These are some good questions that Alex, the lead teacher of a school I am working with, has asked: What habits have you observed in excellent Spanish programs? This is what has worked for me and what I have observed: • Routines. Regular, well though-out routines and rituals. - [...]
I did a demonstration for teachers this week. The students were from a 7th grade middle school Spanish I class. All of the middle school world language team leaders in the school district observed. The students were in the middle of a unit that focused on: Greetings Classroom expressions [...]
Multilevel Classes? Reading "Junk" May Be the Answer! Every class is a multilevel class. The schedule may say students are all at the same level and have been placed in the appropriate class, but reading levels are all over the place... or soon will be. When the spread becomes [...]
Teachers often ask me why I feature verbs so prominently in my training and materials for beginning students. It's because that's where the action is! And using verbs over adjectives can make for compelling storytelling. I try to follow the storytelling advice from the creators of South Park: the [...]
An expanded version of this lesson is available here. This is an activity that can be done as a follow-up to a short story between week 2 and 3 of a Spanish 1 class. The Bell Ringer/Do Now assignment, called the Repasito, is displayed below. In the example, the Repasito [...]
I've been teaching Latin almost exclusively with Roman myths for the last three years - with very positive results. I shared this Darmok activity some time ago. Since teaching with mythology is working so well, talking about Darmok bears repeating. Download the updated Darmok classroom activity here. If you love [...]