I’m currently teaching the delightful little novel “La Perezosa Impaciente” by Mira Canion to my 6th and 7th grade connections classes. This book is very simple and very cute, and very comprehensible to my students with a bit of pre-teaching and support. Google slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xr4Ih3P0nGxJzB-otGYXOq0pDNXjT0-G0s0mSChvPlo/edit?usp=sharing Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/857266304/la-perezosa-impaciente-flash-cards/ Vocab Handout: vocab page.docx Lesson Activities Preteach vocab: Identify the words your students will need support on. When I pre-teach vocab, I like to ..read more

FLAG 2023 was a delight! I learned so much from some amazing teachers from around the state. Here are a few of my takeaways: For teaching calendar vocab Consider circling or doing calendar talk with a full year calendar Go beyond What day is today, what day is tomorrow, what is the date – what about, is today Monday or Tuesday? Are we in the month of August or September? Is it spring or fall? Yes or no, is today Thursday? Make a birthday chart for additional circling/input of months, When is your birthday?, and building classroom community On Gradual Release teaching I do, we do together, y ..read more

Who’s excited for the world cup? Me!!!! I´ve been working on a unit for my 6th and 7th grade connections classes with a mix of learning targets for language use in Spanish and cultural understandings in English. I hope you can find something useful! Lesson plans: lesson plans.docx Slides: Click here Song Worksheets: Vamos a Qatar Ulayeh ..read more

I´ve been reading Breaking the Sound Barrier: Teaching Language Learners How to Listen by Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith as a part of my professional learning goal for this year. I’ve been getting a lot of great ideas for how to teach listening, and how to teach grammar and vocabulary through listening. Today, I wanted to share an activity I created based off their activity “Find the object”, described on page 112 of Breaking the Sound Barrier. find the object listening activity sound barrier p 112.docx I created this activity for house vocab, but it could work for almost any topic – school ..read more

I’m looking forward to presenting at the World Language Summit at North Cobb Christian School tomorrow! I will be sharing some ideas for creating speaking and listening activities for online and hybrid learning environments. Here my slides ..read more

I love this song mostly because Gloria Martinez has a beautiful voice and I could listen to her sing all day long, but the gorgeous beaches in the video don’t hurt either! I did some frantic edits to my Spanish 2 preterite focused lyrics activity Wednesday morning to make a more Spanish 1-friendly activity, and I was pleasantly surprised that my students found the song easy to follow along with, and it even got a few five-star ratings. Nuquí lyrics worksheet – Spanish 1Download Nuquí lyrics worksheet – preterite focusDownload ..read more

FLAG is currently offering a fabulous free webinar series for World Language Teachers. I recently watched Marcy Webb’s session on Virtual and F2F engagement. You can watch the recording here, and check out upcoming webinars here. My notes on the webinar: Importance of vertical alignment, especially in this teaching environment – acknowledging that we can’t achieve the same results as in past years, meeting students where they are, and selecting curriculum and resources appropriate for the digital environment and skipping activities/topics that don’t translate well to virtual teaching There wa ..read more

I heard about Whiteboard.fi in a recent FLAG webinar on student engagement. I love using whiteboard activities in my face to face classes, and I wondered if it could serve as an alternative for my distance learners. With Whiteboard.fi, students join with a code and get a blank screen to draw on, create text boxes, and insert shapes and images. You can see all your students’ boards simultaneously, updating in real time. There is also a feature where you can create text or images on your teacher whiteboard, and push it out to all your students. For more info on how to use Whiteboard.fi, check ou ..read more

This year has been a lot. In many ways, I feel like a first year teacher all over again, creating new materials and trying new teaching strategies. I’ve also found that the systems I previously used to keep myself organized with attendance, grades, and other administrative tasks are inadequate, and again, I’ve had to find new solutions. Here are a few strategies that I’m using to keep organized in COVID times. The setting: Concurrently teaching students in the classroom and online via Teams, students submit work through Schoology Attendance: I’ve never bothered to keep paper copies of attenda ..read more

Ms. Brown, I redid that assignment, will you change my grade? Ms. Brown, I still have a zero in Powerschool for the quiz I made up last week. Ms. Brown, I finally submitted the assignment that was due two weeks ago, can you grade it please? Late work, make up work, re-done work: I may get a notification in Schoology, but that doesn’t mean I will remember to update it in PowerSchool. And I certainly can’t stop in the middle of class to update a grade, nor can I be counted on to remember by the time my planning period rolls around. “Would you please fill out the grade change form?” Students ent ..read more