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Supporting New Learners Who Join Your Class Mid-Year Elementary schools often welcome new learners throughout the year. It is critical that schools prioritize supporting new learners who join mid-year. While we wish that all elementary schools offered Spanish class to learners, we know that this is not the case. This presents a unique challenge: How […]

Here at Calico Spanish and Kids Immersion, we are increasingly interested in facilitating teacher collaboration. To that end, we are co-moderating a Twitter chat focused on topics related to world language learning. How does a Twitter Chat work? Each week the chat moderators will post a poll with the possible topics for discussion. We tweet […]

The results of this week’s poll are in! Language teachers across the globe are rethinking the way vocabulary is taught in foreign language classes. Join our conversation on Twitter at 8 pm ET using the hashtag #langchat to hear from your colleagues and gain new strategies to effectively “teach” vocabulary. It is sure to be […]

February is Discover Languages month. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages does a great job of promoting language learning in the USA. The ACTFL website has excellent resources to help you in your quest to expand language learning and appreciation in your community. You will also find links to interesting sites that […]

We teach languages to give students opportunities to go out into the world and communicate. This week during our #LangChat on Twitter (8 pm Eastern Thursdays), we’ll discuss ideas for task-oriented activities that give students skills they can use in the real world. I am excited to discuss this topic because I have often found […]

Our first #LangChat on Twitter was a great success. Participants discussed the importance of communicative competence and the need to use effective research-based techniques to move students towards increased accuracy over time. Accuracy becomes more important in presentational situations, whereas the rest of the time, communication is the goal of language usage. Giving our students […]

Researchers continue to find benefits to learning a second language. A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology shows that bilingual children as young as two exhibit greater cognitive flexibility than unilingual toddlers. Read a news report on the study here. The ability to look at the world from multiple perspectives and […]

We are excited about increasing opportunities to collaborate with language teachers. To that end, I’ll be co-moderating a twitter chat weekly. Use the hashtag #langchat to participate at 8 EST every Thursday night. Chat Moderators: Diego Ojeda: @DiegoOjeda66 Elvira Deyamport: @Elle_Spanish Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell: @secottrell Erica Fischer: @CalicoTeach Please help us select our first topic by […]

One of the my favorite resources for teaching Spanish class is the Calico Spanish flashcard set. Twenty-one of the cards are animals, ranging from monkeys to horses to chicks. Each of the colorful pictures makes a clear connection between the Spanish vocabulary word and the animal to which it corresponds. These cards are the perfect […]

Welcome to 2011! I hope your New Year’s Eve celebrations were full of joy and anticipation for what the new year will bring. When classes start again on Monday, perhaps you can welcome the new year with your students in the Spanish tradition. Beginning in 1909, grape growers in Alicante, Spain started a tradition of […]