Month: February 2022

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This Week’s Teacher’s Tooltip: Engagement Strategies are essential for teaching Gen Z students

Engagement strategies for the 21st Century world language classroom.

Do we really need them? You bet. I might even call them “survival” strategies in the Gen Z classroom.

This is a generation of language learners that have information at their fingertips and dopamine oozing from their pores as a result of regular digital stimulation from an early age. How can you expect these students to sit in their seats and listen to the drone of projects being presented or lengthy grammar explanations? This is totally unrealistic!

Engagement strategies must be considered for our Gen Z language learners in order to help them successfully build language skills for real-world use. Here are a few simple ideas to enliven your classroom!

Engagement Strategy #1: Create opportunities for interactivity among students every day

This is not rocket science! In my last decade of teaching, 2010-2020, I had to maintain a growth mindset in order to survive. This meant that my traditional ways of teaching from the 80’s were not going to keep my students engaged. I had to expand my toolkit in order to help my students build proficiency in speaking Spanish!

Having them sit and listen to presentations was becoming deadly. I started having students present to each other on their devices to make it more interactive while I circulated the room to listen and evaluate globally. I even had students create QR codes for presentations that their classmates could listen to and comment on. I used collaborative apps like Padlet where students could comment and share their work.

I did not have time to read books about engagement strategies. I had to get creative and figure out how to make my classroom more dynamic so that my students were motivated to build skills in proficiency according to the ACTFL language performance and proficiency standards.

Here is another idea that helped my novice high and intermediate students learn to ask questions. For a warm-up or wrap-up engagement strategy, a few assigned students would simply project a photo to the class about something they did over the weekend, summer, or any picture related to a thematic unit, for that matter. The student presenting has nothing prepared other than a picture of interest.

The other students spontaneously ask questions about the picture, e.g.

• “¿Dónde estás?
• ¿Con quién estás?
• ¿Por qué estás/estuviste allí con ellos?
• ¿Cómo se llama el restaurante/ la playa/ la película, etc.?
• ¿Cuándo fuiste?, etc.

Creative teachers will think of a million variations of this!

I kept track with Class Dojo or even an old-fashioned grade book of who asked questions for consideration in their effort and attitude grade. You could also evaluate the proficiency skills of the student presenting the photo according to a rubric that you have provided ahead of time that includes specific language proficiency goals for the level of the class. The novice-mid students would be encouraged to speak in phrases while the novice high and intermediate students would strive to connect sentences and begin to use time frames.

Engagement Strategy #2: Make games a part of everyday learning

Again, as a teacher from the 80’s, I had to learn about Kahoot, Blooket, Quizlet Live, etc. to engage my Gen Z students.

I heard many of my colleagues denying the necessity and effectiveness of these digital tools. Many could even be heard saying, “It’s not my job to entertain these kids!” While I agree with that retort, considering engagement strategies, there are few as popular and motivating as online games. The one problem with most of these popular games is that they weren’t created specifically for language classes and often are nothing more than vocabulary builders rather than proficiency builders.

Still, I’ve never seen anything much more engaging than a few rounds of Quizlet Live. This digital game randomly creates teams that compete to finish matching words, phrases, pictures, whatever the teacher wants to create.

After one team won two consecutive rounds I shuffled the teams. Each student kept track of how many times they were on the winning team and the student with the highest score went on our class leaderboard.

Crazy. Simple. An engagement strategy.

Within Quizlet, there is a search option to find all the games that you or other teachers have created. This is not only an engagement strategy; it is an effective tool for helping students build vocabulary.

Be sure to check out more games online. There are so many good ones that can create an unbelievable dynamism in the World Language classroom.

Engagement Strategy #3: Commit to having a student-centered classroom every day

One idea for doing this effectively on a regular basis is to give students a topic to discuss with a partner or in small groups related to a unit theme. Once the students have learned the vocabulary and/or structures for a unit, think of a clever conversation for them to have with each other and to record for accountability. Be sure to structure the conversation by giving the students a few bullet points outlining what needs to be covered in the conversation that may include structures, time frames, vocabulary, etc.

Students respond so positively to being given the freedom to leave the classroom to find a quiet place to record.

