Spanish 1
May 4, 2013
Every once in a while there comes along an authentic resource that’s the golden trifecta, the perfect mix of pop culture, TL culture, and usability for any level of language learning. The Pin Pon clip in Shrek is one of those. It’s so good that I feel inclined to repost it to give it to […]
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April 28, 2013
One of my students’ favorite songs the last couple of years has been “Tengo tu love” by Sie7e, a truly fabulous song with a great message. We actually use it in our current unit in Spanish 3 on talking about goals and dreams as we explore where David (the singer) came from and how his […]
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January 4, 2013
It’s no secret that I advocate using almost all authentic materials from the beginning. Using authentic materials with novices is both possible and critical. Here’s an example of an activity you could do with novice learners in a unit on entertainment or technology, with communicative goals like expressing likes or dislikes or talking about your […]
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August 20, 2012
Menus
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Whether you’re beginning to dabble outside the textbook or you kicked it out a long time ago, one of your greatest resources will certainly be the wealth of authentic material on the internet. From shopping malls to gaming, your students can interact with a seemingly infinite variety of engaging materials. If you do a food […]
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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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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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February 10, 2011
Tonight’s #Langchat topic is using games to support instruction. I have no idea how to describe a game in 140 characters so I thought I’d post it here. This is a game good for low levels. It works great to reinforce describing people. It’s useful for students to have the verbs ‘have’ ‘wear’ and ‘is.’ […]
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February 4, 2011
I’m going to an unconference tomorrow – my first full one. I managed to attend part of one before and enjoyed it. It’s being put on by @tmsaue1 with the public school district and they’re kind enough to invite private school teachers to tag along. This post is for the unconference (and you). Last year […]
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January 27, 2011
Instead of the vocab quiz
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@SraSpanglish commented on my post “Kick the vocab quiz“: “I feel like I can’t do this with Spanish I, and it’s hard with Spanish II. Also, what are students graded on instead?” At this point, I only teach very early elementary, who only receive a grade of “excellent/satisfactory/needs improvement” once a quarter, and advanced students. […]
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January 19, 2011
Low-level vocabulary, motivating subject matter, absolutely up-to-date… tell me again why we aren’t using authentic materials in the low levels?
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September 15, 2009
My husband is a bit of a tennis buff and so we were watching the US Open final yesterday and watched Argentinian Juan Martín del Potro defeat Federer in a stunning upset. In the awards ceremony, del Potro gave a short speech in Spanish (at 1 mins 15 sec). I thought, that’d be very interesting […]
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August 25, 2009
I love crossover songs
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I love crossover songs. That’s what I call those songs that have so much good material in them that they’re great from Spanish 1 to AP. Fanny Lu’s new hit Tú No Eres Para Mí is one of those. It’s especially good for uses and conjugations of ser. There’s the title, which is of course […]
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