speaking
January 27, 2013
This is part 2 in a series of songs and activities chosen to improve student accuracy and proficiency in talking about the present. Hace tiempo – Fonseca This song has wide student appeal. Regardless of taste, it’s one of my students’ all-time favorites. The video is great fun also. Proficiency goals: talk about ongoing and […]
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January 21, 2013
Paragraph form
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The rubric I use to score all performance assessments (which I almost completely stole from colleagues) has an entire section called “function/structure” that I use to identify how proficiently students communicate in “paragraph length.” Indeed, the AP rubric (from 2007, which will be changing for 2014) talks about “paragraphing,” and for speaking uses words like […]
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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 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I say this often: textbooks are unmotivating, often based on bad pedagogy, and out-of-date as soon as they’re printed.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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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 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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September 17, 2010
These are the sample prompts we are doing in my presentation, Prompts with Power, with sources. Unit theme: Interpersonal relationships Prompt theme: Adamari Lopez and Luis Fonsi divorce LEVEL 1 Target “should” She is sick. He “should…” Extend: why? LEVEL 2 Target: talking about the past Compare their relationship to a time when an illness […]
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September 17, 2010
Prompts with Power: Prezi
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Here’s the Prezi for Prompts with Power.
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September 15, 2010
This is a writing or speaking prompt I’m making available as a follow-up to my upcoming presentation called “Prompts with Power.” Prezi coming soon. The prompt is: ¿Deben los jóvenes salir con novios en el colegio? My favorite audio source for this is from Patito Feo, a teen drama out of Argentina – it’s a […]
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April 13, 2010
My baby’s been occupying a whole lot of my time lately, draining the life from my blogging and twittering, but in the grand scheme of priorities, she’s above my blog, sorry. 😉 But now that potty training is going more smoothly I’ll make a concerted effort to get back into things. Way too long ago […]
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