My number one tip for teaching a WL during the holidays to save your sanity and go with the energy of your students.

What’s a FLIPPED Running Dictation?

Essentially, instead of putting clues or images around the room “scavenger-hunt style” for kids to dictate and translate, I put QUESTIONS about they text! They then had to search inside the text for the answers. Read more to see how I do it!

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What sounds better for Day of the Dead than a scavenger hunt, sugar skull reading project, and a bingo game - all in comprehensible language even level 1 students can find successful!

My middle schoolers love games and I do to! They are fun and they give me a break and allow me to play with them. But games aren’t just all fun and they don’t have to be for just review, they can be used to further your instruction. Here are seven ways you can use online games in your Language Classroom to add variety and engagement.

These spooky French culture lesson about the Catacombes and famous Francophones are perfect for October!

A magical activity to practice reading comprehension strategies in the target language

Tips for how to choose what decorations to use in your classroom to make setting up your classroom go faster and more smoothly.

Somehow it’s October! I feel like the routines are just starting to feel tighter and things are picking up momentum. The first summative assessment of the year is coming up soon. But after that, what? Halloween, that’s what! Candy, costumes and chaos. Do I lose their attention and watch the routine crack and fall away, or lose my mind trying to hang on to those things? Nope - neither! Why, you ask?Because I use the #1 Best Movie Talk for October to keep them engaged and acquiring.

Have you ever shown up to school and realized you did have your lesson totally prepared? Your slides weren’t done, your copies weren’t made, you forgot the supplies at home? Teachers have busy lives with school, committees, clubs and sports, second jobs, family, and sometimes it happens. So I am here to provide you with an easy no prep activity that you can use over and over again: Card talk!

Since I started teaching Spanish, the focus each October was the Día de los Muertos celebrations and traditions from Mexico, but often the beautiful variations in traditions from other countries take a back seat. I wanted to draw light and attention to other cultural events, and chose to begin with Guatemala’s Barriletes Gigantes. I found an incredible authentic resource to help me teach my 8th graders to create their own Barriletes Gigantes, which we then hung up in the classroom.

Getting students talking in the language on the first day in a low pressure environment.

My favorite simple activity to review material from the previous year.

It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep. My throat burns, my head throbs and in 4 hours I’ll be trying to corral 25 eighth-graders with a box of Kleenex in one hand and a bottle of Advil in the other. Panic overwhelms me as I realize I have no sub plans ready! Do I call out? What if I’m still sick tomorrow?

Four tips to setting up your classroom to help you and your students be organized and productive.

What happens when your students come back in the fall and say they don’t remember anything from last year? How do we handle that? Here’s a little encouragement to help you through those comments during back-to-school review days.

My plans for the first few weeks of school. How I am starting the year off strong to set the standard for the rest of the year