Foreign Language Lessons: Shopping Activities that simulate shopping are super valuable for beginning language students. They recycle lots of vocabulary, are interactive and allow for movement and creativity. Here are some of my favorites. Shopping Beginner/A. Simple lists of vocabulary. Put them in teams, give them the list and scavenger hunt with the students collecting… Read More Foreign Language Lessons: Shopping
French Vocabulary: Crossword Puzzles for Beginners Looking for a fun way to learn French vocabulary? Try crossword puzzles. They are engaging, fun and don’t require a tutor. This crossword puzzle is all about the most common type of French verbs (-er). The gird below is an image. You can use the clues and the word… Read More French Vocabulary: Crossword Puzzles for Beginners
Here are a few activities free Spanish (or any language) learning activities to talk about houses. One of my favorite parts of being a language teacher and learner is that anything can become a language lesson. Free Spanish Learning: My Dream House Doodles and sketches are some of my favorite activities to learn… Read More Free Spanish (or ANY language) learning activity
New Spanish Teacher: First-year Teacher Survival New Spanish teacher? Every Spanish teacher, native or not, has walked in your shoes. I did back in the 90s. Here are some tips and resources to make your life easier as a new Spanish teacher. I want to share how to work in the 5Cs and not just… Read More Spanish Teacher: First-year Survival
Learn Italian Online: The 200-hour Challenge Two hundred hours is a perfect amount of time to invest in upping your skills in a language. Building language proficiency in a foreign language requires an investment of time engaged in understanding and using new words and phrases. While we can track and note our progress and improvements… Read More Learn Italian Online: The 200-hour Challenge
I once heard someone say that you can tell the difference between a native speaker and a very advanced language learner by their prepositions, and I think it’s true. I think it’s one of those things that comes last in a language because they’re so often attached to phrasal verbs. For example, in French, we… Read More Prepositions: Teaching in a foreign language
I feel really strongly about errors as a language teacher. It’s so interesting, because I think in this profession, we want to be accurate, effective and correct in our communication. And of course, we want that for our students. The instinct sometimes can be to correct everything that’s wrong. We think if we correct an… Read More A Fun Way to Correct Errors for EFL, ELT, Spanish, French, German & Italian Classes
Fluency in Spanish (or ANY Language) through Games and Movement Spanish fluency (or fluency in any language) is not as difficult to achieve as some might believe. I have achieved fluency in Spanish and French. I am a B-1 level speaker of Italian. I still speak some Japanese and Korean after leaving Asia in 2006.… Read More Fluency in Spanish (or ANY Language) through Games and Movement
After teaching Spanish for many years, I have come to believe that games are a fabulous way to learn new material. Games should not be saved for special days, but rather integrated regularly into language classes. As we know, learners need repeated contact with the target language and culture to ultimately become proficient in the… Read More Spanish Teaching: 10 Instant Games for ANY Language Classes