You’re Speaking My Language
Thoughts, Tips, and Practical Ideas for World Language Teachers
Helpful Practices for Parent Communication
When it goes well, a parent call can be a transformative moment in your relationship with the student, and by extension in your classroom.
Tips for Making Phone Calls to Parents
The actual call can be scary, because you never know what you’re gonna get.
How to Make Difficult Parent Phone Calls
Calling your students’ parents can be intimidating… but it’s also a central component in meeting your students’ needs.
Sponge Activities for World Language Classes
No more wasted class time. Sponge Activities soak up those lost minutes of learning so every class is bell-to-bell instruction!
Keeping Your Sanity when your Students Won’t Behave (Part 4)
Working with difficult students requires us to model what we want our students to become: Calm. Confident. Knowledgeable. Caring. Unflappable. Here’s how.
18 Classroom Management Suggestions for a Difficult Class (Part 3)
Firm structure and thoughtful classroom practices can help you meet the needs of challenging students.
What to Do When Kids Won’t Follow the Rules (Part 2)
Deep in their hearts EVERY student has the same question: “What are you going to do about it?” Effective teachers provide a quick, calm, and fair answer.
What to Do When Your Class is Awful (Part 1)
It’s incredibly hard to teach when your students wont behave. It’s demoralizing, and there are no easy answers. Here are 18 suggestions to - not fix it, but to help make it better. (Part 1)
Using Flexible Seating in High School
(or, why I hauled in the sofas and beanbags… and then hauled them right back out again).
Move it! Bring Physical Movement into your World Language Classroom (Part 2)
Having students demonstrate their learning through gross motor activities can help with attention, engagement, and classroom management.
Move it! Bring Physical Movement into your World Language Classroom (Part 1)
Brain science and student preferences align; kids learn more when they are out of their seats!
How to Help When Students Struggle with Comprehension
Help students tolerate ambiguity and embrace the language learning process through intentionally crafted lessons
The First Day of World Language Class
Begin the School Year by answering students’ questions and communicating clear expectations
How to Make Sure Your Students Hate Speaking
3 practices that discourage speaking proficiency - and how to avoid them
How to be Sure Your Students Never Use Spanish Again
3 Practices that discourage language proficiency… and how to avoid them
5 Language Learning Fears
How you can help students overcome Foreign Language Anxiety to improve their speaking proficiency
3 Activities On Attention, Concentration, and Multitasking
Or, why you can’t be on your phone or play computer games during this class!
A Workable Classroom Phone and Computer Use Policy
How I declared war, and made peace with cell phones, social media, and video games in my classroom
Practical Ways to Create a Classroom Community
4 Activities to Facilitate Collaboration While Encouraging Individual Accountability
6 Strategies for Creating a Classroom Community
Ideas to foster a supportive classroom atmosphere, laying the foundation for collaborative learning and world language speaking proficiency