These Duolingo tips & secrets will help you stay motivated and use Duolingo more than ever before! Tip #4 seriously changed how I use it!

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As I mentioned in my post on the benefits of foreign language for travel, I think that learning the basics of the language to any country you visit is a great way to bettter experience the local culture. If you’ve read my post on Sagunto, you may know that I studied abroad there and speak it at

As you may already know, according to serious research in linguistics, and also the personal opinions of many polyglots, every language has 400 most common

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The best way to learn Spanish fast on your own! Try these fun and easy (and mostly free!) learning tips today and start speaking Spanish.

These Duolingo tips & secrets will help you stay motivated and use Duolingo more than ever before! Tip #4 seriously changed how I use it!

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OUR WORLD LANGUAGE CLASSROOM is magical place where we create a learning space for our students dedicated to the culture and language we teach. We can take advantage of this opportunity to provide linguistic support and foster motivation and interest! Here are some tips that have worked for me- let us know what you do, too! *TIP 1: Make your visual supports content and context rich. Go beyond word lists or labels to putting language in context... around my room I have recreated several of our minibooks utilizing the vocabulary in chunks and sentences drawn from the stories. By providing language in context you give your students more than single words; you give them the supports to put those words into functional phrases they can use to express themselves more communicatively. The picture below is part of our minibook 'Julieta y Mateo hacen un picnic', a simple storyline to learn fruits in context. *TIP 2: Foster early literacy skills by having lots of print on display- and reference it often. Related to the above, providing as much print in the target language not only creates an environment full of Spanish (or the language you teach!), but it also provides visuals your students can refer to over and over again as they build their sight vocabulary. Encourage your students to look at and utilize your word walls, allowing them to familiarize themselves as to where they can find vocabulary they need, which also fosters independence and responsibility in learning. *TIP 3: Consider utilizing a circle as your teaching space rather than desks/tables and chairs. I have always taught at circle, it's such an early elementary school tradition and I love it! A circle allows for all of you, students and teacher, to be together in a cozy community where materials can be passed and shared easily and greeting and partner activities are pulled together quickly.. Use clipboards or folders as writing surfaces (or, if there are tables/desks they can return to those for writing activities when those are being done). MINITIP: If teaching in a circle, it is a good choice to have a seating chart; students quickly find their seats and you don't have to deal with bickering or kiddos with hurt feelings because someone didn't want to sit next to them. *TIP 4: Create areas of imaginative play where students can interact with the language while having fun. I am a huge proponent of imaginative play and try to provide as many opportunities for my students to engage with the language in this manner. Set up a small magnet or felt board with pictures that provide a context that fast finishers can go to for play with the language or create a storytelling basket with manipulatives with the same purpose in mind. See our post on creating thematic story baskets here! *TIP 5: Make your space kid-friendly. At first glance, this tip doesn't seem to foster language acquisition...until you consider that stuffies, toys, play food, etc motivate students to use language. Little kids love to have stuffies "talk", manipulate play food, and use all manner of toys. Tap into this by incorporating lots of these items in your classes and have them at the ready in baskets or bins around your room. *TIP 6: Place useful classroom phrases and requests strategically near what they are referencing. If you want your students to learn how to say, 'May I get a kleenex?', have the phrase posted right over the kleenex box. Connect the phrase with the item/objective at hand, forming a visual link between the words and the purpose. *TIP 7: Establish key phrases for routines and procedures in the target language and post them for regular reference with students. From the beginning of the school year, have a set of concise, direct phrases you use for classroom management; use them consistently and refer to them on a regular basis. Whether they are key words for good audience behavior or instruction cards detailing each step of an activity, this language in chunks will enable you to stay in the target language rather than break into English. *TIP 8: Don't have a classroom? Use your school's hallways to create 'language centers' kids can see and interact with. Not having a classroom doesn't need to stop you from displaying language throughout the school (provided you have permission or space to use the hallways). Create bulletin boards or spaces where kids can not only view but interact with language, such as putting up a piece of chart paper with a question like '¿Cómo estás? or ¿Cuál foto te gusta más?, etc. Here's a picture of a Pinterest-inspired board I created. You can see my entire post on how I made it here. LOOKING FOR PRINTABLE BULLETIN BOARD sets rather than making them yourself? Head over to our shop for great resources such as some seen in this post! Click here! SaveSave

These Duolingo tips & secrets will help you stay motivated and use Duolingo more than ever before! Tip #4 seriously changed how I use it!

Differentiating your instruction can be overwhelming. I get it. When you hear the word "differentiation" do you automatica...

Don’t get me wrong — I love candy. And, a jolly rancher, a tootsie roll, or a starburst can work wonders in the classroom for student motivation and enthusiasm. So can pizza parties, and cupcake days, and brunch, and…I’ve had so many types of food parties I can’t even keep track! Recently, however, I’ve been […]