I gave the students a very strict time frame that included time for them to plan their conversations. Simultaneously, I watched on my own device as the recordings came into our learning platform to be sure all are accountable.

Another tip is to randomly group them so they all get to know each other in the class. Sometimes I grouped a strong and weak student or a shy and an outgoing student together, knowing that the more confident student will provide a model.

Taking myself out of the center stage of the classroom was not only less exhausting for me, but it was also an engagement strategy to give students an opportunity to practice real-world communication skills.

The key to getting good recordings is to provide very clear instructions and to review the evaluation rubric ahead of time with the students so that they know exactly what is expected of them. This is an engagement strategy that can be used for both formative and summative evaluations for every unit! Students not only build proficiency with these conversations; they build community with each other, too.

Engagement Strategy #4: Teach dynamic content in short segments interweaving thematic vocabulary, practical phrases, and scaffolding grammar structures

The World Language classroom can be a big bore if students are simply learning the words for clothing, rooms in the house, food, etc.

The Gen Z language learner needs to be intrigued and enticed with interesting content.

Many textbooks do a poor job of creating short fascinating cultural segments that interweave proficiency and interculturality. To learn about schools in other countries, while fascinating to us teachers, just doesn’t cut it for the digital native with fast facts at his fingertips.

Teachers need to find more dynamic cultural information for students and present it in small chunks with familiar vocabulary and structures in order to reinforce the practical language they are learning. Teach about unusual food, clothing, houses in the target culture. Get students thinking about how language is a gateway to different worlds!

Engagement Strategy #5: Find a single platform that serves all these engagement strategies

As a recently retired teacher, I had begun to look for opportunities to share some of what I learned in my four decades of teaching Spanish. Fortunately, a group of developers, designers, and expert teachers invited me to join their team in creating a state-of-the-art language program that incorporates many engagement strategies for the Gen Z student in a single platform!

It includes interactive games and practice questions as well as dialogues with recording features, and an engaging culture curriculum that covers 11 Spanish-speaking countries with polls in real time, commenting features, discussion questions, and hands-on activities all interweaving proficiency and interculturality in an innovative and interactive way. Check it out at FL4K.com!

Missed my past Tool Tips? You can read about the Can-Do classroom, the importance of building relationships with your students, the Student-Centered Classroom, and much more on FL4K.com right now!

Looking to improve your students’ language skills? Learn how you can get early access to our groundbreaking language program that teaches kids Spanish the fun way! Sign up for early access here.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Learn Spanish Fast!

Through my extensive 43-year career as a Spanish teacher I have been asked countless times the best way to learn Spanish fast.

Quite honestly, it’s all about the Super 7! If you have never heard of them, they are the secret! Mastering the Super 7 verbs facilitates the most basic conversations in Spanish. The problem is that many textbooks and programs don’t start with the Super 7 that allow a beginning student to learn Spanish fast.

So many programs start with ser and estar, two verbs that both mean “to be” in Spanish. Textbooks and many Spanish programs go into long explanations of how to differentiate between them. In my experience, even advanced Spanish students struggle with this very foreign concept after four or five years of study! What’s worse, is knowing the detailed rules of these two verbs doesn’t help students learn to speak Spanish fast.

In fact, starting off with rules to master is off-putting and discouraging! Why not give students some tools to communicate? 

Presenting the Super 7: the best way to learn Spanish fast!

Tener/to have; Querer/to want; Hay/there is or there are; Gustar/ to like; Ir/to go and then, of course, the all too confusing and challenging two verbs that mean to be; Ser and Estar. (I did not say that they weren’t useful verbs! It is just that learning long lists of rules on how to distinguish them is not the best way to understand and learn Spanish fast.) My colleague and friend, Elena Giudice, likes to include an 8th verb, Poder/to be able, and tweak the Super 7 to the Super 8.

So there you have it. Get busy and master these verbs, not only in meaning but in their conjugated forms as well.

Imagine being able to say “Do you have….?” Well, that is ¿Tienes? If you just learn some basic things you might need in a hotel like soap, towels, shampoo, you can quickly find out what is available to you. I hope that speaking Spanish fast just became imaginable.

