October 20, 2014
If you use children’s stories in the classroom, are those stories skilled enough to do double – or triple – duty? Piggybacking on what Helena Curtain advised, to use literature that’s deep enough to come at life and language in multiple ways, I’d like to add a couple of suggestions for books to add to […]
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October 17, 2014
A new resource has become available to the Spanish teacher community and I really wanted you to know about it. Last night’s #langchat was about how we can push our students from Novice Mid to Novice High in all three modes (for a summary, keep an eye on the Calico Spanish blog). Several participants expressed […]
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October 9, 2014
It’s a wrap! I was back at my “home conference” in September for the 2014 Kentucky World Language Association annual conference and it felt like I hadn’t missed a beat- in a very good way. I got to hang out with old friends and make fantastic new ones, help and be helped, take a few […]
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October 3, 2014
It’s finally here! To find out all the details about the brand new Musicuentos ebook, Cajas de cartón: a chapter-by-chapter guide to the memoir by Francisco Jiménez, check out the Cajas page. Or, to summarize, it’s 59 illustrated pages of proficiency-focused, vocabulary-boosting activities paired with comprehension and critical-thinking questions to accompany the 12 chapters of Francisco […]
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September 30, 2014
Three days and then…
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It’s been a rough road this summer for Cajas de cartón: a reader’s guide to the memoir by Francisco Jiménez. I think I began the guide in April or May, but then June was slammed with workshops and travel. July I lost my father and traveled some more. August I finished traveling and went back to […]
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September 16, 2014
happy birthday, Musicuentos Whew, I’ve been blogging a long time. My blogging birthday passed unnoticed but Musicuentos turned SIX on the first of this month! A lot has changed in six years. My teaching scaled back. My blogging scaled up. A kid came… and another… and another. Whenever people talk about all that’s changed, the […]
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September 10, 2014
Thank you, reflective teachers
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I thought about trying to tweet this but I couldn’t do it in 140 characters. Many of you are in the middle of the 30-day #reflectiveteacher challenge. You’re blogging and reflecting on what makes you a teacher, what you’ve accomplished and where you can improve. By subscribing to your blogs, I’ve been able to follow […]
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September 4, 2014
It’s been over a year and a half since the last time I attended a conference (and three years since I attended one neither pregnant nor nursing, haha!) but the maternity leave is over! I’m back on the conference schedule for this year and I hope to meet you at one of four conferences. Kentucky […]
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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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August 15, 2014
Keeping games communicative
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Many teachers are back in school and last night’s year-starting #langchat topic was, by a large majority vote, review techniques that get students moving forward quickly after a long break. I was sick and wasn’t able to join in the conversation but I’m going to assume that someone mentioned games. I would have! Who wouldn’t want […]
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