~La Señorita Libertad~

Here in the Midwest, we just had a blizzard. Same thing happened about 4 years ago, on the exact dates (that's odd). Naturally, I'm here doing school work on my snow day. :) I've been trying to utilize technology a lot more in my classroom. I thought I'd share some of my ways/ideas here. Google Translate Recently, they came out with their new features (voice & camera). I used it in my classes to demonstrate to my students how it's not 100% accurate, and open up a discussion about cultural implications of using technology. My students LOVED it. We used posters in my room to translate from Spanish--> English, then we did a mini "field-trip" around the school to translate from English--> Spanish. Now, I'm lucky, and we have a back hallway where the gym/lunchroom is, so in our expedition, we weren't disturbing other classes. The kids had a blast! It's a great activity for middle/junior high kids. You can find the activity HERE...

I'm one of those students, myself, that gets very nervous before a quiz/test. I remembered this well when I was studying abroad in Spain, and had my own midterms again after four years of teaching.  So this year, after implementing Edmodo ( www.edmodo.com ), I decided to go "live" with my students the night before their Spanish 1 placement exam (for high school) review.  They could ask me any questions, concerns, or clarify any sort of questions that they had. They could also ask questions and answer them for one another. I simply told them the time frame I'd be live, and logged in. It was a great success!! I had students asking me questions about the format, or they even asked specific questions about questions they had. Obviously, you'd need to be a part of a educational learning network for this particular idea (Edmodo, Schoology, or even Twitter). I have already had my students' accounts set up, so this was just a simple reminder. Also, this fulfills...

It's that time of year again, when we get to meet with parents, and discuss how their child is doing. I'm actually looking forward to having conferences scheduled with our new online scheduling. In the past, the parents were told they could just stop by our rooms if they wanted to talk. We didn't know what to prepare! I wanted to share with you what I use when I meet with parents. I discovered this template and have modified to meet the needs of a world language teacher (I can't remember exactly where I found this, so if you know, or it's you, please let me know!). It's always a good idea to give the parent something to take with them. I usually set up a table in my room, and I put some of my leftover Spanish-styled fabric over the table. It helps it to feel more formal. I also keep a notepad and pens for myself, and the parent. (My Dad was always the type to take notes, and I think that's smart.). I want to make sure I remember if I say I'll do some...

I just saw this post on Pinterest, about the new words that RAE (Real Academia Española = Royal Spanish Academy) has introduced into their dictionary. They're the group of officials who are appointed to oversee the development and usage of the Spanish language. Here's the link to an article: http://www.eltiempo.com/multimedia/fotos/cultyentrete2/las-nuevas-palabras-que-integran-la-edicion-23-del-diccionario-de-la-rae-/14695573 A quick idea that I thought of: Have your native / heritage speakers explore these words and make a PowerPoint/book on interesting words.  Extra credit assignment (I use the RAE info as an extra credit assignment. I'll add it up here soon).  What do you think? How can you use this in your classrooms?

It's hard to believe that we're already a few weeks into this school year. It's been going well. I wanted to touch base & let you know how some of my ideas have been working out so far. TWO WEEK MODEL First of all, I love this idea! I think it's going to keep me on track in the long run. My students are still only in the input "week" (I teach block schedule, and don't see the students every day. Every other day for 63 minutes). We had so many drills last week, that I lost class time in almost all of my classes. That being said, I love what I'm seeing so far! I had a handful of students volunteering for reading items in Spanish, which was awesome! Even if they made mistakes, this format of the input week gives them the time to get used to hearing the vocab. for a long time before they're saying it. I used this reading  to go with their Subject Pronouns grammar section just yesterday, and I'm really impressed with how much they were abl...

I've been working on my room this week, & I thought I'd just share some quick posts about my bulletin boards & some setups.  I found some free Spanosh-speaking countries flags & maps on TPT. I printed, cut them out, & put the maps by the flags. I'm going to add 2 clocks I found @ Five & Below with a Madrid & Another (tbd) time zone.  Close-up above.  I've been doing this bulletin board for a while now. It had a bad glare, but here it is again :  Here is what my back white board looks like. I write my agenda on these as you can see.  Lastly, I'm planning on using the 2 week model I talked about in my last post, & came upon these free ACTFL standards posters I'm putting on my "yo puedo" board.  That's all I have for now. School starts next week, so I hope to have more.  ¡Hasta luego! 

What?! Already?! Yesterday in church, we received the "back to school blessing" for teachers and students. It seems like summer just started, especially because we had a lot of snow days this winter. At any rate, I thought I'd share some ideas that I've been creating for this upcoming school year. What does my grade mean poster? On certain in-class assignments, I assign students a check system. It's something that I started doing, mostly because my cooperating teacher did this when she graded. I don't like to do this for everything, but when I was looking through Pinterest this summer, I saw this: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/282389839110118519/ *please reference the pin above, I'm not sure who created this, so if you know, please let me know!* It made me realize, this is basically what I've been doing. So I've created this . It reminds of a proficiency based scale at the bare minimum. I don't use as many numbers, as I use symbols...