Now, add querer/to want and imagine what you can say, ¿Quieres…..? Here you can add items like ¿Quieres agua/cafe?/Do you want water/coffee? or add any other verb infinitive to it and you have ¿Quieres ir?/Do you want to go? Quieres dormir? Do you want to sleep, etc.

Of course, it is handy if you can answer these questions in the first person. Si, quiero ir/ Yes, I want to go, or Si tengo agua/Yes, I have water. 

Most people learn to use the verb estar right away in the beginning level of learning Spanish, ¿Dónde está el baño? and ser, Él es mi amigo. Both verbs mean “is”  in these sentences, but one is identifying and the other is locating. Most grammar books make a mess of these two, giving you a long list of when to use ser and estar and dissecting the verbs to the point where you are never really quite sure when to use them.

Well, if you want to learn to speak Spanish fast, learn this rule, the verb estar is basically only used to tell where something is located, El baño está allí and a change or temporary condition, physically or mentally for people, ¿Cómo estás? Estoy bien or the “state” of physically inanimate things like ¿Está cerrada la puerta? Is the door closed? Use ser for everything else!

Are you learning to speak Spanish fast? 

Mastering the five vowel sounds!

Of course, you have to learn how to pronounce the words, and with Spanish, you may already know that a high percentage of sounds and letters match.

The easiest part of Spanish is the vowel system. Each vowel only has ONE sound, a=ah, e=eh; i=ee; o=oh; u=oo. So much easier than English where every vowel has three or four sounds, right? Have pity on those learning English!

There are a few letters that have to be learned. All h’s are silent, hola=ola, and all j’s=h sound, jabón = hah-BONE. The ll= y, ¿Cómo te ll (y)amas? 

Just THREE more verbs of the Super 7!

So, what are the other three verbs that will make you learn to speak Spanish fast?

Ir=to go. If you combine querer and ir,  you can ask some, ¿Quieres IR a…… un restaurante, museo, gimnasio, al teatro, al cine,  a un concierto, etc? The verb ir is tricky because it is irregular, so you have to learn these conjugations voy/I go; vas/ you go; va/ he/she goes, vamos/we go and van/they go.

In Spanish, if you want to ask a question, you simply need to choose the proper form of the verb and add the appropriate intonation. The form of querer to use with someone you know well is quieres. In English you need 8 words to ask, “Do you want to go to the movies?” In Spanish it is exactly half the number of words, ¿Quieres ir al cine? See how fast you can learn to speak Spanish!

The last verb of the Super 7 is gustar. Who doesn’t need or want to talk about what they like? This verb doesn’t work quite like the other verbs because it uses a different set of pronouns.

Many books go into long grammar explanations about this quirky verb, but the truth is, you just need to know that if you are the one expressing that you like something, it is ME gusta/n, but if you want to find out about another’s preferences, you ask ¿TE gusta/n?

Now why the two forms of gustar?  If the thing being liked is plural I like guitars/ Me gustaN las guitarras and if what you like is singular, I like your hat/Me gustA tu sombrero.

Now, if you really want to learn Spanish fast, add in Super verb #8: poder. You can ask permission with this verb because it means “to be able.” Can I go?/ ¿Puedo ir? Can I have two coffees, please?/ ¿Puedo tener dos cafés, por favor? 

Add cognates to the secret formula to learning Spanish fast

The other factor that makes Spanish easy to learn fast is that there are so many cognates, words that look very similar in Spanish and English.

Here are a few: elefante, océano, montañas, frío, garaje, mamá, papa, tomate, ensalada, yogur. Can you guess what they mean? Some words are exactly the same because English borrowed them from Spanish: chocolate, patio, cafeteria, coyote, etc. Just be careful to pronounce them correctly depending on whether you are speaking Spanish or English. Something that seems so similar can easily be misunderstood if you don’t get the pronunciation correct.

My husband tried to order a “yogur/yogurt” in Spanish and thought he remembered the word. He put the emphasis on the beginning of the word YO grrrr instead of saying Yo GURE and the waiter had no idea what he wanted. While my husband was frustrated because the words are spelled almost exactly the same, I can totally understand that the sounds gave very little clue to someone who doesn’t know English. 

