internet activities
December 21, 2016
We’re up to the third most popular post on Musicuentos for 2016. It’s a post on Five ways to use infographics in language class I’ve often said that infographics are a go-to authentic resource, particularly in novice classes. They are ready-made materials that help you provide input in the visual ways students are increasingly becoming […]
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August 30, 2016
Let’s do one final round of #AuthResAugust on Musicuentos and talk interactive websites! We well know how much the internet has revolutionized language teaching, making authentic language and culture accessible at the touch of a few buttons. One of the best opportunities the internet has presented us with is, in my opinion, websites that don’t […]
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February 10, 2016
Who doesn’t want to talk about cute kids in awesome clothes? I’m sure you’re aware yesterday was Carnaval. Thanks to Allison Wienhold’s post on great Carnaval resources, I was able to give my students an Edmodo assignment that exposed them to some culture (cute culture at that!) and asked them to practice our current ongoing targets, description […]
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October 21, 2015
Does this sound familiar to you? Via Facebook, Twitter, Edmodo, Google search, or a two-hour plummet down the rabbit hole known as Pinterest, you found exactly the right authentic resource for your upcoming lesson on members of the family. You spent 72 minutes designing a scaffolding activity that would help make it comprehensible and focus your […]
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May 23, 2014
I just taught my last class for the foreseeable future and what a sweet handful of minutes it was. I decided to revisit the Photopeach final this year, after having not done it for 2 years because of babies arriving at the end of the school year. I’ve blogged about Photopeach and this particular project […]
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March 7, 2014
Recently when fabulous NC teacher Bethanie Carlson Drew (who has guest-posted on Musicuentos before) tweeted requesting recommendations for a good resource for authentic restaurant reviews, I was happy to share with her my favorite, loogares.com. Don’t be fooled by the footer credit on this activity – that’s all I did. She took my recommendation and […]
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February 27, 2014
I love reviews as an authentic resource, especially for novices, because they hit so many proficiency targets – expressing opinions, description, talking about activities, talking about community. And they’re usually short and written with high-frequency vocabulary. So, where’s the best place to find authentic reviews? So far my favorite is a site called Loogares.com. For […]
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February 8, 2014
This post from last year was a popular activity for Spanish class. Enjoy! ——— A while back, a hashtag hit the trending topics on Twitter in Mexico: #quierounnovioque. I used the program Archivist to save the tweets and export them to an Excel file. I often do this if the teaching value of a particular trending […]
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January 14, 2014
Website review: Geoguessr
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Since my fourth suggestion for a 2014 resolution was to take a step outside the textbook, here’s an easy idea that gives you a way to do that. I recently heard about the web app Geoguessr and I’ll warn you, it’s addictive. Basically, the app gives you Google Earth photos of seemingly random places in […]
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September 26, 2012
Success with Stations
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We did it! Under much inspiration by @muchachitaMJ and @viajando_kj (with Megan’s presentation on stations the only general session I was able to attend at KWLA 2012), this week we did a stations day for the first time. Overall it was a great success, more so in Spanish 3 than in AP. Here’s what I learned. […]
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August 31, 2012
Screencast: Edmodo
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Have you heard about Edmodo? Not sure how it works or whether it’s worth exploring another social media platform? Give me five minutes to show you how I use Edmodo in my classroom. We now use Edmodo for blogging-type out-of-class social interaction in grades six through twelve at my school. A couple things I didn’t have […]
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August 10, 2012
I say this often: textbooks are unmotivating, often based on bad pedagogy, and out-of-date as soon as they’re printed. If you want to see your students motivated to work with language that interests them, you have to create your own material – or “steal” the great stuff that fantastic teachers like @SraSpanglish and @ZJonesSpanish and […]
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