This activity aligns to a novice-level unit about families. It focuses on numbers and basic family relationships. Two versions are included: One with instructions in English, and one with instructions in Spanish.

This activity aligns to an intermediate unit about families. Students watch then read a news story about young people in Spain living at home with their parents. They are guided with quotes from the video and comprehension questions.

This activity aligns to a novice-level unit about families. It focuses on numbers and basic family relationships as students listen to an authentic audio file, then further learning through compiling a family tree as a group. Two versions are included: One with instructions in English, and one with instructions in Spanish.

Course DesignThis communicative Spanish 1 course is designed for middle and high school students as a year-long course with 4 units. Each unit is meant to last about 1 quarter or 8-10 weeks. Units are thematic and aligned to AP World Languages themes. Units were designed using a backwards planning model (Understanding by Design, McTighe & Wiggins, 2005), first considering unit goals and essential questions, then performance assessments, then core learning experiences and resources. All or most World Language Standards are braided throughout each unit. Units are vertically designed and build on one another. They are meant to be taught in the order presented. Lake Washington School District teachers collaborated closely with Laura Terrill, French teacher and curriculum design expert.  These units and templates are built off the principles and examples in the Keys to Planning for Learning: Effective Curriculum, Unit, and Lesson Design, by Clementi & Terrill (2017). We highly recommend referring to the Keys to Planning for Learning book, available through ACTFL, for more learning and deeper understanding of the intent and pedagogical underpinnings of this curriculum. Pedagogy and Teaching MethodsThe power of these units lie in their design around ACTFL's Guiding Principles. All units are designed to be taught 90%+ of the time in the Target Language (TL) using comprehensible input strategies. Core Resource Activity Guides outline suggested methods and activities for making content comprehensible in the TL. For more ideas on strategies we recommend these resources:Common Ground: Second Language Acquisition Theory Goes to the Classroom (Henshaw & Hawkins, 2022)Enacting the Work of Language Instruction (Glisan & Donato, 2017)

This website guides teachers through establishing a routine for running centers or stations in their World Language classrooms. This includes an overview of different centers models, how to select student groups, how to select activities for centers, how to organize procedures, as well as links to resources.

This interpretive listening activity focuses on time and basic activity verbs. It can also be used to expose students to the third person plural "they" verbs in a concept attainment activity, in which students attempt to deduce the grammatical rule or pattern for third person plural verbs based on the context.

This blog by a World Language educator includes a wide range of tips and strategies for teachers. Topics include how to use authentic resources with students, how to conduct target language discussion with students, technology tools, and many more. Each post includes many resources that teachers can use.

This interpretive listening and presentational writing task aligns with a novice-level unit about school supplies. This task is tiered by complexity of product (how students show what they know).

Students listen to a song and complete a cloze activity, then watch a commercial and explore locations on Google Maps while noting aberrations and answering questions.

This interpretive listening and presentational writing task aligns with a novice-level unit about sports. This task is tiered by complexity of product (how students show what they know).

This tiered task involves interpretive reading of an authentic school schedule and presentational writing to compare the schedule to students’ own schedules. This task is tiered by complexity of product (how students show what they know).

 This tiered task involves interpretive reading of an authentic school schedule and presentational writing to compare the schedule to students’ own schedules. This task is tiered by complexity of product (how students show what they know).Suggested Extension or Follow-Up ActivitiesIf students worked with different schedules, they could compare the results.Speaking activity – Students ask each other questions about the schedules.Students design their ideal schedule.Students give a “tour” of their schedules (Walk around school or use a map to describe schedule. En la primera hora, tengo la clase de español con la Señora Sherrow…)Image source:  "Child" by picjumbo_com on Pixabay.com