Learn to speak Spanish fast? Is there an easy way? 

Not really, but some methods can really facilitate the process. Teachers that understand how to build oral proficiency concentrate on the super 7 verbs and build in a lot of repetition in their programs. They don’t bog their students down with lengthy grammar lessons that are lost on the beginning language learner and only serve to frustrate and discourage.

Be wary of programs that spend copious pages explaining grammar. Look for programs that get down to business with the super 7 or 8 right away!

Also, look for programs that emphasize building oral proficiency from novice to intermediate and advanced levels. These teachers, texts, programs understand the steps involved in language acquisition. You need a program that provides practice in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, too.

There are many programs out there that profess to help you learn Spanish fast, but the truth is that most of them don’t seem to have a clue about the super 7!

Learn Spanish fast with FL4K

If you are looking for a way for your children to learn Spanish fast, I would recommend going to FL4K.com to checkout a state of the art language program that interweaves interculturality and oral proficiency in a single platform with interactive innovative digital games and activities that serve to engage the Gen Z and help them to learn Spanish fast.

In my retirement, I have been privileged to join a talented team of language teaching experts to use my expertise in the scaffolding of a program for building oral proficiency. I really love what we are doing to help young language learners because the design is unique and engaging with lots of features to help kids actually learn to speak Spanish!!

Reading Time: 6 minutes

There are a few things I have learned in my 43-year tenure teaching Spanish! As strange as it may sound, it’s much like the game of golf – challenging enough that you want to keep doing it, knowing that you can always improve. I’ve often thought about writing a book about the lessons I have learned on the job to save inexperienced Spanish teachers from the harsh early learning curve. For now, I will settle on touching on the wisdom I’ve gained from my experience.

The art of it all! 

My husband used to chide me as I poured over lesson plans in order to be as creative and engaging for my students as possible. He would say, “Don’t you have this down to a science?” “Well, guess what?” I would say to him, “Teaching is not a science, it’s an art.”

This is the truth and is what makes teaching Spanish or anything, for that matter, both challenging and fun! There are literally thousands of ways to be successful and yet, success in Spanish teaching eludes so many professionals.

Why? One of the great secrets is that it is all about the learner, not the teacher! The days of the “sage on the stage” are over for Generation Z! The onus is no longer on the teacher, but rather on the student. The game of teaching, so to speak, is more about understanding best practices in language teaching that motivates and engages students in a way that they can’t wait to be in your classroom.

It’s all about them, not you! Easier said than done, right? 

Best Practice #1 in Spanish teaching: Create a safe community in your classroom 

Learning to speak another language can be intimidating and even daunting! Who wants to take risks in speaking when someone is publicly correcting them and others may be laughing at their attempts to imitate new sounds?

Sadly, this is a common scenario in traditional language classrooms. Think about it! This is awful. Who can learn when in constant fear of derision or scorn? Whether you are teaching Spanish or any language, let it be a place where it is OK to get it wrong. Set up lots of opportunities for individual and partner practice where there is no audience waiting for you to get it wrong!

Think about how children acquire language. They hear the correct words over and over before they can actually produce them on their own. They practice every single day! Acquiring language is a slow process and it is incumbent on teachers to provide the practice and patience necessary without humiliating their students.

There will always be gifted and talented language students that intimidate other language learners with their natural ability. If you set up practice in the right supportive community environment, every student does not have to constantly be compared to these born-linguists! 

Best practice #2 for Spanish teaching: Make your classroom a crucible for language practice that leads to proficiency

Again, this is easier said than done, but making your classroom a place where students can comfortably practice their skills is key to Spanish teaching!

Creating motivating ways for students to interact is the challenge of every day with your students. Join online Spanish teaching communities where the synergy of sharing ideas for best practices abounds. Adhere to the tenet of successful language classrooms by constantly brainstorming how to get your students talking to each other!

Recently, I had an inexperienced Spanish teacher tell me that she was rather flabbergasted that the middle school students she inherited had never heard of ser and estar! I wanted so badly to tell her that teaching the difference between ser and estar is NOT the key to Spanish teaching.

