Do you know deep down that you need to assess your students' interpersonal and presentational speaking proficiency, but you're at a loss for how to get started? Do you already assess speaking but dread it because of how time consuming and laborious it can be? Then this post is for you! In this blog post, I talk about the importance of speaking assessments, how to assess your students accurately and fairly, and how to save time and energy in the feedback process.

Do you struggle with classroom management? Or are you looking for ways to tweak your current classroom management practices so that your classes run a bit more smoothly? In this blog post, I’m going to share some common classroom management issues that are unique to us as World Language educators, along with some tips and strategies for how to navigate them.

Are you interested in pursuing a career in education as a World Language teacher?  Do you already speak French, Spanish, or Italian, and have you always felt like your knowledge and passion for language and culture could translate (pun intended!) to a really exciting and rewarding career in the field of education? Click to read more!

Whether you are a classroom teacher with your own classroom, or whether you are a traveling teacher who teaches in multiple rooms, this technology hack will save you a TON of time and keep you super organized. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I am a huge proponent of creating systems that keep me organized, efficient, and that save me time and mental bandwidth. In this blog post, I’m going to share this easy technology tip and walk you through the simple steps that you can take TODAY to incorporate this system into your daily teaching practice.

Do you struggle with time management? Do you feel like your prep periods pass by in the blink of an eye, and you're left feeling stressed and overwhelmed because you still have SO MUCH work on your plate? In this blog post, I’m going to share the BEST tip that I have for minimizing prep time. This tip will save you a TON of time in your lesson planning, which will free up time for you to complete other tasks (e.g. grading papers, inputting grades, attending meetings, completing paperwork, etc.) and hopefully reduce (or eliminate) your need for taking work home with you on evenings and weekends.

Are you ready to unlock your students’ innate capacity for acquiring language? If you’re looking for an instructional practice that will move the needle forward in your students’ comprehension of the target language, you’re going to love this post! In it, I talk about Free Voluntary Reading, a practice in which students select a book from your classroom library and read silently and independently for 5-10 minutes. In this post, I’ll walk you through the research showing the benefits of FVR and give concrete tips, tricks, and strategies for how you can get started implementing FVR in your World Language class today!

Are you just beginning your journey using comprehensible input in your French, Spanish, or Italian World Language classes? I remember when I “got bit” by the CI bug over 5 years ago: I quickly became obsessed! I couldn’t stop reading blogs, watching videos, and reaching out to seasoned CI teachers to pick their brains about the best ways to implement CI strategies in my World Language classroom. In this post, I’m going to share the benefits of using storytelling to increase student comprehension and engagement, walk you through what a typical CI/TPRS lesson looks like, and share some resources that will help you begin (or continue!) your journey as a target language storyteller!

Looking for some fresh resources and ideas to help your students practice verb conjugations? In this post, I’m going to talk about the importance of direct grammar instruction in the World Language classroom, share my methodology for teaching verbs, give ideas for how you can help your students practice and master conjugations, and share links to already-prepared practice worksheets that will save you tons of time and energy!

Are you in search of some ideas for how to plan your French, Spanish, or Italian Clothing Unit? In this post, I walk you through how to plan for this unit. I include all of the instructional, practice, and assessment materials that you’ll need, and I give tips and strategies for how to pace your unit, what activities to implement and how, and ideas for assessing student learning.

Getting our students to speak in the target language more regularly is a challenge, especially at the lower levels. Speaking is the proficiency domain that is the last and usually slowest to develop, and so it’s no wonder that students find it challenging and seek to avoid it at all costs. In this post, you will learn three speaking activities to help motivate and engage your students in the intepersonal speaking domain.