I ordered 50 books from Fluency Matters in anticipation of my Spanish 2 animals unit. The thinking was that these would build students’, well, fluency, as well as their contextual vocabulary and grammar as they prepared to make a plan to help their amigos animales. I have been kind of Read more…
I got so many great tools and ideas from attending the CI workshop with Ben Slavic and Tina Hargaden, so conveniently located in my home state! I know I said I was going to “stay home and process,” but I figured I could handle two days within an hour’s drive, Read more…
I don’t think anyone would call me a TPRS teacher, though I’ve certainly dabbled in comprehensible input for years, and I will gladly sip some CI Kool-Aid when offered a fresh serving, whether through organized national conferences or a workshop conveniently passing through my home state. I recently got the Read more…
Let me be clear: I am a Spanglish teacher. I went into this game an English teacher, and novels have been the basis for my approach to instruction for a goodly portion of my career. It took me a while to come around to the idea of using novels in Read more…
Promise not to laugh? This is how I understood using authentic texts seven years ago. I do not know where the magic number 200 came from anymore, and WOW was I out of touch with even the CONCEPT of novice language learners. (Dra. Moser now claims she doesn’t remember me Read more…
This year has been a year of growth, without a doubt. After the single most successful semester of my teaching career, I decided to start from scratch on almost everything. I blame iFLT. Since I’m also on an early college schedule, I only got a week or two to process Read more…
I was just innocently searching for videos to give my students a feel for Sainte Chapelle, one of the heroes’ destinations in Agentes Secretos, when I happened upon one of their favorite games! (The students’–not the protagonists’…) Pokemon or no, my babies this year are big into video games, and Read more…
My grand experiment this year will be a semester-long personalized PBL passion project. Everything we do will lead up to the interdisciplinary marketing project that has become a keystone of the sophomore experience at our school. I have also been really excited about attempting to integrate a TPRS novel this Read more…
There is only one thing I really have to do as a language teacher: Make my students feel good. As my CSCTFL amiga and unofficial coach for the day, Michelle, said, it’s simple, but it ain’t easy. So many things go into making a student feel good! Before I start enumerating the many, Read more…
I don’t get TPRS. But I really want to. I’ve pored over blogs from Carrie Toth, Kristy Placido, Cynthia Hitz, Justin Slocum Bailey, Keith Toda, and Bryce Hedstrom for years. I’ve tried writing stories a la Martina Bex and Anne Matava to support PBL projects with Comprehensible Input and connect Read more…