Search Results for "novice"
April 23, 2024
O say, can you see, by 2024’s bright sunlight? O’er the schoolyard’s chain link fence, we watch another school day unfurl. Saintly teachers never glare, lest they hurt children’s delicate sensitivities. Bubbles don’t burst in the air, because everyone is too busy evaluating opportunities to use AI. Friends, buckle up for a Sara-Elizabeth post on […]
September 15, 2023
It’s a new season for Musicuentos. You know this. You probably also know it’s going to include regular breaking news, like the return of the Musicuentos Monthly newsletter, or the new Facebook group Musicuentos Tips, Tools, & Talk for Spanish Teachers. JOIN US ON FACEBOOK! My next announcement involves travel itineraries– eventually, for every Spanish-speaking […]
August 14, 2023
Working on a travel unit or a unit or reader that focuses on a specific country? Drop one if these multimodal activity packs seamlessly into your plans! Give your Novice learners accessible authentic language with a Musicuentos travel itinerary (coming soon: every Spanish-speaking country)! Files include 17 pages featuring: Introductory Spanish-only vocabulary (words I think […]
October 19, 2022
In the language teaching field, we have a long, treasured history of arguing and drama. We may agree or disagree on classroom setup, teacher recruitment efforts, and the best ways to encourage learners to study abroad, but primarily, our arguments center on one question: What works (or doesn’t work) for successful language acquisition? In true Sra. […]
November 14, 2019
Who would have thought Sra. Musicuentos would have taken a hiatus from music? I blame it on early novice teenagers. A few years ago, I transitioned from teaching intermediate learners into teaching total beginners who were mostly in the tween/teen years. In my experience, that’s not the best environment for using music to really teach (for […]
August 6, 2019
If you asked me about the most frequent dilemma questions I get/see in professional interactions, including teacher development communities, workshops, social media, and email, this would have to be way up there: What am I supposed to do about this PBL thing? Rewind please… You probably know this, but for clarity’s sake, let’s do a […]
May 21, 2019
You teach, you input, you provide experiences, you assess, you re-assess, you plan and prepare and teach again. At some point, I think we all wonder deep down – what if someone else were assessing them? What would the results be? Not here to #showyoumine I’m adamantly against such middle school showmanship reflected in tactics […]
March 28, 2019
Athletic events. Widespread illness. Someone’s unprepared (teacher or students) or arrived late (“Teachers, due to a car accident on the highway, do not count any student tardy in first period today”). Emergency drill – or a passing kindergartener decided to pull the fun red handle on the wall. Half the class gone for an AP exam, […]
November 3, 2018
The following material is taken from my session for the November 2018 Tennessee Foreign Language Teachers Association. If you read me much, you know that I agree with the broader field that asking “Authentic or learner material?” as a guide for choosing resources is the wrong question. The real question is this: What is going […]
September 20, 2018
How do you introduce a novel? So many teacher-authors, teacher-creators, teacher-bloggers have great ideas out there for previewing a comprehensible novel with amazing activities. Just search the title of your novel and the words “introduce” or “preview.” One of those teachers is my buena amiga Maris Hawkins. I’ll be indebted to her this whole semester for […]
August 30, 2018
This podcast on productivity was the last straw for me. Near the beginning, the host reminded me of the research on how much better the brain works when you not only see something written down, but you wrote it there. Sacrificing a good idea on the altar of a new idea I don’t remember when and […]
August 27, 2018
Social entrepreneurship… in Spanish 1?! A few years ago, a company called VIF International asked me to think and work with them on this question: What would a project-based learning curriculum look like in a novice Spanish class? It’s not an easy question. Project-based language learning presents the same problem Genius Hour does: how can you […]