This fine grammar point has far too long been the focus of Spanish teaching! Forget about it and start thinking about communicative chunks of language that have meaning like, “¿Donde está el hospital?” and “¿Como es tu hermano?” Start planning for how you will get your students engaged in real-life scenarios using language in a context.

Ser and estar are going to challenge the English speaker forever! What a terrible way to set students up to fail at doing something as natural as learning another language. Let them hear it done right over and over and they will get it! This is true language acquisition. 

Best practice #3 for Spanish teaching: Speak Spanish 90% of the time! 

Don’t give in! Don’t give up! You have to model the language for your students in a way that they can understand you! Challenge yourself to communicate in a way that students can begin to understand you!

Find resources where simple Spanish is used! Use hand motions, lots of intonation, slow it down, and give them a chance to interpret! This is what the process of language learning is all about! Don’t take the easy way out if you want results.

If you are a native speaker, have mercy on your students. Slow it down. If you are a non-native speaker, find every way possible to keep your skills sharp such as summer immersion programs, online classes, and frequenting communities where Spanish is spoken.

In fact, help your students find as many immersion experiences as possible, too. Stay true to this tenet of best practice for Spanish teaching. 

Best Practice #4 for Spanish teaching:

Clearly outline the path to progress for every student by using standards-based teaching

Don’t make success in the classroom contingent on being better than everyone else! Make it dependent on developing and improving your own skills.

Allow for differentiation by comparing students to themselves according to a set of standards. Lead them all to their own eventual success, allowing for individual timetables for progress. As long as students are improving, don’t measure them according to another student’s rate of progress or level of advancement.

Some textbooks are beginning to provide rubrics for standards-based teaching. Wayside Publishing, for example, has a series called, EntreCulturas, that offers one of the best scope and sequences for standards-based teaching on the market today.

Educate yourself on standards-based teaching. Go to the ACTFL website and take a look at all the educational opportunities to learn about Spanish teaching for proficiency.

One of the very best professional opportunities would be to sign up for a MOPI workshop. Learn what the proficiency levels mean, Novice-Advanced, and how to create materials to help students acquire skills.

Honestly, students are so much more motivated and engaged when they understand more specifically how to improve. A Novice speaker can list, for example, whereas an intermediate can start to create strings of sentences using connector words that are intentionally taught. It is amazing to see the confidence that students develop when they know the steps to improving versus the confounding difference between ser and estar that in the end is not the key to actually communicating.

When did we ever teach babies the rules before they could imitate and practice? 

Best Practice #5 for Spanish teaching: Teach students about the Spanish-speaking world in a way that promotes proficiency and holds their interest. 

Teaching Spanish in a vacuum is dull! Why not promote intercultural awareness and nurture global citizenship at the same time you are building proficiency? Why not present global challenges for students to ponder and use authentic materials to engage Gen Z with information at their fingertips?

Seek curriculum that has real-life application. Integrate cultural lessons into every class, not something to be taught on Fridays.

If you don’t know much about the 20 Spanish-speaking countries and one Spanish-speaking US territory, start learning. It can be the challenge of a lifetime to maintain a growth mindset about delving deep into these very distinct cultures and even their regional language. You need never be bored with Spanish teaching. 

Closing thoughts

After 43 years in the classroom I finally hung up my hat, not because I couldn’t wait to get away from the demands of teaching, but to make my grandchildren my #1 priority. In fact, I suffered a great deal of sadness every day for the last few months in the classroom. I sincerely loved every day for all those years. I loved the students, the opportunity to craft lessons for them, and most of all the chance to learn and grow as a teacher every single day.

If you are lucky enough to have chosen Spanish teaching as a career, get after it! Take the leap to grow and learn everything you can about how to inspire students to love language learning and have some fun with each other along the way! 

I was perfectly poised to retire and become a very engaged grandparent when an opportunity landed in my lap to join a teacher team of World Language specialists in creating a state-of-the-art toolkit for building proficiency and interculturality for Pk-12 students.

If you have any interest in the latest iteration of our creation, check it out and sign up for early access at FL4K.com.

And lest you worry about the abandonment of my grandchildren, they ARE finally my #1 priority. “Pura vida” como dicen los ticos!