Distance Learning Memes

Posted on August 5, 2020 by SpanishPlans

It wouldn’t be a back to the school year without us posting our favorite memes. We started making memes years ago and even launched our own website for teacher memes (since discontinued).

This summer we’ve been working on Distance Learning Memes, dealing with our new reality of teaching via Google Classroom, Screencastify, and Zoom sessions. While we insist on compassion and understanding for our students during these times, these memes will hopefully provide a laugh. It may be a good way to set expectations with your students or to start building relationships with them through humor.

The following is a sampling of our favorites, all of which are included in our latest product Remote Learning Memes, which is an editable document so you can fully customize the text of over 120 memes. The images in the product come without any branding or watermarks. If you like what you see here, please share by pinning on Pinterest, sharing on Twitter, or tagging us on Instagram. Continue reading →

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Starting the Year Remotely

Posted on July 31, 2020 by SpanishPlans

It’s something we never expected. Something we are not trained for. And yet millions of teachers will start the year remotely this fall, embarking on a journey unlike any other. Meeting your students for the first time on Zoom and trying to build a relationship through Google Classroom will certainly be a challenge.

I certainly don’t have all the answers yet and I, too, will be leaning on my colleagues’ advice and posts on social media. Here are a few resources that I’ve gathered that might help you this year.

1) (FREE) My First MovieTalk: We released this free product last year as a way to introduce teachers to the MovieTalk method. This product includes 7 screenshots in a PowerPoint to tell a simple story (as opposed to our more language-robust booklet of the same video). You can use this during a Live Session or even record a video and post it to your learning management system (Google Classroom/Canvas/etc.).

2) FVR Digital Library: Even if you are back in the classroom, most schools have Spanish FVR Digital Library Bundle available on TeachersPayTeachersa recommendation against sharing materials between students. That makes using your classroom FVR library problematic. One thing that you can do to continue to get your students reading is to purchase materials that can be legally shared digitally. This FVR Bundle includes 17 texts that you can legally post on Google Classroom for students to read.

3) MovieTalk: Whether you embed the actual video into Edpuzzle and use comprehension checks along the way (Kara Jacobs is amazing at this) or you use screenshots from the video and add texts, videos are always an easy way to make language comprehensible because of the visuals that aid comprehension. Check out these MovieTalks.

4) Social Justice: I’ve made a commitment to increase diversity in my curriculum. In addition to my Dolores Huerta Unit, and the Mujeres Poderosas free bulletin board, I will be adding lessons about more of those featured women, as well as other important people who have made an impact in our history who have typically been silenced. I hope to have more to share with you this year.

Also, don’t miss out on these limited deals on our new CLEARANCE section. We currently have stamps and more that have been slashed by nearly 50%. Check it out on SpanishTeacherShop.com

5) Google Classroom:
Check out our new Bundle including headers for Google Classroom and Backgrounds for Google Slides.

Check out our other new products for this fall:

 

 

 

Good luck this year, my friends!

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White privilege of Names

Posted on June 19, 2020 by SpanishPlans

As you may know, I have devoted several blog posts over the years to the issue of assigning or letting students choose “Spanish names” in the Spanish classroom. Now with many more teachers being more aware of what white privilege is and how our education system is already part of a white supremacist system, I wanted to bring this topic back up so that teachers who may continue to engage in this practice are able to reflect.

How does this practice fit into white privilege? White students who take on the name “Nacho” or “Margarita” only wear that identity for fun in their Spanish class. It does not come with the discrimination that Latinos who live with that name face on a regular basis in this country. Don’t think people are discriminated against because of their names?

“Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.” – NBER

I encourage you to read the following blog posts, but more importantly, the comments section, where you will hear the perspectives of other teachers. I encourage you to engage in a civil discussion on these posts and be reflective.

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Why students use google translate and what teachers can do

Posted on May 14, 2020 by SpanishPlans

What to do when students use google translateDuring the quarantine, I’ve seen a lot of teachers complaining about students submitting work in which they’ve used Google Translate. The problem is not new for language teachers, but without being able to have all writing done in the classroom during distance learning, the problem is now more relevant than ever. So,  why do students use translators and what can we do about it?

Why students use translators?

Continue reading →

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Google Classroom Tips

Posted on April 4, 2020 by SpanishPlans

Some teacher tips for using Google Classroom during “Remote learning” Continue reading →

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Rally Re-order

Posted on March 9, 2020 by SpanishPlans

The following is a guest post that I invited Rich Madel to write after he mentioned this activity on twitter.

All world language teachers focused on providing rich, compelling, and comprehensible input to their students know the struggle: How can we mask the repetition of the same information, vocabulary, and structures in such a way that it seems novel and interesting and our students feel authentically compelled to engage with making meaning of the input?

We all know the value of repetition of vocabulary and structures embedded in strategies such as PQA (personalized questions and answers), TPRS, Movie Talk, and more. Today, leveled readers are written with this very focus in mind, often telling a compelling story by recycling little more than the same 150 words (in the case of some novice-level readers).