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click here for the Freebie!! Are you looking for a new way to teach spelling in your dual classroom? Does the process seem overwhelming? I have some amazing strategies in this post to help you out! CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THAT AMAZING SPANISH WORD WORK FREEBIE! Did you want to try out one of the BRAND NEW centers? If you answered, 'yes' to that question, then click HERE to snag that amazing freebie!! I'm so excited, and can't wait for you to test out the center! El Dictado: What is it and how does it work? What is El Dictado? El Dictado wears different hats and meets literacy needs at all different grade levels. This post will focus on the primary grades and initial literacy skills in Spanish. El Dictado is basically a spelling test in Spanish. In this case, El Dictado is a spelling test in Spanish, and a little more! You have a trifecta for teaching initial literacy skills in Spanish. How can El Dictado help me in my dual classroom? El Dictado will help you teach your kids the skills that they need to learn to read and write effectively. Those skills could be whatever you need to teach students: letter sound identification, blending letter sounds to read syllables, combining syllables to make words, or putting words together to make sentences. This bundle of differentiated dictados uses syllables to form words, and those words form sentences. How can dual language teachers implement El Dictado effectively in the dual language classroom? There are many ways to implement El Dictado. But I have a very specific method of implementation that combines mini-lessons and spelling tests with partner work, with reading 'lecturitas' and with working through daily shared reading. These 3 all use the new, learned skills from the dictado. They work together in this Trifecta. Here's how it works: I have created a trifecta with the actual dictado, shared reading and lecturitas. First, let's look at how the actual dictado works. Click on this image so that you can see this resource on TpT! I have created and implement a 5-day plan where on the first day you as the teacher dictate words or a sentence to the class as a pre-test. After giving the pre-test, you give a mini-lesson to teach the class what they need to know in order to write the sentence or the words correctly. On day 2 you dictate the words or sentences to the kids and let them self-correct using the principles from your mini-lesson from day 1. Teach them to circle the words in sentences, and the syllables in the words. On day 3 you have the kids work in pairs, or with a partner where one student dictates, and the other one writes, then they switch roles. On day 4 you dictate to the whole class as a last practice test, and on day 5 give your final test. So check out the details more specifically! #1: Teaching words and sentences Click on this image so that you can see El Dictado Trifecta Paquete on TpT! If you are teaching sentences, then teach your class to put a space between words, to write using an upper-case letter at the beginning of the sentence, to write with end-marks, and how to spell by recognizing and using 'sílabas directas'. I have all this spelled out on super simple, projectable slides that are simply project-and-go! Lesson plans are embedded!! Yay! If your class is not quite ready for sentences, I've got you covered! My Dictado Trifectas are also differentiated! You can use the slides that are intended for syllables and words only. These slides have words and illustrations of the words so that your students can learn the meaning of the words as well, increasing their vocabulary. Both sets of slides teach the same syllables for the same key words. That way if you have the need to teach 2 different groups in your room, then you are all set! #2: Teaching Shared Reading or Lectura Compartida Lectura Compartida also has a 5-day easy to follow plan. Day 1 is a quick intro to the passage where you use your pre-made anchor chart of the shared reading and simply read it to the class. On day 2, similar to the Dictado, give the class their own copy of the passage. I have my class paste the sheet in a spiral notebook so that they can refer to the passages frequently. On the anchor chart you put a dot under each word when you are reading the passage with the class. Get creative and use Dab-a-Dot or circle stickers. If you do not have these, simply use a marker. On my slides I have moveable pieces that you or a student can place over each word. If you do not wish to use the slide like this, you do not need to, but the option is there for you. Be sure to give the class a few minutes to mark dots under the words on their individual sheets as well. The purpose of the dots under the words is to help students understand how separate words look on paper as they read, and for young readers to learn to point under the words as they read. This is a skill that is perfect to teach in pre-k and kindergarten, and by the middle of 1st grade you need to wean kids off of pointing to the words as they read. Day 3 of shared reading is circling the syllables. Again the slides have circles as moveable pieces. On your anchor chart you can simply circle the syllables to model, or better yet, project the sheet and model more precisely. Make sure the class does the same with their own words on their sheets. Day 4 you introduce the song! Once you have sung the shared reading with the class, teach them to point to each word as you sing. Repeat on day 5! This is so much fun, and the kids love it. Each sheet of shared reading has a suggestion for tunes that you can sing the passage to. #3: Lecturitas These are simple illustrated sentences using the syllables from the dictado and shared reading. It all becomes super practical when students can use their new skills to actually read. It really is like magic! So as you are teaching new syllables and words, the 'lecturitas' will take those syllables and words and put them into an illustrated context of one sentence. The kids love this routine because they see themselves reading! You will love it more because your kids will read, and their levels will move along! In Conclusion... This trifecta has been the most effective way for me to teach initial literacy skills in Spanish. I use El Dictado with embedded mini-lessons to teach a skill for the week, then I put that skill into practice with shared reading and Lecturitas! My students learn quickly with this routine. I have a bundle of Dictados that teach the syllables in the same way that you would find them taught in an authentic setting. Check out my bundle here and save time, effort and money! Each Dictado has a printable PDF file with bonus material to help you out. You can download vocab cards and make up games with them like Memory or Go Fish. You can print the vocab cards double-sided with syllable boxes on one side. Your students can either write in the syllables or you can teach them how many syllables are in the words using the cards. I print and laminate my cards for durability. You have 8.5 x 11 sheets with the vowels printed on them so when you are teaching the vowels you can just post those in your room. And some of the dictados come with extra-EXTRA bonus black and white printable activities. Here is a video to show you more details of El Dictado Trifecta! I hope routine helps you and your kids as much as it has helped me. Enjoy!

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As I mentioned in my post on the benefits of foreign language for travel, I think that learning the basics of the language to any country you visit is a great way to bettter experience the local culture. If you’ve read my post on Sagunto, you may know that I studied abroad there and speak it at

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