Foreign Language Teacher's Guide to Active Learning


Book Description

The easy-to-implement activities and strategies in this book will help middle and high school foreign language teachers enhance their students' success. It shows how to create a classroom in which students can actively experience, experiment and discover a foreign language. It applies brain research, multiple intelligences, alternative assessment, technology and other educational innovations to the foreign language classroom.




The World Language Teacher's Guide to Active Learning


Book Description

Enhance your students’ success and improve the likelihood of retention with the easy-to-implement activities and strategies in this book! Bestselling author Deborah Blaz shows how to create a classroom in which students can actively experience, experiment with and discover a world language. The new edition features updated strategies based on brain-based research and new ideas for using technology and personalized learning. In addition, the book has been reorganized to help you easily find and pull activities you want to use in your classroom the very next day. You’ll learn how to... mix up your repertoire of activities, games, and exercises to keep students engaged; introduce students to the culture of the language you teach by hosting parties and celebrations; overcome some of the biggest obstacles in the path to fluency, including verb conjugation, using object pronouns, and the subjunctive mood; customize your teaching strategies to accommodate a broader range of talents, skills, and intelligences; implement new assessment strategies to improve verbal skills and reading comprehension; and more! Bonus: Downloadable versions of some of the resources in this book are available on the Routledge website at www.routledge.com/9781138049574, so you can print and distribute them for immediate classroom use.




Language and Learning in Multilingual Classrooms


Book Description

This book offers practical research-based advice for teachers and other educators on how to adapt school and classroom procedures, curriculum content, and instructional strategies in order to provide a supportive learning environment for students of minority language backgrounds who are learning the language of instruction at the same time as they are learning the curriculum.




Becoming a Language Teacher


Book Description

- How do I plan a lesson? - How will I know if my students are learning? - How do I teach language while also teaching content material? - How do I effectively use technology in language teaching? - How can I ensure the academic success of my students? - How can I help my students have more contact with the new language? These are the practical questions language and mainstream teachers struggle with as they enter today’s diverse classrooms in an era when they must focus not only on their everyday teaching, but also on students’ second language development. The answers to these questions and more are here, in this much-needed, comprehensive, practical guide to language teaching in second foreign, and content-based settings. In a warm, supportive tone, respected author and experienced language teacher Elaine K. Horwitz clearly explains the fundamental concepts of second language acquisition and language teaching, using actual classroom situations that help students learn to make instructional decisions in their own future teaching settings. Unique among other methods texts that emphasize language for communication purposes only, Becoming a Language Teacher also focuses on language for academic needs, while addressing the latest trends in language teaching as well as effective approaches for teaching language in content classes. The perfect choice for ESL and Foreign Language methods courses, this guide helps teachers develop a personal approach to language teaching, suited to their own unique teaching situations. Major additions to the text are related to socio-cultural approaches to second language acquisition and teaching. The Second Edition also includes: - Expanded coverage of language development and content teaching - Coverage of The Output Hypothesis, Sociocultural Theories of SLA, the SIOP Method and the CALLA Approach - Publication of the long-awaited revision of the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory, BALLI - An Assessment for Learning approach to student testing added to Chapter 8 - Suggestions for using new technologies and digital media incorporated throughout - Added explanations of Emergent Bilingual, Heritage Learners, Dual Language programs, World Languages, Sheltered English, Newcomer Centers, Self-Access Language Learning Centers, Willingness to Communicate, and Language Learner Autonomy




A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom


Book Description

While Active Learning Classrooms, or ALCs, offer rich new environments for learning, they present many new challenges to faculty because, among other things, they eliminate the room’s central focal point and disrupt the conventional seating plan to which faculty and students have become accustomed.The importance of learning how to use these classrooms well and to capitalize on their special features is paramount. The potential they represent can be realized only when they facilitate improved learning outcomes and engage students in the learning process in a manner different from traditional classrooms and lecture halls.This book provides an introduction to ALCs, briefly covering their history and then synthesizing the research on these spaces to provide faculty with empirically based, practical guidance on how to use these unfamiliar spaces effectively. Among the questions this book addresses are:• How can instructors mitigate the apparent lack of a central focal point in the space?• What types of learning activities work well in the ALCs and take advantage of the affordances of the room?• How can teachers address familiar classroom-management challenges in these unfamiliar spaces?• If assessment and rapid feedback are critical in active learning, how do they work in a room filled with circular tables and no central focus point?• How do instructors balance group learning with the needs of the larger class?• How can students be held accountable when many will necessarily have their backs facing the instructor?• How can instructors evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching in these spaces?This book is intended for faculty preparing to teach in or already working in this new classroom environment; for administrators planning to create ALCs or experimenting with provisionally designed rooms; and for faculty developers helping teachers transition to using these new spaces.




Class Acts


Book Description

Strategies and tactics for engaging students in active, focused, productive learning.




Differentiated Instruction


Book Description

In this new edition of a bestseller, author Deborah Blaz helps you differentiate lessons for your world language students based on their learning styles, interests, prior knowledge, and comfort zones. This practical book uses brain-based teaching strategies to help students of all ability levels thrive in a rigorous differentiated learning environment. Each chapter provides classroom-tested activities and tiered lesson plans to help you teach vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading, and writing in world language classes in ways that are interactive, engaging, and effective for all learners. Features new to this edition include: Sample thematic units to make your lessons more authentic and immersive New strategies for using technology to differentiate world language instruction Additional checklists, rubrics, and feedback forms to help you organize your lesson plans and track students’ progress New connections to the Common Core State Standards, the ACTFL Standards, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Bloom’s Taxonomy You’ll also learn how to differentiate assessment effectively to help all students show their full potential. Classroom-ready tools and templates can be downloaded as free eResources from our website (www.routledge.com/9781138906181) for immediate use.




Active Learning


Book Description

[For] middle school, high school, college, or adult classroom ... [Publisher's note]




Understanding the World Language edTPA


Book Description

In Understanding the World Language edTPA: Research?Based Policy and Practice, two researchers in the forefront of world language edTPA discuss the new beginning teacher portfolio, including its required elements, federal and state policies concerning teacher evaluation, and research from their own programs. Higher education faculty members and language teacher preparation program coordinators who would like to better understand edTPA requirements and gain suggestions for necessary programmatic changes will find this book of interest. The book is composed of eight chapters. The authors begin by describing edTPA and how it became a national trend to assess beginning teacher ability. In Chapter 2, the authors present ideas about curricular changes that may need to occur in traditional world language teacher education programs, as well as suggestions to assist teacher candidates as they begin to develop their portfolios. Afterward, the authors discuss the context for learning (Chapter 3) and they begin with assessment, moving to planning, and then to instruction (Chapters 4, 5, 6). In each chapter, the authors discuss the work sample that teacher candidates must create, an analysis of a high?scoring portfolio, and steps to stimulate teacher candidates’ professional thinking. In Chapter 7, the authors present activities for the methods classroom. In the final chapter, the authors provide a critical analysis of edTPA, in general, and the world language edTPA, in particular. Understanding the World Language edTPA: Research?Based Policy and Practice provides readers with a much?needed guide to inducting teacher candidates into the new portfolio requirements, while helping higher education faculty make appropriate curricular changes to accommodate edTPA.




Activities, Games, and Assessment Strategies for the World Language Classroom


Book Description

This bestselling book is filled with fun activities you can use to engage students in learning a world language. No matter what language and grade level you teach, you will love having a wide variety of tools at your disposal, from quick warm-up exercises to longer games and group activities. Inside, you’ll find... Essential teacher tools and student organizational tools Strategies to promote and monitor class participation, including student self-assessments Strategies to promote and assess oral proficiency, such as prompts, quick chats, and role plays Warm-up activities and five-minute transitional activities Individual, pair, and group practice activities, with modification suggestions Games that make learning fun, with clear directions for how to do them Great websites and other resources to check out for more ideas The enhanced second edition features updated activities and technology suggestions throughout, as well as a tabbed design so it's easier to return to your favorite sections again and again. Bonus: The book comes with more than 30 templates—charts, rubrics, and game boards that can be photocopied from the book or downloaded as eResources from the book product page at www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138827295. You can modify and print them for classroom use.