Telling the story is only one opportunity for input, however. What we do before the story and what we do after are critical opportunities to provide quality interactions with target language vocabulary and structures. One such strategy often used as a post-storytelling activity is for students to place scrambled events in their appropriate chronological order.

Working to order scrambled events from a story is a time-tested task that serves a dual purpose: it reinforces key moments from the plot that aides in comprehension and creates an opportunity for the teacher to repeat and reuse communicatively-embedded input. But let’s be honest, it’s not always the most exciting.

To that end, I present an event reorder challenge that takes the activity we all know and love and injects it with steroids. The end result is a whole class challenge that is exciting, promotes collaboration and communication, and vastly increases the repetition of the key events. Let’s call it, Rally Reorder! Below are the steps to prepare and conduct the activity. Continue reading →

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CI during MMM

Posted on February 22, 2020 by SpanishPlans

What I love about March Music Madness is that students get a peek into what music is popular in other parts of the world. It’s a way to connect our students to the language. Who doesn’t love music? When you have students start singing a song in class or telling you how they listen to the songs at home, you know it’s doing its magic.

As Dustin Williamson says: “Quite honestly, MMM is more about having fun, listening to music, being exposed to different genres and making March better in my classroom.”

I look for music that is A) Current (from the previous year only), B) Popular and not obscure and C) appropriate. This year our bracket has 25 artists, 7 women, 9 countries and over 2.3 billion hits on YouTube. It also includes different genres including Bachata, Pop, Urbana, y Regional Mexicano.

Providing Comprehensible Input during March Music MadnessStudents don’t need to understand the lyrics of the whole song to enjoy it. How many of us listen to English music and get the lyrics wrong or don’t understand everything? The music is the hook so don’t worry if the song is not 100% comprehensible. However, you can go over certain high-frequency parts of the song to introduce new words or point out a word they know in a new context but most of the language that we use in class is to describe the song, opinions of it, talk about how many votes it has and which song they think will win.

The language we use to TALK ABOUT the songs and talk about the voting process is just as important as listening to the songs themselves.

Continue reading →

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Don’t Miss Your Chance

Posted on February 3, 2020 by SpanishPlans

With March Music Madness less than 1 month away, we’d like to remind teachers of a few things.

  • The bracket is available to print. You can also start playing the songs from the playlist as students enter the class or if they are working during class time. Don’t mention that the songs are part of next month’s tournament. Just let them beat slowly creep into their heads. If they are like me, it takes a few listens to a song before I start to like it.
  • Join our collaborative group on Facebook. We are currently at 400 teachers ready to share tips, resources, and more. If you are part of the group already, please invite your colleagues to the group.
  • Our lesson plan is on sale. And there is no better time than TpT’s site-wide sale to save (Tuesday and Wednesday) to take advantage. While there is no purchase necessary to participate in the tournament, we’ve spent dozens of hours getting things ready and this product offers some really cool strategies that you can use with any song (and we’ve got 8 ready to use ones too!)
  • If you are wondering what this is all about, check out our Frequently Asked Questions page to learn more about our Mania Musical de Marzo.

Start Filling out those Brackets

We will again be sponsoring and hosting a contest for teachers with some great prizes. All you need to do is to submit your bracket predictions on this form. Prizes will be awarded for the most points and most correct predictions. Only teachers are eligible to participate in this form, [we have a form that you can use with students in our TpT Product] Continue reading →

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March Music 2020

Posted on January 9, 2020 by SpanishPlans

There are some teachers who like to plan months in advance. I am not one of those teachers, but I do know what I will be doing come March. My classes will be engaged in our 7th annual music competition. Our competition takes 16 songs that have been released since last year (current music!) and students vote on their favorite song to advance to the next round.

We have set up our March Music Madness 2020 headquarters (the same place where voting will take place) at www.SpanishPlans.org/mmm20

In the meantime, we have set up the “SpanishPlans March Music Madness” Facebook Group for teachers to collaborate, ask questions, and get the sneak peek of this year’s songs!
We’ve already released 5 songs from this year’s bracket (barring any changes), so join the group now and invite your colleagues to the group! We have many special perks planned for this group that you won’t want to miss out on!

If you don’t join, we will eventually post the bracket and all other necessary information here on the blog so you can listen along come March.

 

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Frase Secreta: Spanish Passwords

Posted on January 2, 2020 by SpanishPlans

With a new year upon us, now is the perfect time to start a new routine in your classroom. I know most teachers are familiar with the work of Harry Wong, but how many of us apply those practices every day despite their incredible benefits? Let’s take a look at the reasons for implementing a “greeting” system into your class:

  1. We acknowledge and honor a student’s presence.
  2. We model proper social behavior in welcoming someone’s arrival.
  3. It establishes a positive classroom climate in which students feel a sense of connection and belonging.
  4. It establishes a positive relationship between teacher and student.
  5. Research* has shown it increases student engagement in class.
  6. Research* has shown it decreases disruptive behavior.


and if these reasons aren’t enough for you, let’s look at the benefits in a world language classroom who can go a step further and implement a “password” or “secret phrase” where students must respond with a special phrase of the week. The curriculum benefits are:

Continue reading →

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