How To Differentiate 101 for Spanish Teachers

No matter where you teach, it’s incredibly important to differentiate materials so that all of your students can succeed. I’ve taught in schools with bigger special education populations students, I’ve also taught in schools with honors or gifted and talented programs. Regardless of the setting, differentiating your materials helps every student grow.

Why should you differentiate in Spanish class?

High-performing students:

Finish early
Sometimes rush or work more quickly than others
Can be disruptive if they’re bored

Low-performing students:

Can become frustrated if they don’t understand the task
Give up or take much longer than other students
Can be disruptive if they’re bored

Did you notice what these lists have in common? Students will be disruptive if they’re bored! As we both know, no one wants disruptive students in class.

What does it mean to differentiate?

Differentiation means providing access to students at the level that they can succeed with our materials. It does not mean “dumbing down” materials, but rather tailoring them to students’ needs so that every student can be successful.

Here’s the thing about differentiation: it keeps every student engaged at an appropriate level that allows them to learn and achieve.

How do I use differentiation in Spanish class?

We can differentiate a lot of things but I’ll focus on four concepts here: content, process, products, and learning environment.

How to differentiate content in Spanish class:

When I say content, I’m referring to what you teach and how you present it to students in class. Here are some ideas:

Use reading materials at a variety of levels – NewsELA is great for this!
Put text materials on tape or audio
Tailor your vocabulary list to students’ access level – scale the list down into a group of key words instead of giving a long vocab list (or add “stretch” phrases for students who are ready to try something new)
Present ideas with both auditory and visual cues
Small groups for reteach and extended thinking (read more about reteach in this blog post)

Differentiate processing in Spanish class:

Scaffold activities from the lowest complexity to the highest level
Encourage students to explore class topics that interest them

Create task lists that address students’ learning needs
Fewer, specific tasks for lower-performing students
More tasks or a choice of complex tasks for higher-performing students
Offer manipulatives or other hands-on supports for students who need them

Vary the length of time a student may take to complete a task
Provide support for struggling learners
Encourage an advanced learned to pursue a topic in greater depth

How to differentiate products in class:

Products refers to the materials that you’re using in class to provide activities for students. In Spanish class, this can be reading, writing, listening, or speaking activities as well as grammar or vocab practice tasks.

Provide choice
Use differentiated rubrics to provide opportunities for everyone to succeed (grab my free proficiency rubric here!)
Allows students to work alone, in pairs, or small groups – again, provide choice

How to differentiate the learning environment:

Provide quiet spaces to work
Provide space for collaboration
Set clear guidelines for independent and peer work
Develop routines that allow students to ask for and receive support

En Fin: You’ve got this.

Ok, profe, you’re ready. We might have overloaded your brain with ideas, so go grab this free differentiation checklist to pop on your clipboard, and stay tuned for more posts about differentiation!