Uncategorized
June 27, 2011
I had a wonderful PD opportunity last week to sit in with the truly vanguard Jefferson County Public School world languages department. They have spent at least the last two years developing communicative, proficiency-based, performance based units, assessments, and rubrics at levels 1 and 2 for Spanish and French. I have been so inspired by […]
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June 23, 2011
Flipbook illustration
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This post is part of my project to get rid of old (but useful) papers that have been sitting on my bookshelf. This is another literacy idea I got from a grad school class on teaching literacy to ELLs. Materials: 3 sheets of 8 1/2 by 11 blank paper stapler drawing tools Directions: Place the three […]
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June 20, 2011
I have a question for you – where do you draw the line in your language class as far as ethics? Here’s my bias: I teach at a private faith-based (Christian) school, and I have to be very careful about what I show to my students and expose them to. More than that, I have […]
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June 10, 2011
Connecting your classroom
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photo by kmevansOften during #Langchat, a question will come up about how those of us who have collaborating schools in target-language countries found these schools. I found two of ours through Twitter and the other through my school’s accrediting agency’s website. This week on #Langchat, we devoted the entire hour to discussing how we can […]
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June 8, 2011
For my original post about the myths, look here. Textbook companies make a lot of money off of telling us that they’ve done all the work and they’re all we need. Audio? They’ve got it. Video? That too. Activities? Structure? Assessments? It’s an all-in-one package, for a price. And out-of-date as soon as it’s printed. […]
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June 2, 2011
Taking paperless to the blog
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photo by NoHoDamonI love to teach as paperless as possible. My students read more off a projector than off of paper. I wish we had the technology available to be much more paperless at my school- something to strive for.Then I think, well, if I want to be paperless in my classroom, I should be […]
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May 23, 2011
Combat the ‘este tiempo’ monster
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photo by Xiang Xi I don’t know about you, but my students even in their third and fourth years will slip into phases where they keep saying or writing ‘este tiempo’ instead of ‘esta vez.’ Or, un otro tiempo or más tiempos or el último tiempo. Here are a couple of songs to combat that […]
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May 5, 2011
Children’s DVD giveaway!
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I’ve been a follower of Tati’s blog for a long time – maybe before I even had my own, but at least since the very beginning. Certainly since before I had Zoe and began the adventures involved with a bilingual baby. Do you have a child learning Spanish or do you teach elementary? Enter here […]
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April 25, 2011
Myth #4: The Time Whine
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If you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say this post is about dismantling myths, go back and read this post. photo by TonyVCOnly the very young or students who have high aptitude are going to succeed anyway (otherwise known as the ‘time whine’). I don’t know if you’ve heard or said this […]
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April 19, 2011
The myths aren’t going to ACTFL
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photo by azmichelle I meant to post this two weeks ago when I got the news but forgot. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages did not accept my proposal for “Dismantling the Myths that Prevent Proficiency.” I’ll still continue to blog about them, though– I’ll probably reach a wider audience that way […]
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April 13, 2011
Fun activity #3: ¡Arriésgate!
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Fun activity #3 is Jeopardy (¡Arriésgate!) courtesy of the great web 2.0 tool Jeopardy Labs (free and no account required!). I’ve known about this tool for a long time but never just sat down and used it. It’s easy to make and easy to use (except there’s not really a function for no one to […]
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April 2, 2011
Fun activity #2: A conversar
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I blogged a few days ago about coming back from CSC11 with some good ideas to make my class more fun (along with some suggestions via Diego Ojeda of #langchat “fame” 😉 and putting them together into a 10-minute class starter. photo by Rohit Rath The second one is “a conversar.” For this one, students […]
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