Get Your World Language Students Reading with a Free Voluntary Reading Practice!
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!
Using Storytelling to Skyrocket Student Proficiency
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!
7 Simple Tips for Staying Comprehensible in the World Language Classroom
We all know that we need to use comprehensible input in our French, Spanish, Italian, and other World Language classes… but in my experience, how to implement effective comprehensible input strategies is rarely discussed. In this blog post, I am sharing SEVEN tips for how you can stay comprehensible so that you ensure your students are understanding the messages you are delivering to them.
Unlocking Language Proficiency: The Role of Comprehensible Input in the World Language Classroom
Comprehensible Input is a term that all World Language Teachers should be familiar with. In my own teaching practice, I would consider comprehensible input to be a part of my “core beliefs” that guide my philosophy of World Language teaching and that inform the decisions I make regarding planning, instruction, and assessment. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about what comprehensible input is and how to begin using it effectively in your World Language classroom so that you can begin unlocking your students’ innate ability to acquire language and gain proficiency.
How to Keep your Language Skills Sharp as a World Language Teacher
As language teachers, language atrophy is a real concern. The old adage of, “If you don’t use it, you lose it!” is particularly true with languages, especially for World Language teachers who teach beginner and intermediate courses. And given that we are expected to be fluent experts in the language we teach, there’s a certain level of unspoken pressure placed upon us to maintain (and even advance) our current language capacities. In this blog post, I’m going to share some ways you can keep your French, Spanish, Italian, or German skills sharp to stave off language atrophy and maintain fluency.
How much Target Language should I use?
Maybe you’ve heard teachers, supervisors, and other World Language experts say that you should be speaking in the target language at least 75%, 80%, or 90% of the time. Is this true, or is it a myth? How much target language should you be using in your French, Spanish, Italian, or German class?