The lion’s breath or how to refocus

Last year when I was teaching Spanish, I became a fan of brain breaks. According to Dr. Lori Desautels: “They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur.

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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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6th graders2 acquisition65 comments3 comprehensible100 Education20 encourage2 feedback41 fluency107 fluent57 grade 108 grade 74 grade 85 grade 98 IGCSE12 input47 inspire13 languages13 listening52 Martina Bex11 middle school3 motivate151 personalized16 reading252 review26 song29 Spanish33 story46 story asking15 storytelling39 TPRS71

Fun and simple idea to practice “gustar”

The verb “gustar” is not an easy verb to use as it is so different from “normal”verbs. The majority of students know how to use it in the first person singular “me gusta” but they rarely know how to use it when they want to refer to someone else.

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activities5 cards1 clapping1 Education20 engage150 focus36 grade 68 grammar66 gustar1 lesson7 listening52 marker1 matching1 objective21 practice33 reading252 Spanish33 speaking73 warm up36 whiteboard2 writing55

Spanish story script number 4: Lo siento.

Here is another story script which follows the last story about little Pedro losing his notebook. This story has lots of repetitions to focus on “lo siento” and “no sé qué hacer“. I am telling those stories using wooden ice cream sticks which the students love.

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acquire50 acquisition65 acting1 ci145 comprehend52 comprehension250 comprenhensible1 drama28 engage150 engaging10 fluency107 fluent57 fun413 funny256 high frequency217 high interest7 input47 interest10 interesting23 intonation2 key2 listening52 motivate151 motivated143 motivating1 practice33 proficiency12 proficient9 pronunciation11 reading252 repetition42 repetitive22 retell3 retelling4 script201 second language44 skills26 Spanish33 story46 storytelling39 structure10 target9 target language12 target structure20 TPRS71 vocabulary256 words18

Creating a new TV program in Spanish

With my current grade 8, we culminated our unit about television with a creative project: to create a new TV program and present it to possible producers!

Before working on the project, we looked at different kind of TV programs in Spain and in South America which lead to different activities and which also provided with a lot of comprehensible input.

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accuracy4 autentic1 engage150 feedback41 fluency107 game show1 hispanic4 input47 language45 listening52 poster2 presentation140 program1 project11 reading252 ressources40 series71 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 tv5 unit3 Uruguay1 wiki5