World Language Classroom

Feb 02 2025 184 ep. 25 mins 42

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Tips, Tools and Resources for world language teachers who want their students to rise in proficiency and communicate with confidence.

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Get the Most Out of Calendar Talk in Your Classroom

Feb 02 2025 22 mins

#182 Calendar talk is a CI (Comprehensible Input) activity that is part of many teachers' routines in the classroom. It is essentially just that, talking about the calendar. What began as simply saying the date has grown into much more than that. In this episode I will share with you my own process of doing a calendar talk activity that engages students on a wide variety of topics

Hexagonal Grouping with Erin Coleman

Jan 26 2025 28 mins

#181Have you seen teachers posting on social media about their hexagonal grouping activities? I certainly have and I got curious about how it works and how teachers are using it in their world language classes. I’ve seen Erin Coleman posting and presenting workshops on the topic, so I invited her onto the podcast to share with all of us how she uses hexagonal grouping with her st

CI Activities You Can Do Today

Jan 19 2025 31 mins

#180Do you have particular activities and procedures that you use to engage students in your classroom? Many of us have these tried-and-true go-to CI (Comprehensible Input) activities. They get talked about a lot on social media, in language teacher circles and even on this podcast. In this episode I’m going to walk you through 15 CI activities. Be sure to download the free CI To

Special Person Interviews with Bryce Hedstrom

Jan 12 2025 26 mins

#179What have you heard about special person interviews in world language classes? Maybe you have tried them yourself. In today’s episode I speak with Bryce Hedstrom, a Spanish and Latin teacher in Colorado. He also does quite a bit of professional development with language teachers. Bryce walks us through the benefits of special person interviews, along with actionable suggestio

Managing Lots of Preps with Sophie Forker

Jan 05 2025 20 mins

#178 How many preps do you have? If you have 3, 4 or more, or know someone who does, stick around for this episode. Oftentimes we equate 3 or more preps with 3 or 4 times the work. In this episode Sophie Forker, a French and Spanish teacher in New York City, joins me for a conversation about managing our teacher workload. We talk specifically about navigating a large number of prep

2024, The Year of Language Functions and Grammar

Dec 29 2024 24 mins

#177The most popular episode of 2024 was the one where I talked about moving from grammar to language functions. I begin this last episode of 2024 with some podcast stats from 2024 and then you have the replay of episode #141: Shifting the Focus from Grammar to Function.2024 World Language Classroom Podcast Stats :top 10% of all podcast downloads52 episodesMost popular cities with

Oral Corrective Feedback to Improve Learner Performance

Dec 22 2024 26 mins

#176 How do you address your students’ mistakes or errors when speaking in the classroom? Should you address them? Is it useful, and if so, how do you do it? In this episode we are taking on the last of the High Leverage Teaching Practices, Providing Oral Corrective Feedback to Improve Learner Performance. My personal graduate thesis was on feedback in the language classroom and

Getting the Most out of a Comprehensible Novel with Jennifer Degenhardt and Theresa Marrama

Dec 15 2024 31 mins

#175Do students read in your classroom? What do they do with the reading? In this episode I speak with Jennifer Degenhardt and Theresa Marrama. They are both authors of CI Novels that I have personally used in my French and Spanish classrooms. I thought I’d go right to the source when thinking about the many ways that we can engage our students in target language reading. Jennife

Cohesive Lessons and Flow in Class Routines

Dec 08 2024 47 mins

#174How cohesive are your lessons? Do you feel that activities flow and connect to each other in meaningful ways, or do they sometimes seem disconnected? Today’s episode is a Leveling Up episode, where I coach Cyndi, a German teacher in Idaho. Planning more cohesive lessons that flow more naturally and are connected to each other is the area where she wants to level up her teachi

ACTFL 2024: Connect for the Love of Languages!

Dec 01 2024 30 mins

#173This is an exciting episode that I recorded live at the 2024 ACTFL Convention and Language Expo in Philadelphia! This year’s ACTFL theme, “Connect for the Love of Languages!”, highlights the importance of building meaningful connections in every aspect of language teaching. In this episode, you'll hear from inspiring educators and leaders who share strategies for connecti