Ideas and Resources for Spanish Teachers
Wondering how to teach the present subjunctive to your Spanish students? A lot of people feel that the subjunctive mood is a big, scary monster, but I don’t think it’s so bad! Everyone’s curriculum is a bit different, but here is ONE way to present and use the present subjunctive with your students!
Spring is almost here in Spanish class! I love taking advantage of the season to do some creative and different activities with my students. Here are four spring lesson ideas for Spanish class!
When your administrator is coming in, everyone wonders what to teach for an observation! I hear this question at school and see it posted all over Facebook too. I hope that these ideas will help Spanish teachers plan a lesson that will wow their administrator during the observation!
How do you celebrate your Spanish Class Seniors at your high school? Don’t you agree that teaching seniors is so bittersweet? They bring with them a depth of knowledge, a sense of humor and usually some maturity. But when the end of the year starts to approach, I get that bittersweet feeling! There’s such pride for their accomplishments! And there’s sadness to know that they are moving on and we won’t see their smiles in our classes or hallways next year!
Wondering how to create an Edpuzzle for Spanish class? It’s easier than you think! Edpuzzle is a website that allows you to upload videos (from the internet or ones that you create) and then add questions. The questions are inserted into specific spots in the video, so it pauses while the student answers the question! You can create multiple choice questions or you can create open-ended questions.
Centers for Spanish class are a great way to keep all students engaged at the same time and even to differentiate activities for the varying learning needs and skill levels we have in our classes. Centers are also called stations, and if you’ve never heard of them, here’s a brief overview!
Teacher friends- get ready for a bold opinion. If we want to have a happier teacher life, we need to say NO (politely) a lot more often. For most of my 23 year career, I was under the impression that teachers are martyrs and that we had to work almost all the time. A lot of things starting piling up. The pandemic, my own children getting older (and that saying- bigger kids, bigger problems), and the ever-growing list of things added to our day. Over the years, the exhilaration and joy of coming to work was being lost!
Though there are many Spanish teachers that no longer teach grammar discretely, there are many who do, or do some kind of mixture. If your students need to practice grammar, here is a fun list of grammar games for Spanish class! Students love games and often don’t realize that they’re even learning! Give them a try!
How do you start your Spanish classes? This year we have a new school-wide initiative to do bell-ringers, or do-nows, or schema activators or warm-ups… there are so many names for them! Research shows that if you have an academic routine to start each class, it increases time on task and readiness for new learning! If having students self-start each class, while you take attendance, check homework and help the new kid sound good to you, bell-ringer activities for Spanish class are for you!
Coming back from Winter Break can be tough, and for some, even depressing! But now is a great time to reengage students by giving them something interesting to learn about! How about the New Year’s Traditions of the Spanish-speaking World? Not only is it interesting, but it makes for a great cultural comparison!
