If you are thinking to yourself, “Another post about FVR?!”, then I would suggest this book
by the legend himself, Stephen Krashen, The Power of Reading. That book has focused my attention to reading as a way for students to acquire language. FVR has become a big focus for me this year, and led me to apply for a local grant for new novels as well as audiobooks.
We’ve taken what has been working well with our FVR and are about to add audiobooks to the mix.
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I recently came across a post on Grant Boulanger’s blog written by Mónica Romero where she shows how she has students share what books they are reading during FVR (Free Voluntary Reading). Go ahead and read that post… go on, I’ll wait. What I love about blogging is the sharing that bloggers do. There are so many good ideas out there, and sometimes you see something and it can spark an idea. That’s what happened with this. I 
wanted to do something similar with my level 1 students. We are currently reading about 8 minutes every Monday. Every Monday for “Lectura Libre”, I ask my students “¿Qué día es hoy?” (Lunes) “¿Y qué hacemos los lunes” (Leemos) “¿Qué?” (Leemos) “¡¿QUÉ?!” (LEEMOS)
After our first trimester, Continue reading
Thanks to everyone who recently entered our Spanish Graphic Novel raffle. The winners have been chosen. Check below to see if you are a winner. We will also tell you how you can add more graphic novels to your classroom library.
This Thanksgiving we are thankful for such a supporting PLN and the amount that we have professionally grown thanks to all the ideas that you all share through blogs, conferences, and twitter. With the new release of Wooly’s La Dentista novel, we thought it would be a great way to say thanks to our readers to host a FVR Graphic Novel giveaway. Get the full details Continue reading
If you are a teacher who teaches with comprehensible input (TCI) and accepts the research of language acquisition, I find it helpful to explain the reasons for doing what we do in class to students. This helps them understand the process and to realize how we acquire languages. Many students come in to a language class with the expectations of memorizing vocabulary lists and studying grammar. By explaining how acquisition works, we get more buy in from students. Below are a list of language acquisition quotes that you can post a a “Acquisition Quote of the Week” and share with students. Continue reading
If you’ve been following our posts this year, you know we have been focusing a lot lately on FVR (free voluntary reading) as a tool for acquisition in the language learning classroom. Today we are going to show you how to create your own mini-readers using your own class stories.
Here is a picture of our classroom library at this point in level 1.The best way to organize it is to purchase a wire six-tier rack from Amazon. I then have a student job in each class as el bibliotecario (the librarian) to help keep it organized.
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Some Halloween tales for this week:
Authenic Reading of Haunted Hollywood Stars 
This product features an authentic text from a Colombian Magazine regarding 6 stories of famous celebrities and their encounters with ghosts. Makes a great engaging lectura for students. Can be adapted to any levels of Spanish. The celebrities include Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, and Bella Thorne.
Includes:
6 texts about each celebrity. Editable Continue reading
It’s been about a busy month since CI Midwest took place but we finally have some time to post a few more of our thoughts and takeaways.
Notes from Justin Slocum Bailey’s (@indwellinglang) session:
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This past weekend, I spent my Saturday with nearly 200 like-minded teachers at an amazing conference in Ripon, Wisconsin during the second annual Comprehensible Midwest Conference. It was such an amazing experience and I congratulate the small group that worked so hard to put it all together.
I’ve collected the best tweets of #CIMW17: Continue reading
SpanishPlans.org 