Closet Space MovieTalk

Are you losing steam? Feeling the post Spring-break slump? Trying to make it to the end of the year with the same passion and enthusiasm that you had at the beginning of the year?

Try this awesome MovieTalk. All six of my classes were gripped by it. I adapted it for level 1 and for level 2 and it worked beautifully for both levels (which I am kind of sad about because now I can’t use it next year.)

French, German, Latin, Mandarin, Arabic, and all other language teachers: I tried to use as much English as possible in these lessons so you can adapt them to the language you teach!

Martina Bex/SOMOS teachers, this can be a lead-in for Chapter 9 El Cucuy, or it can be adapted for Chapter 3, Cierra la Puerta.

In this Google folder you will find:

1. Step-by-step lesson plans for 4 days
2. A powerpoint with slides of screenshots
3. A prepped slideshow of a reading activity called Read, Cover, Tell
4. Two levels of readings
5. A song and lyrics

Teaching Apron!

I am obsessed with my teaching apron. It has made my life so much easier.

I bought mine on Etsy at Hall Pass Creations.

¿Qué hay en mi delantal?

Ou, qu-est’ce que il y a dans mon sac? (…I just made that up! I don’t really know French I’m just a novice-mid..)

Woo!

Breeding Kindness

I walked into a pole the other day as I was mid-conversation with two 8th grade boys. They laughed, I laughed, and one of the boys smiled and waved it off, telling me “Todavía eres chévere.” (You’re still cool.)

Students were passing papers down the row. One student cheerfully said “Gracias” and the other responded “De nada, mi amigo.” These boys are not friends, they are just classmates being cordial with one another.

How do we breed kindness?

• Greeting students at the door
• Speaking each others’ names often
• Making eye contact
• Being genuinely interested in each other
• Asking follow-up questions
• High-fiving your neighbor
• Shaking hands with the people next to you
• Getting to know each other through PQA or mini output breaks
• Thanking each other often
• Laughing with each other often
• I appreciated having you in my group because… This was an idea taken from my high school Spanish teacher. Whenever we changed seating charts, we wrote a kind note to every person in our group. Here is a form I use for it. I appreciated having you in my groupdocx        I appreciated having you in my grouppdf

Keep doing what you are doing. Create those connections. Model kindness. It may just be the most important part of our job.

Talky Tina Midterm Proficiency Exam

If you love the Twilight Zone and free materials for your classroom, you’ve come to the right place.

I have created a proficiency exam based on the Twilight Zone episode The Living Doll (aka the Talky Tina episode.) It is a Spanish Level 1 exam. It is compatible with SOMOS units 1-9.It includes:

• a creepy cloze reading
• a video of the shortened version of the episode
• a writing rubric
• a listening assessment in which students listen to the statements and select the photo I am describing
• a visual aide for retelling the story

This exam is one of my proudest creations, because it combines my love of creepy stories, The Twilight Zone, and CI. I also think it is a darn-good assessment of students’ proficiency level with all four language skills.

Here is the link to the Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-p_noG09SAwWkxqV3hxU0VtNG8

SWCOLT Active Engagement!

This weekend I am presenting Active Engagement Strategies at SWCOLT. Oh, and I invented my own language for it.

Here are my resources and slides!

swcolt engagement

active engagement strategies cheat sheet

Super Bowl Story: AKA Dumb Guy goes to a Party

SUPER BOWL STORY

Target Structures (brings, comes back, cooks, buys)

A guy is invited to a party. His host asks him to bring (Doritos). He cooks some (fried eggs) and brings them. His host tells him “It’s Saturday. Come back tomorrow- with Doritos.” He goes home and cooks up some (cabbage). He goes back to his friend’s house with the cabbage. His friend is so sad. He starts to cry. He says “Please please please go to Safeway and come back with Doritos.” He comes back with the Doritos. His host opens the door and is very tired. The host says “It’s Monday.”

Here is a reading in past tense for this story:la-fiesta-de-superbowl-3b

Adventure Time MovieTalk

This week in Spanish 1, I MovieTalked an episode of Adventure Time called Thank You. It is about an unlikely friendship between a Snow Golem and a Firefox. There is almost no dialogue but the cuteness of the main character makes it compelling.

Resources for this lesson include:
– 3 ActivInspire flipcharts
– PowerPoint of Screen Shots and annotations for easy MovieTalking
– Abridged slides with annotations for a reading
– Kahoot quiz for the day after to see which structures need more repetition
– Fan N Pick cards for cooperative practice (visit https://martinabex.com/2013/04/06/fan-n-pick-forms/ for how to use them)
– True/False and fill-in-the-blank Quiz

Resources are in this Google Drive folder!

Note: This MovieTalk is 10 minutes long. I recommend choosing a short segment of it, to keep it novel and avoid fatigue.

Here are my students working on the Fan N Pick!