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Jigsaw Puzzle
Here is another idea brought to you by the seductively fun Deb Abshier. She brought a version of this activity to share with our class on Wednesday night, and I love it! The possibilities are endless,...
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Introducing Verb Conjugation
This document (fully editable and free!!) is what I use to formally introduce conjugation to my first-year Spanish students. I have a verb chart on my wall that I refer to all.the.time for pop-up...
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Introducing the Preterite
Unfortunately for me, ‘backward planning’ usually means doing things backward: as in the wrong order. I have never had a systematic way of introducing past tenses to my students, and so their knowledge...
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The Name Game
I have my very first ever student teacher!! (Well, I guess they are called ‘interns’ around here, but you know what I mean.) Her name is Julia, and she is super fabulous. She just spent…a long time (a...
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La muchacha y la ardilla Script
So remember how I mentioned that I have an intern this quarter? Well, she’s awesome. It has been SO GREAT to have someone to talk through ideas with. Two brains are better than one, that’s for sure! We...
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La madre de Jasón Script
The journey continues…and I am continuing to love it as my students continue to have great success learning new structures and producing grammatically correct past narration! Woohoo! We followed up our...
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Rafael Nadal and -ER verbs
A reader recently wrote and requested that I add -ER and -IR present indicative verb notes to my TpT page, and I am very excited about the facelift that I gave the notes that I used to use! Since I am...
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Guajeros and -IR verbs
I promised a reader I’d have these uploaded by the 20th, and by golly I’ve made the deadline! Use these notes to teach a focused grammar lesson on the present indicative of -IR verbs without departing...
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My favorite game EVER!
I am a very bossy person by nature, and unfortunately I didn’t realize it until right after I graduated from high school. By the grace of God, I’ve learned how to tame my nasty natural...
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Teaching other verb forms – a reading for Spanish 1!
I need to make an FAQ page. Here is one that came through today: …I was looking at your website and I was curious if you teach the “nosotros” or “ustedes” forms in Spanish 1. If so, is there a certain...
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Question word posters en français and new additions
Yippee Yay! Dana Wilson emailed me most of the French translations of my Spanish question word posters earlier this week, and Catherine Ousselin (@CatherineKU72) helped me out with a few more! Mercy...
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Help! My students don’t get [x]!
We’ve all said it at some point: “HELP! My students don’t get [when to use ser or estar][how to form the subjunctive][the difference between “I have” and “you have” in Spanish]! What should I do???” We...
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I teach grammar.
Grammar. You just cringed; didn’t you?! I knew it. Golly there seems to be a lot of discord in the virtual realm lately—lots of professional disagreement about many different aspects of language...
View ArticleGiveaway: Books from Teacher’s Discovery
After four decades of research in the area of second language acquisition, it is clear that language is acquired not from practice (drills), but from consistent and constant exposure to input. Input is...
View ArticleWhat is Grammar Instruction?
What is grammar instruction? What does it do for language acquisition, and what should its role be in a language classroom? These are some of the questions that a group of enthusiastic language...
View ArticleTranslating second language acquisition research into motivational practice
Over the last decade, I have come to realize that I entered the profession of language education with a lot of beliefs about language and language teaching, but those beliefs were based on impressions...
View ArticleTargeting vocabulary
I recently published a new story script, one that targets -AR imperfect verb conjugations. Targeting has been a big topic of conversation lately, so I want to talk about what I mean! Should I target...
View ArticleWhat is pop-up grammar, and what is it NOT?
Pop-up Grammar is a core strategy used by teachers that have been trained in Acquisition Driven Instruction (ADI) with a focus on making input comprehensible. Whereas grammar has traditionally been a...
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