IN THIS ISSUE: Calendar of Events
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CLTA Calendar of Language Events LA STARS Early Start program, Occidental College MCLASC Mini-conference I E STARS Professional Development Seminars CLTA Conference ACTFL Convention |
Back to SchoolAs you head back to school here are some ideas to keep you innovative and creative: Harry Wong: Who couldn’t use a refresher of Harry Wong’s The First Days of School? Check your first day lesson plans and procedures against the First Ten Days of School. Speaking of Procedures….
First Day Activities:Try these ideas on the first day. Learning Names: Have students make up their own name cards (i.e. a manila folders cut in half vertically, then cut into about six inches, to make a two-sided fold like this /\ so, you can get two name cards from one manila folder.) Have them put their "Spanish" names on them in LARGE print and place them on their desk so the names are facing you in front of the room. Circulate around the room, pick up a student's name card and call on others to spell the name you are holding. Another activity that I've used every year is a chaining activity: Estudiante 1 says: Me llamo Elena. Estudiante 2 says: (Ella) se llama Elena. (Yo) me llamo Paco. Estudiante 3 says: (Él) se llama Paco. (Ella) se llama Elena. (Yo) me llamo Cristina. You can go through the whole class or you can just do a row at a time. (Pam Middlebrooks via FL Teach) People Bingo: Make squares filled with descriptions like has blue eyes, has a big family, lives in a city (Jen Bonn via FLTeach) The Name Game: I teach them how to say, "My name is... What is your name?", and then have each one ask the neighbor and then let each one say the names of all the people who came before. (Jen Bonn via FLTeach) ID Card: Have level 3 or 2 students fill out a "carte d'identité" the first day of class. Again the emphasis is on vocabulary review and not on grammar - so most answers are lists of words or phrases. After filling out their own ID card information they hand the card to a classmate who then introduces them to the class. Surprisingly enough they do a great job of putting their thoughts into complete sentences naturally. I do not have them write any of the introduction down, they just ad lib while looking at the paper. Some of the questions are: name, age, height, weight, date of birth, place of birth, best qualities, faults, favorite activities, least favorite activities, physical characteristics, nationality etc. (Jody A Krupski Via FLTeach) Oven Mitt: Students stand in a circle and you (or a volunteer) go in the middle holding an oven mitt. Students put one hand behind their back and one extended towards the middle of the circle. Each student say their name, going around a couple of times. Then, the person in the middle calls on a name. The student whose name is said has to say someone's else name before you slap his/her hand with the oven mitt. So the goal is, when your name is called to call someone's else name before your hand gets slapped. You play for a few minutes until they know each others names. If your group is too large, split them into two circles. Be careful: the oven mitt can not be thrown at people's face, and students need to vary the name they say. Otherwise you have some students that always call on the same person and don't learn the other names! (Veronique Walters via FLTeach) M&M Game Red candy: favorite hobbies Take it up a notch and have one color for asking a question or different colors for different tenses. This activity is adaptable for all levels! And best of all you get to eat candy! |
IEFLA Board Welcomes Bethany ThompsonIEFLA's new Polyglot Editor is Bethany Thompson of Apple Valley High School. Bethany, a veteran French teacher, is no stranger to IEFLA. She has served on the IEFLA Board and CLTA Board, and participated in a teacher exchange program teaching for a year in Strasbourg, France. IEFLA and all the teachers in the Inland Empire are very grateful to Bethany for taking the position as editor of the Polyglot. Bethany is replacing Katherine Thornburgh who moved to Northern California due to her husband's job transfer. IEFLA says, "Welcome, Bethany! Thank you!" and "Best wishes to Katherine in her new location." Would you be willing to be a contributor to the Polyglot? If so, contact Lewie Johnson at lewiejohnson@gmail.com. IEFLA Board OpeningsIEFLA Board currently has several openings for members-at-large, contributors to the Polyglot, and treasurer/membership chair. IEFLA's board meets only once a month at Cal State San Bernardino. If you would be willing to take part in the board meeting and support world language instruction in the Inland Empire, please contact Lewie Johnson at lewiejohnson@gmail.com.
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Tech Corner
This month: Dropbox Tired of having all of your files on different computers? Can’t find what you want and what you need? Would you like to have all of your files with you all of the time. Dropbox is a cloud based syncing service and is free for the first 2GB. Go to http://www.dropbox.com and watch the video to see how Dropbox can sync all of your files. How to use Dropbox:
Internet Translators YouTube Clip of the Month Web Lesson of the Month |
Languages in the News A Little Pedagogy
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Free Spanish Activities for your Students How to use the Spanish Karaoke: Select a song from the drop down menu. Use the controls on the left to play/pause the song. Click on the progress bar to jump to another part of the song. Download Lyrics sheets and Worksheets. Check out CLTA on Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/groups/152688844743881/ and on Twitter @cltatweets |
Days of the Week Song To the tune of "My Darling Clementine" Hay siete dias, Domingo, lunes, |
The Months To the tune of Yankee Doodle: enero, febrero,marzo, abril |
Spanish Teachers - My new Favorite BookThere is a fairly new book out (2006 copyright) that you should know about (and I recommend buying). It is called "A Frequency Dictionary of Spanish" by Mark Davies. I just got it and can't put it down (sort of). It gives the top 5000 most often used words in Spanish, listed in descending order of importance. It tells the methods they used, but essentially, care was taken to include oral Having studied some frequency usage in my graduate studies, I am going to insist on a review of our curriculum during the summer to be sure that we are including the most important words and that we are reviewing them often. In English, the top 1000 words make up about 95% of all discourse. If you break that down (assuming the numbers are similar in Spanish), we would need to teach 6.9 new words per week if we made it our goal to reach a 1000 word vocabulary in students by the end of 4 years. Or, to be aggressive, we could teach (contextually, of course) and reinforce 14 new words per week and get it done in two years! I took a class from Mark when he still taught at Illinois State University. It was great. He is great. I have known about the book coming out for a couple of years, and it has met and exceeded my expectations! At the very least, the book is a great addition to your dictionary library, as a double-check to see that the textbook you use is actually using the most useful words in a given section. Some snippets... -the most often-used words are el/la The link above should get you there on Amazon.com. Buy the softcover; it cost me $30, whereas the hardcover is $100. ISBN: 0-415-33429-2 Enjoy! (Jeremy VanNieuwenhuyzen - FL Teach) |
Position OpeningsLooking for a credentialed teacher of a lesser-taught language
SPANISH TEACHER - 60% One Year Temporary, Escondido Union High School District, 8/16/2012 4:30 PM Pacific. For information and application go to http://edjoin.org/viewPosting.aspx?postingID=443056&countyID=37&onlineApp=1
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| The Polyglot is a publication of the Inland Empire Foreign Language Association. For questions or comments, contact Bethany Thompson, editor, bethany_thompson@avusd.org. Would you like to help with the Polyglot? Contact Bethany Thompson, editor, a bethany_thompson@avusd.org. |
