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 And out-of-date as soon as it’s printed.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 26, 2011
Activity #4: Drama Inmóvil
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Fun activity #4 is “Drama Inmóvil,” idea courtesy of Paulino Brener. My students LOVE this. They beg for it- even the ones who will never talk in class. You must try it, and if you’re anywhere around a unit building on present progressive, you should do this every day for the first five minutes at […]
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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 21, 2011
Have you used PhotoPeach?
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I have to thank @vivianagabi for giving me the idea to use PhotoPeach to do a project called “25 things about me.” Her (Brazilian) students are at lower levels than mine, and take Spanish for less time per week, but it was a brilliant way for her students to connect with my students (by posting […]
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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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March 31, 2011
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 T. Hart Myths 2 & 3:2. Learning about language is enough (Or, “I don’t have to speak the TL in the classroom”). and its cousin 3. Grammatical terms are actually […]
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March 29, 2011
Activity 1: Cuento poco a poco
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Telling a story by categories photo by flamingoo This idea came from a session at CSC on theater that was generally so awful that I left halfway through. Really, it was so bad it was painful. But, I came away with this activity that I thought I could make work in my classroom. In “Cuento […]
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