December 18, 2013
2013’s fifth most popular post is about giving up on the idea that you can control what vocabulary students acquire, while engaging students in activities that really deepen their vocabulary. A few months ago, as part of the student choice homework activity, one of my best AP students chose to label ten items in her […]
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December 15, 2013
2013’s sixth most popular post is about how brain research can help us plan our lessons more effectively. What if the way we’ve been doing lesson plans for years and years makes no sense at all, given the research on memory and brain function? For the way I currently approach lesson planning I have to […]
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December 12, 2013
2103’s seventh most popular post is about one of my soapboxes, my “hills to die on.” I’m convinced that the way most of us approach vocabulary in the world language classroom is almost completely contradictory to brain research. Read on for four classroom habits that enrich student vocabulary where it counts – in their long-term […]
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December 11, 2013
If you’re interested, here’s my final exam for AP Spanish, addressing two themes we have incorporated this semester: religious celebrations, and healthcare challenges. The exam includes a persuasive essay and an audio prompt for a speaking response. In the persuasive essay, students are asked to discuss whether we should try to change other people’s opinions […]
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December 9, 2013
2013’s eighth most popular post is about telling the difference between novice high and intermediate low. Be sure to check out the comments on the original post for more helpful distinguishing tips. I got a question recently from a colleague who was having trouble pinpointing the difference between novice high and intermediate low with her […]
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December 6, 2013
2013’s ninth most popular post is about how assessment should affect future content. Assessment has a lot of purposes, the least important of which is to give students a number on a report card. Some that come to mind are: educating students and parents on proficiency helping students identify areas that need improvemen keeping parents informed […]
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December 3, 2013
2013’s tenth most popular post is about quickly assessing students’ paired and group conversations. In order to learn how to converse with someone, students need to hear conversations, plan conversations, and participate in conversations. So, if we’re giving students a lot of opportunities for interpersonal communication in class, which we should, how do we grade […]
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December 2, 2013
When I first set out to teach the novel La ciudad de las bestias by Isabel Allende five years ago, I wrote chapter guides for each chapter as I taught it through a year. I never dreamed that teachers far and wide would use the document I made publicly available a few years ago. […]
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December 1, 2013
Happy December!
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What a year! Even as my family welcomed our third child in five years, 2013 has seen more blog posts (97!) and more activity and more projects for Musicuentos than in any other year since I started blogging in 2008. In December I”ll be taking a break from writing new blog posts -with the notable […]
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November 25, 2013
AP Spanish essay – Obamacare
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It seems like the hottest political topic this year is Obamacare. Boon? Disaster? And what about the Spanish-speaking immigrant population? Seemed like a perfect topic for an AP persuasive essay. First, navigate the new healthcare system’s newly functioning Spanish-language website. Okay, so it’s functioning, but just about all it can do is tell you to […]
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November 22, 2013
Broken record: I’m not at ACTFL right now, but I wish I were. Regardless of whether you’re there or not, would you take a minute and let me know what you’d like to see as a Musicuentos presentation at ACTFL 2014 in San Antonio? Bethanie Carlson Drew, Laura Sexton, Kara Jacobs, and I are proposing […]
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November 18, 2013
Setting goals
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What do you plan to do next year? Lose weight? Save money? Travel someplace amazing? Start learning a new language? Everyone knows setting goals is important, and language class is no exception. Not terribly long ago someone emailed me or left a comment -I can’t remember which- and asked me to “comment more on setting […]
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