today and tomorrow I’m in Dayton at the regional conference of the Association of Christian Schools International (incidentally, the first organization I’m approaching about publishing the Musicuentos curriculum). Tomorrow afternoon I’m giving a presentation on the moral choices teachers […]
premium
November 6, 2008
If you haven’t gotten your hands on Dr. Seuss’s Huevos verdes con jamón, you’ve got to get a copy. In Spanish 1 we’re working on te gusta and me gusta(n). Reading this book gets you so many repetitions of those phrases, and the content is understandable, familiar, and highly interesting, so students are engaged. My […]
premium
November 6, 2008
Another story source!
premium
It’s always exciting to find story sources. I say it all the time, people learn language through storytelling. We learn vocabulary through reading and hearing words in context, not by studying the dictionary. We learn what “sounds right” (the key to fluency) by hearing it over and over and over again, not by doing drills. […]
premium
November 5, 2008
Words we don’t use
premium
If we’re really teaching kids to be communicative, why do we say things like, “This is subjunctive.” “Put that in past tense.” “Where’s the gerund here?” “Spanish requires the a personal between a verb and a direct object that is a person.” Does anyone ever really talk like that? Do you really care if your […]
premium
November 3, 2008
Song success: Hace tiempo
premium
Another song that my students beg for is ‘Hace tiempo’ by Fonseca. We call it “the dancing firemen song” and the video will show you why. They think it’s funny that the song isn’t really a happy one, but it sounds so cheerful, and while he’s singing it in the video he looks so cheerful. […]
premium
October 31, 2008
Overgeneralizing, again
premium
A few posts back I commented on how my Spanish 3 students are overgeneralizing and I’m getting “Yo es” all over the place. Since I made lots of comments about it I’ve seen less. But I noticed something today–my Spanish 1 cherubs are doing it. I haven’t taught Spanish 1 in three years and never […]
premium