First Week Lesson Plans To Get Students Speaking More All Year Long!
by Sherry Sebesta

To assist teachers in planning their first week of lessons, Sherry presents a comprehensive lesson plan designed to encourage year-long student participation in speaking activities. She will provide daily information on various activities that can be implemented with students, aiming to motivate them and achieve improved results in language learning.

1st Weeks of School: Proficiency, Procedures & Positive People
by Allison Wienhold

To assist teachers in planning and preparing for their first week of school, Allison presents a plan with interesting activities. This plan showcases what can be done during these days to start with the target language immediately from day one. It highlights the key to success with different preparations and outlines the main goals that need to be considered for this crucial first week.

But I Only Teach Once a Week! Creating Memorable Experiences in FLES Programs
by Albert Fernández

Albert is providing us with tips for working with students who have only one or two Spanish or other language classes per week. He emphasizes that it is more important to focus on acquisition rather than just learning, and he will suggest various activities that we can use to achieve this goal.

First Day of Experiences as a Teacher
by Ashley Mikkelsen

In this conversation, Ashley will share her experience as both a Spanish learner and a Spanish teacher, with Spanish being her second language. She will explain how she engages students at novice levels to facilitate their learning of a new language, as well as how to establish effective communication with parents to achieve significant progress.

The One Tool to Support All of Your Students
by Christina Margiore

In search of a way to promote students' confidence, guide them through the learning process, and save time for teachers, Christina presents an important tool: chat mats. These materials will assist students in their oral or written work by providing them with vocabulary, question starters, verbs, and connectors, thus helping them reduce anxiety and fear.

Empowering Early Learners Through Engaging Topics and Activities
by Carolina Gómez

In this session, Carolina is going to showcase a toolkit full of ideas ready to use in your classes. These activities are focused on the novice level and how teachers can assist them in advancing their learning process.

Strategies to Cultivate Student Buy-in
by Bertha Delgadillo

In this session, Bertha showcases different strategies to work with your students in class that will help improve the atmosphere, achieve better competency for your students, create a class community, and enhance buy-in in your language class.

Positive Discipline in the High School Classroom Validation & Vulnerability
by Luisa Acevedo

In this session, Luisa will discuss positive discipline and how it can be connected with validation and vulnerability. She will present real-life situations that any teacher can encounter in their daily practice. Additionally, she will share key strategies that can be implemented from the first days of school to get a head start.

3 Spanish Speaking Activities for Any Vocab or Grammar
by Jessica Hall

Jessica is presenting three speaking activities that will help improve the skills of your class. These activities can be done as a whole class or in pairs and can be applied to different vocabulary, verbs, adjectives, and more.

Practical Activities to Engage Language Students with AI
by Fanest Coronado

Discover how to integrate AI activities into your classrooms and transform language learning into an immersive and practical experience. The session will cover various topics, including brain adaptation and cultural exploration, ensuring students engage deeply with the language. Teachers will learn about recommended resources and specific activities that leverage AI tools to enhance language acquisition. 

World Language Classroom Starter Package and Teacher Toolkit
by Heather Luis

Heather shares various tips to promote daily routines in the classroom in order to achieve better results, make students feel more comfortable, and improve cooperative work. She presents different activities such as games, surveys, task cards, and ice breakers to use in class. These activities not only help teachers with their planning but also serve to motivate students to learn and have fun at the same time.

Cultural Compass: Navigating Diversity in Modern Classrooms
by Allison Perryman

In this session, Allison is going to demonstrate how to increase student buy-in, make time for culture in your class, highlight the diversity of your students in your curriculum, and make culture practical and actionable in your classroom.

Afro-Latinos and Hair: A Journey of the Past, the Present, and the Future
by Jenniffer Whyte

To encourage and celebrate African roots, Jennifer discusses the history and significance of Afro-Latino heritage and hair. She explains the long-standing shame associated with Afro-Latino hairstyles and highlights how attitudes have changed over the years, recognizing the cultural importance and challenging beauty norms. Furthermore, she provides ideas on how to incorporate this topic into the classroom.

Your Story, My Story, Our Story: Creating Classroom Culture and Community the First Week of School to Make Your Year a Success!
by Trisha McMurray

In this session, Trisha is going to demonstrate different approaches for our Spanish class. She will incorporate a personal perspective that can be very helpful in building rapport with students and highlighting the importance of culture and heritage in the learning process.

Building Community in Your World Language Classroom
by Katie Acosta

In this presentation, Katie explains the importance of creating a classroom community and provides a variety of strategies for doing so. Her suggestions include opportunities for students to share their work, classroom celebrations, and studying culture through a social justice lens. She underlines the importance of developing our students’ social awareness, and recommends resources that allow her to focus on kindness and respect for diversity.

Apps and Tools and Games, Oh My!
by Amanda Mignault

In this session, Amanda will discuss several tools that we can utilize for our virtual classes. These tools are highly engaging for students and enable us to better organize ourselves. They will help us create a fun learning environment, allow for immediate tracking of students' performance, and facilitate their learning through interactive play.

Using Canva in The Foreign Language Classroom
by Christopher Dabb

Christopher provides a thorough list of the ways in which Canva can be used to create a variety of resources to engage students and save teachers time. He includes step-by-step instructions for setting up a free Canva account, creating classes and designing content, such as a storybook, using Canva. In addition, he shows us how to create additional resources such as games, presentations, conversation cards, etc. using this platform.

Brain Break for WLT
by Michelle Rojas Castillo

To keep the students focused on the class and motivate them to learn, Michelle is proposing brain breaks. These activities help to create a pause in the class, during which students can get up, have fun, and distract themselves for a couple of minutes before restarting the class. These brain breaks can also be helpful for learning new vocabulary or practicing the vocabulary they are currently learning. Therefore, they are both fun and educational activities.

Ideas & Resources For World Language Teachers - How Do We Teach Vocabulary Effectively?
by Amy Haney

Amy begins her presentation with several suggestions for teachers that can help them improve their practice, such as collaborating with like-minded colleagues and inviting bilingual members of the community into the classroom. When it comes to vocabulary instruction, Amy advises using backward design to plan a unit, and incorporating platforms such as Edpuzzle, Wordwall, Blooket, Kahoot and Quizlet to engage learners. In addition, Amy suggests a variety of films that are appropriate for the language classroom and the topics that they address.