Reflection on Comprehensible Input

I haven’t updated my blog for a while now, and as I am taking a break due to my fourth baby coming at the end of September, I wanted to reflect on my last school year. I was teaching Spanish from grade 6 to 12 and I decided to turn to comprehensible input and TPRS since I was never fully satisfied with the traditional way to teach languages.

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Spanish curriculum: scope and sequence

It has been a challenging school year in terms of timetabling and workload but the one thing which I am very pleased with is that I have managed to write all the scope and sequence documents for all grades and levels (yeah!), which means I more or less know which topics and structures I am going to cover with my classes over the years!

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ab initio2 curricula2 curriculum5 Education20 foreign language35 grade 108 grade 111 grade 123 grade 68 grade 74 grade 98 IB9 IGCSE12 language B4 programm2 ressources40 scope1 sequences1 Spanish33 wiki5

Civilization project to use the past tense in Spanish

I have covered the past tense in Spanish with my grade 8 students (13-14 years old) this term and I want them to be able to describe past events confidently and accurately. Over my teaching experience I have found out that doing the traditional grammar exercises such as filling in the gaps with the correct verb forms does not really work with students.

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acquire50 acquired4 acquisition65 civilization1 collaboration work2 collaborative3 communication10 communicative7 comprehend52 comprehensible100 culture246 Education20 fluency107 group work5 history92 imperfect187 incas2 independent4 information7 informative1 innate1 input47 internalize1 invented1 language45 language skills1 listening52 mayas1 oral12 output44 pair work2 past316 poster2 presentation140 proficiency12 project11 simple past24 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 storylistening142 video350

How to use stories written by students?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a big fan of The Comprehensible Classroom because there are so many fun story scripts to be used and Martina Bex (the author) shares so many fabulous ideas and lesson plans! One story script I have used with my middle school students (grade 6 to 8) is Buscando Gafas.

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book95 comprehensible100 comprehension250 creative13 Education20 engage150 grade 68 grade 74 input47 key structure10 middle school3 mini-book2 output44 productive9 proud1 querer1 reading252 retelling4 reusing1 script201 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 story46 storytelling39 telling3 tener1 writing55

Biography project in Spanish.

I am at the planning stage for when I go back to school in August. This time I have decided to plan for more creative projects as they allow for a lot of comprehensible output and they get students engaged and enthused. The immigration project I did with grade 7 last year turned out to be a positive experience so I have decided to follow the same pattern.

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art41 biography40 board4 creative13 cuture1 Education20 famous6 Frida Kahlo2 game21 hispanic4 MovieTalk14 painting33 pinterest6 project11 quiz18 quizlet9 simple past24 speaking73 writing55