Aventuras Nuevas
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Every day is a new adventure. Come along for the language learning ride!This blog is meant to be a place to share ideas, experiences, and materials used in the teaching of high school world language classes. Though I've been teaching for 20+ years, this year has been a metamorphosis in many ways. I changed schools and now get to combine both of my fields of study: medicine and Spanish as..
Aventuras Nuevas
3w ago
I had the pleasure of listening to the latest episode of Claudia Elliott’s Growing with Proficiency podcast this week on the drive home from school. Her guest this week is the amazing AnneMarie Chase (senorachase.com), talking about streamlining assessments. You can hear the episode here. One particular strategy that AnneMarie mentioned was using inside/outside circles ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
1M ago
This year I’m making a concerted effort to improve the quantity & quality of focused listening that my students do. I think that finding “just right” audio is very difficult for classes, so I was thrilled when I found Marta Ruiz Yedinak’s excellent Cuéntame podcast. She produces short episodes in comprehensible language that are perfect ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
2M ago
Sharing a newly created chat mat that I made to support my students in sharing their opinions about music. Enjoy ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
11M ago
Nothing like a good chat mat to support student conversations on the first days back to school after holiday break! No need to stress over planning–this resource can work for beginners through advanced students to spark ideas and scaffold their skills. It’s also a great tool to help establish (or re-establish) connections and community within your classroom.
I updated a winter-themed chat mat and plan to roll it out this week. Students will want to talk to their classmates, so let’s help them do what they want to do in Spanish!
Download a copy of the chat mat here:
weekend-chat-placemat-wint ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
11M ago
Goldfish icons created by Freepik – Flaticon
The Fishbowl strategy has been around education for quite a while to promote speaking, interaction, and peer feedback between students. While there were many things that appealed to me about the activity, there were some aspects that I didn’t feel were good fits for our classroom culture. However, after a discussion with a Fishbowl veteran teacher, I made some changes to the classic structure of the activity that I think made it work for us–especially as part of our preparation for the IB Standard Level IA assessment. I’m sharing this activity here ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
11M ago
Kelly Gardner shared the idea of a Cultural Comparison round table in a Facebook group for AP Spanish teachers. With her permission, I adapted the idea for my classes and am sharing it here.
We are at the end of a unit about the role of grandparents and the impact of technology/social media on our lives. These topics combine for a wide range of comparisons, and create a great set up for the round table format.
Students had many positive things to say about the activity, especially about how it is a confidence booster. Here are some of their post-activity comments:
Here is the process that I u ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
1y ago
The Lotería de Navidad commercials are some of my favorite authentic resources to use in class each year–and this year is no exception. They are rich stories that are great conversation starters and though they are linked with Christmas, the message of each video is about community and sharing rather than a religious message. My favorite of all time is from 2015, Justino.
This year is no exception. Set in Madrid, it continues the tradition of short films telling big stories. In collaboration with my dear friend and amazing colleague Maris Hawkins, we have prepared a unit built around this year ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
1y ago
I’ve been teaching AP for about 10 years now, and each year has been different from the last. I continue to refine and try to improve my teaching practice, and therefore the learning experience for my students. Just when I thought I had hit my stride, COVID changed everything! This past year was normal-ish, but at the end of the year I found that students were struggling to be in touch with the content that we had studied early in the year. Our class takes place on alternate days all year long, so the gap between the start of the year and the AP exam in May can be long. Lots of our work was in ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
1y ago
The song Patria y Vida is causing quite a sensation throughout the Spanish-speaking world. It is a fantastic resource to accompany the book Casa Dividida and a deeper dive into Cuba, especially with upper level students. Here are some resources to help teachers dive in to the topic:
A bit of background information for teachers:
Brief intro/overview
Alt.Latino podcast
Activities for students–aimed at students in upper level courses (approximately intermediate mid):
Interpretive reading–pre-listening: background before the song
Song activity pack–including running dictation pre-listening
patria ..read more
Aventuras Nuevas
1y ago
I am a huge fan of well-designed activities that are versatile enough to be adapted across units, levels, and languages as a way of reducing my workload while still creating a challenging learning environment for students.
Cupside Down is one of those activities and we just played it for the first time yesterday. I learned about the game from Carrie Toth at Somewhere to Share–find the explainer & directions here.
Preparation took me about 20 minutes total: about 10 minutes writing questions and another 10 creating a slide deck to introduce the game to students. Next time will be less becau ..read more