teacher to teacher 2

Introductions

At the beginning of the school year, or at the beginnig of the new course, a good way to get students to learn introductions and to get to know each other is a round-robin exercice. Teach the students how to say "Je m'appelle..." or "Me llamo" or whatever your target language is. When each student knows how to say the phrase, one student is assigned to begin. That student has to shake hands with the students next to him/her and introduce him/herself, and so on so that everyone hears all of the names. Make sure only one student speaks at a time. At the end of the introductions, have a short quiz on names. Whoever can identify each of his/her classmates, gets a prize or points. As the year goes on, and students learn more about family, adjectives, clothes, favorites, etc. this same procedure can be used. Have each student say a few things about him/herslef and then have a quiz on details about that person. Have students write the answers on a piece of paper and the one with the most correct answers gets a prize or points.
from Shannon McKenna

Help in spelling

If you have a student who is having difficulty spelling or with accents, have him or her print the new words on graph paper. Instead of regular graph paper from the store, make your own using a table in Word. Just make empty columns and rows large enough to print in but only one letter at a time. This will help the student focus on just one letter and will give him or her a visual of how the word is spelled. When it comes time for a quiz, the student should be able to recall what the grid looked like - how many letters, the order, whic ones had accents, etc. This should only be required at the beginning of the year so that the student understands how important each letter is and not to get confused with the new words.
from Shannon McKenna

Website help for students

From Janice Jackson at St. Johns Country Day School (Clay Co.) comes a list of great sites to help Spanish students. The BBC has a wonderful site that contains news, culture, sports, and more in many languages (not just for the hispanohablantes!). Hola is a site that she uses for her students in class and for enrichment. The humor in some of the Univision shows is not wasted on her more advanced students. And for the more competitive ones, check out the National Spanish Exam site for practice before the big day! (Janice is a former Spanish National Exam State Director for both Florida and Michigan.)

Check out Myra Johnson's scavenger hunt lesson plan. Great method to teach directions, involving not only your students but the entire school. You plan the route and your students have to follow your directions to various places in the school. Other faculty are eager to help out! Myra received some very positive feedback from her colleagues. You will, too. Let us know how you did.