Category: Inspiration from others

  • Boom Cards

    For the first time this year I am using Boom Cards, as they allow students to hear the language, respond to show understanding and get immediate feedback while working at their own speed. The app Boom Cards is a product of Boom Learning and is an online digital resource. I would like to suggest you…

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  • Quick Start to using the Massachusetts World Language Framework

    This year, in 2021, our state finally updated the World Language standards. You may be thinking about how you can align your teaching to these standards. If you were already following ACTFL’s World-Readiness Standards, you will find this document very familiar. But for some of us, the framework will mean changes in the way we…

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  • Worth Paying For

    Curriculum is worth the price. I believe our departments should purchase materials for us to use in our teaching. Let’s let the experts with degrees in curriculum writing decide on themes, essential questions and can do statements and make the activities and assessments to support them. Then teachers can add in playful games and up-dated…

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  • Dear Subscribers,

    Thank you for following this blog over the years. I have decided to add to my online presence as World Language Toolbox, wanting to offer support to teachers of all languages, not only French. To that end, I have created a Twitter handle @WldLangToolbox and my new YouTube channel World Language Toolbox. On my channel…

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  • Presenting a Session at a Conference

    This post is about presenting a session and as an example I am sharing one I presented at MaFLA 2018 called Cartoons, Sitcoms, and Competition Shows: French television as authentic resources. The set of slides for the presentation and all the handouts are linked below. You may enjoy those resources for your own classroom and…

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  • Making a Project a Task

    Inspired by the book While we’re on the Topic by Bill Van Patten, I have been thinking about how tasks, as opposed to activities, fit into my teaching. And mostly recently, I have been exploring how a project in the World Language proficiency classroom can become a task. My most clear understanding of a task…

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  • Building Relationships between language teachers

    Some language teachers are the only one or one of a few in their building. Other language teachers have a department to rely on, but may be in a different place in their professional development than their colleagues. I have a great colleague who I talk to every day and in years past I planned…

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  • Who to see @ACTFL 2016

    ACTFL 2016, the national conference on language teaching, is taking place in Boston this weekend. It is an opportunity to hear about current trends in language education. Last year when I attended the conference in San Diego, it took a lot of time on Twitter to prioritize which presenters’ sessions to attend. I took interest…

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  • Ready-made IPAs

    Novice and Intermediate French IPAs from Lisa Shepard, Cécile Lainé and Rebecca Blouwolff As you create your own IPAs, it is helpful to take a look at examples on the web. Let me walk you through three sources. You may want to use some of these examples as they are or you may want to…

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  • Takeaways from Teacher of the Year Nicole Naditz

    When you go to a conference, in a particular session the new idea you bring back to your classroom isn’t always the main point of the presentation. Nicole Naditz, at ACTFL 2015 in her session Learning As I Go, was hoping for just that. It was her wish, and this is how she introduced it,…

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