Spanish writing prompts

As I have had time to reflect on what I need and what can help other teachers, I have also had time to develop some resources to use when I am back in the classroom. My colleague has really worked on student writing in 7th grade, and I want to extend it more with my

Stations in the World Language Classroom

I realized the other day that I had never blogged about how I do stations!  I try to have students do stations at least once per unit.  I also have found that they work well on days that my students aren’t as motivated to really keep them moving throughout class.  One year, I planned many

Trying out “Write and Discuss”

Some ideas I hear and can incorporate the next day.  Other ideas take awhile for me to work into my routine.  I have already started my class with input, but the end of my class sometimes isn’t as important as the beginning.  However, I know that the end of class is when students are likely

Starting an evolution: presentational writing

One of the biggest things that attracts me to teaching is how much I can evolve and change as an educator.  The field itself is changing, and as I learn more and figure out how to apply more, my own teaching changes.  This challenges and pushes me. One point that I am starting to evolve

Mad Libs

As I have been playing around with getting students to share more about themselves, sometimes, I will run into the student who doesn’t like to share a lot.  At times, I can say be creative, but some students do not feel comfortable doing so.  I am hoping that these Mad Libs can allow students to

How to start teaching proficiency: Presentational

Thank you to everyone who has commented about my series this week and has read along! The last piece, presentational, is one of the easier ones to incorporate into your assessments because I am sure that you are already having students write and/or present.  However, I would suggest a few changes to improve upon these

Developing presentational writing

As my students continue to prepare for their final IPA, I wanted them to work on their skills for presentational writing.  This is a bit difficult for me to plan because I haven’t specifically worked on this in class before.  It is easier for me to specifically target one or two things in the rubric.

Interpersonal and presentational writing activity

As the year is winding down, I am preparing my students for their final IPA instead of a final exam in level 3.  Today, they will be completing an interpersonal activity then make a presentational writing activity.  (They have already read this article for an interpretive reading activity.) Today I will give each student in pairs a

Combining authentic resources

While I enjoy being able to really milk one authentic resource, I also like being able to combine different authentic resources for students on one topic.  I saw a textbook do this successfully, and I liked it.  This will give them a well-rounded view of the theme.  We are discussing the environment in my Spanish

Warm-up: Write poetry

  Just because my students are novices doesn’t mean that they can only write in sentences!  When I read Deb Blaz’s book (I suggest ALL of them though), she suggests trying all different types of writing.  My students in Spanish II wrote poems today as their warm-up.  Here are some ideas that your students could write: