Category Archives: Language Learning

Tuesday Teaching: No More Novels?

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

Earlier this month, The Washington Post published an article titled “Common core sparks war over words,” in which it worries that the adoption of the Common Core State Standards in English (by 46 states & DC, to date) will lead … Continue reading →

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Tuesday Teaching: Nurture Shock

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

This week I head back into teacher training and setting up my classroom. Next week, the kids are back and the school year starts up again. I’m not sure how much I will manage to do differently, but one book … Continue reading →

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Monday Media: High-Low Fiction

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

The problem: A terrifying percent of high-schoolers can’t read. (77% of 8th graders read below grade level in CA.) The solution? Write books for teens at a 3rd-grade level. The LA Times reported that Saddleback Educational Publishing is launching a … Continue reading →

Posted in Language Learning, Media, Teaching, Writing | 4 Comments

Tuesday Teaching: Editing Essays

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

As I grade the final essays for my Spanish 2 class this evening, I am remembering how awful assigning peer-edited essays used to be. It seemed I had only two options: Have students “peer edit” each other’s essays and get … Continue reading →

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Tuesday Teaching: Cooking Commands

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

This project idea was given to me by Renee Dacey, Spanish teacher extraordinaire at Burlington High School. I just used the BHS 1-to-1 iPads and a class YouTube channel to spice it up a little. LESSON: Given a unit in … Continue reading →

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Tuesday Teaching: Musical Subjunctive

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

My Spanish 3 class is deep in the throes of learning the subjunctive, that wonderful tense in Spanish that you use whenever the resulting action may or may not occur. It is not the easiest tense in the world for … Continue reading →

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Tuesday Teaching: BBC Mi Vida Loca

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Tara Sullivan

To anyone out there with a desire to learn Spanish while living through a Carmen Sandiego-esque computer adventure (and really, who doesn’t want to do that?), I highly recommend the BBC’s fantastic interactive language learning mystery: Mi Vida Loca! Even my high-schoolers … Continue reading →

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