firstdays
August 17, 2014
In trying to tell a French teacher what I do the first day of school, I realized that my explanation of the first 12 days of Musicuentos Spanish 1 was, well, all in Spanish. So, here’s some English for you. There are so many, so very many great language learning principles, right? So much second […]
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August 12, 2014
It’s a new school year and for many of us that means talking to new students and new parents about something they’re very unfamiliar with: language proficiency. You may have caught this document on the wikispace for the workshop I did with the Webb School of Knoxville this summer; it’s something I put together to […]
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August 11, 2013
I certainly am not the only teacher blogging about going back to school! Check out these great posts from innovative colleagues: Browse Maris Hawkins’ category “beginning of the year” as she goes back with her middle school Spanish students. Meg Villanueva offers great advice on how to break the ice in a TPRS classroom. Garnet […]
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August 6, 2013
As you go back to school, it may help you to check out the posts under my label “first days.” These posts include: A fun spoof off “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” that makes fun of homonyms in the Spanish alphabet. Advice from last year’s #langchat about the first days of school, including ideas […]
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August 3, 2013
As we all go back to school and meet new students and try to push them to try something really new and maintain target language in the classroom, as you maintain it, commit to make your target language input comprehensible and make sure students know you’re committed to it. Show them this video: This baby […]
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August 13, 2012
I posted a long time ago (like, three years ago) about this video from tu.tv, El Abecedario, spoofing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Well, it turned out the site was blocked at my school, and then with the move to the new site all my embedded YouTube videos broke, and while going through those […]
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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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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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August 12, 2010
First 12 days of Spanish 1
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A couple of posts down Jen asked if I had lessons to go along with the Spanish 1 scope and sequence and vocabulary list. I do! A few, anyway, and at least you can see how I organize and move through Musicuentos. Here are the first 12 days of Spanish 1, in fairly good detail. […]
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August 12, 2010
My supply list
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I just made my supply list for this year. It’s been whittled down a lot this year. The actual one has a clip-art face on it but I don’t think that uploaded well to Google Docs. 🙂 (Disclaimer: I should add that I teach advanced electives at a private school that doesn’t have the faculty […]
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