My favorite speaking activity is an A/B partner activity , but sometimes it's great to switch things up and give students actual pieces of paper that they will litter all over your floor .  This type of speaking activity definitely requires more prep, but it can be worth it in the long run....

Scenario: It's the end of Unit 1 in Spanish 1 and your school district requires you to assess each kid's speaking skills.  Individually.   At the end of each and every unit.  Oh and you have 35 kids in each of 6 classes. It's the stuff nightmares are made of....

You simply can't grade every piece of paper that students touch. It's too many papers and students don't need 857 grades at the end of each marking period. Besides that, your friends and family will miss you if you try to grade ALL THE PAPERS. Here are 5 tips for staying on top of grading (and having a life!):...

Bell ringers will get your students seated and working from the moment the late bell rings. Seated, silent , and on-task.  This activity does not actually include the promise of silence, but you can dream. ...

My 7th grade Social Studies teacher let us choose our seats.   On the very first day of school!   It was something I had never been allowed to do before and it was incredibly exciting.  We could all sit with our friends!  ...

This post could also be called "How to teach the Spanish Alphabet so good that you have to ban students from singing it" .  Or "For heaven's sake - it's March, please stop singing that song" . For the record, I've only had to ban one class from continuing to sing the alphabet song well into March.  That class was full of overly enthusiastic 7th-grade girls. 🙃 ...

It's so important to get your Spanish students actually speaking the language.   I like to tell my Spanish 1 students within the first week of school that no one ever says "Wow, you write Spanish really well."  They say "Wow, you speak Spanish really well."  ...