AP Spanish
August 7, 2013
My authorized AP syllabus
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Last week I got the email I’d been waiting for from the College Board – my AP Spanish syllabus has been authorized for the 2013-2014 school year. It was especially encouraging that it went through on the first try; the last two times I’ve done this process, I had to re-submit, once for something I […]
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July 27, 2013
Tips for the New AP
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The world of AP World Language teachers is all abuzz with the vast changes made to the exams this year. Six years ago the Spanish language exam changed to what was a more proficiency-based format. Last year other exams changed to move toward and past what the Spanish exam was, and for 2014 the Spanish […]
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July 22, 2013
I have taught AP Spanish for five of the last six years. At my school, AP Spanish is a fourth-year course. I do not require applications for the class or otherwise “cull” potential students. Anyone who wants to take it may do so. Also, we require all students who take an AP course to take […]
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May 27, 2013
When you’re not using a textbook, authentic sources are your main starting point for most class activities. This is a very good thing, since authentic sources are what we’re trying to train students to comprehend and explore on their own, but sometimes finding the right one can be a challenge. This is especially true for […]
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April 22, 2013
Recently I blogged about using the proficiency target of talking about future goals and dreams to frame your use of future tense, and I mentioned three songs that are good for highlighting this particular tense. For your intermediate mid/high learners, here are some additional activities I have done with my students to work with future […]
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April 13, 2013
This post is a comment that will be published in an upcoming article on 21st century skills and assessment in The Language Educator, the bimonthly publication of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Multiple choice was the death of critical thinking. Multiple choice questions train students to look at problems in one […]
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March 6, 2013
Read the first post on easing into developing curriculum. Recently the topic for the weekly Twitter chat addressing world language teaching issues, #langchat, was the role of the textbook in the classroom. Teachers on Twitter just seem naturally more progressive to me anyway, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how many teachers are working to break […]
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August 2, 2012
AP redesign: Units & EQ’s
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The College Board has changed the AP French and German exams this year and aims to make similar (the same?) changes to AP Spanish next year. In light of the coming changes, I decided to get a jump start on redesigning my AP curriculum. I had 9 units + a month exam review + […]
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November 17, 2011
Twice for #langchat we’ve polled the following question: What activities prepare students for AP from the very beginning? I confess, I probably wrote this question, maybe with some help from something similar being suggested as a topic. Certainly I’ve voted for it twice. But for whatever reason–perhaps teachers of lower levels don’t think much about […]
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October 24, 2011
Not your average health unit
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A unit on health is common in Spanish class. We have a unit in Spanish 2 on describing ailments and visiting the doctor. Then in AP I have a unit called “Cuidándome a mí” (taking care of myself). It’s useful -last year’s AP essay was health-related- but for AP I wanted to go beyond the […]
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February 11, 2011
There are a lot of problems with current world language teaching in the U.S. I think the biggest problem is that we’re trying to teach it the way we teach everything else, when language used for communication is not learned or stored the way other subjects are, and the answer is to look back at […]
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February 4, 2011
I wrote here about what I’ve done with the book Ciudad de las bestias by Isabel Allende in my AP class. I recently put all of the chapter guides with their “palabras claves” in one streamlined document, public on the web. They’re not perfect -my students and I often find mistakes (like incorrect page numbers)- […]
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