August 21, 2011
Got the rubric!
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**Update August 2015** After four years of scoring assessments using this rubric, I overhauled it to attempt to highlight the areas I loved most and fix the ones that really bothered me (and others). Please see the new post for the new rubric I am using, updating, and working to improve. I’d love your feedback […]
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August 18, 2011
At last I’ve turned to working on my own classes (after looking at Spanish 1 all summer for our new teacher) and I’m (once again) re-doing my Spanish 3 units. This year I’m trying to make them more realistic. I’ve been heavily influenced on this by a particular #langchat last year on making assessments authentic. […]
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August 16, 2011
Jumping on the Animoto bandwagon
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I’ve heard a lot about Animoto but it’s always been filed away in that “I’m sure it’s great, but I’m on technology overload here” part of my brain. This week I decided to finally jump in and make one. If you stick with the basic account, it’s more than mildly annoying that you can’t do […]
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August 13, 2011
Rethinking “late” work
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After a busy but fun month of traveling here and there on vacation, it’s back to school and back to the blog! We teachers have been at school this past week, and the kids come back Monday. Where did that summer go? One goal I accomplished this summer was reading The Homework Myth by Alfie […]
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July 6, 2011
A song made for early Spanish 1
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Last week Luis Fonsi‘s new album Tierra Firme came out – and it’s good. It’s worth the whole download, I promise. The Deluxe version came with the video for Gritar, as well as acoustic and ranchero versions of that fabulous song. As I was listening, this song called “Me gustas tú” came on. The more […]
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June 28, 2011
Proficiency & tacos
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So, about informing our students on proficiency. One of the great ideas that came from that PD I went to was this ‘taco’ activity. It’s designed to be done in the first days of school, preferable on the first day unless your first day is taken up with ‘administrivia.’ Divide students into four groups, or […]
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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 17, 2011
Activity #5: Gira la botella
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Fun activity #4 is ‘Gira la botella,’ or ‘spin the bottle.’ I forget what the original purpose of this game was (as described at the conference I went to, that is), but I tweaked it to be a game to practice idioms. I find that one of the hardest parts of vocabulary acquisition is getting […]
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June 13, 2011
Symbol Illustration
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This post is part of my project to get rid of papers I haven’t looked at in forever (but still contain good ideas) by making them ‘digital’ here. The symbol illustration idea is from a course I took in graduate school on teaching literacy to (mostly elementary) English-language learners. It seemed to me an idea easily […]
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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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