Resources for English learners: shopping and the issue of being a shopaholic.

Last week, I was writing about my new "job" which is to teach online private lessons to Spanish students who want to improve their English. (via Google hangout or Skype). For now, it is going very well and I am receiving positive feedback from my students which is always good!

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Resources for English learners: superstitions.

Although I am taking a break from my school and "formal" teaching, I have not really quit and I have now started to teach online (via Google hangout or Skype) private lessons to Spanish students who want to improve their English. It is actually very different from teaching a whole class and my students have a good level of English but they are not confident enough.

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activity13 comprehensible41 comprehension31 conversation12 culture22 Education8 engage14 fluency15 fluent12 learning14 personal8 practice17 questions19 reading36 teacherspayteachers11

How to encourage students to produce comprehensible output on sports

 

 

 

 

 

 

My grade 7 students (12-13 years old) did comprehensible presentations about some popular sports in Hispanic countries. First, I wanted to model a presentation because whenever my students produce Spanish output,

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baseball1 comprehensible41 countries2 Dominican Republic1 Education8 encourage2 example1 group work5 hispanic4 hobbies4 information5 input39 look for2 model2 motivate7 oral11 output10 pair1 popular1 presentation10 project10 quiz4 sample1 search1 Spanish27 speaking37 sports1 teacherspayteachers11

How to use a mini story in a Spanish beginner class

I have become a fan of TPRS because I do believe it is the most efficient way so far to help students develop both fluency and accuracy in Spanish. However, I am new to the techniques and although I read the Big Green Book: Fluency through TPR Storytelling,

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The Spanish alphabet

This is a simple activity to do with Spanish beginners when you are teaching the alphabet: students create their own alphabet page by looking for words which start with each letter of the Spanish alphabet. This is the first year in my teaching career that I do this activity and I have found out that my grade 6 students (11-12 years old) had a lot of fun doing this.

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activity13 alphabet1 beginner10 browse1 browsing1 culture22 dictionary3 enjoy2 find2 finding1 foreign language5 fun13 grade 68 letter1 letters1 looking for1 reading36 research1 simple7 skills24 Spanish27 writing17

Spanish story script: se vende

This story comes from the wonderful Martina Bex who posts so many brilliant ideas and resources on her blog. I started a new unit with my grade 6 class which is about going shopping and this story fitted perfectly!

Speaking/vocabulary: I first started by introducing the different shops to my students using this slideshow: SHOPS.

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acquire28 acquisition33 comprehensible41 comprehension31 creative12 expression1 flashcards4 key structure10 Martina Bex10 pattern1 quizlet5 repetition11 se vende1 sell2 selling1 shop1 shopping1 skills24 Spanish27 speaking37 story34 storytelling28 target8 TPRS34 writing17

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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