If you’re looking for a few new ideas to keep your world language students engaged while building their proficiency and cultural understanding, you’re in the right place! At our recent Winter Conference of Growing With Proficiency: The Spanish Teacher Academy, I had the incredible opportunity to learn from some incredible educators. There was so much valuable information in the conference that I decided to slip all my takeaways into two episodes and blog posts.
In this first part and episode, I’ll share insights and activities from Annabelle Williamson (aka La Maestra Loca) about brain breaks, Carolina Gómez about map talk, and Bertha Delgadillo about reading novels that you can take straight into your classroom.
Brain Breaks: Small Pauses, Big Impact
Brain breaks are more than just quick pauses—they are powerful tools for maintaining focus, reducing stress, and boosting participation. But let’s be honest—many of us hesitate to use them. The biggest concern? How do I get my students back on track afterward?
If you’ve ever asked yourself that, you’re not alone! That’s why Annabelle emphasized that while brain breaks should be fun, they also need structure to be effective.
How to Make Brain Breaks Work:
✅ Set clear expectations. In my class, I assign a Brain Break Manager—a student who models the activity with me before the whole class participates. This helps everyone understand what to do and how to transition smoothly back to learning.
✅ Use attention signals. I love using Hola, hola / Coca Cola! But you can use any call-and-response that works for you. The key? Wait for complete silence before starting the brain break. I talked more about call and response strategies in Episode 110 which you can listen to here.
✅ Keep them short. 30 seconds to 1 minute is the sweet spot. You want students refreshed—not overly excited.
✅ Pick what works for you. Whether it’s a quick stretch, a mini dance, or greeting three classmates in Spanish, find an activity that fits your classroom vibe.
Brain Breaks That Work
These are two of the many brain breaks that Annabelle shared with us. I tried them both in my class, and my students loved them.
⭐ The Number Game
1️⃣ Students work in pairs and stand back to back.
2️⃣ They count to three and turn around, showing a random number with their fingers.
3️⃣ The first to say the sum of both numbers in Spanish wins!
This game is so fun and super quick. Plus, it helps reinforce numbers in a low-stakes way. Here’s a blog post with a video that La Maestra Loca shared in her blog.
⭐ Pass It On
1️⃣ Students form a circle, and one person secretly receives an object (like an eraser or a small toy).
2️⃣ The class starts passing it behind their backs while one student (the guesser) stands in the middle.
3️⃣ The guesser asks ¿Lo tienes? (Do you have it?) to different students until they figure out who’s holding the object.
Students LOVE this game. Check out this blog post and video from La Maestra Loca playing it!
📌 Why Brain Breaks Matter: Research shows that incorporating short breaks improves participation, motivation, and overall class energy. Even just a minute-long reset can help students stay engaged and more willing to use the target language.
Exploring the World with Map Talk
Next up, Carolina Gómez introduced us to Map Talk, a strategy that makes geography comprehensible in the language classroom. The idea? Use maps as visual support to talk and explore different communities and their cultures.
A great tip from Ben Tinsley, a huge advocate for Map Talk, is to start local. Instead of jumping straight into other communities, begin with your students’ own community.
💡 How to Start a Map Talk: 🗺️ Show a map of your city and ask simple questions:
- Where is our city located?
- Is our city big or small?
- What is near our city?
Once students are comfortable with these questions and build their linguistic knowledge about the necessary vocabulary, gradually introduce maps of other places and expand the conversation!
Carolina also introduced me to a new concept: geo-literacy—which isn’t just about knowing where places are but also understanding the people who live there and how we are all interconnected. This opens up opportunities for deeper discussions about culture and perspectives.
🌎 One powerful example: As you may know, the Gulf of Mexico is labeled Gulf of America on U.S. maps 😯. However, the Gulf of Mexico is Golfo de México if you access google maps from other countries like Mexico as well in most official maps for other countries. This can spark fascinating conversations about how geography shapes worldviews. Questions like who names places? how does that affect our understanding of the world? can be very interesting for our classes, and even if we cannot ask those questions, just to mention this fact can ignite curiosity.
Using Google My Maps in Class
Carolina also introduced Google My Maps, a tool that lets teachers create custom maps. It’s incredibly useful for: ✅ Virtual field trips ✅ Scavenger hunts ✅ Cultural comparisons
📌 How to Use It:
1️⃣ Go to Google My Maps and create a new map.
2️⃣ Add a title and description.
3️⃣ Search for locations and add layers (historical sites, landmarks, restaurants, etc.).
4️⃣ Place markers with descriptions, images, and links to videos.
Students LOVE interactive activities, and this tool makes geography and culture come alive!
Storytelling with Novels: Deepening Intercultural Understanding
Finally, Bertha Delgadillo shared ways to bring stories to life in the language classroom. The big takeaway? Don’t just read a novel—use it as a springboard for deeper cultural exploration.
Often, we focus on surface-level cultural elements like food and holidays. But Bertha encouraged us to go beyond that and challenge students to think critically about diverse perspectives and biases.
📖 How to Deepen Cultural Connections with Novels
✅ Choose books that showcase rich cultural elements.
✅ Ask students to reflect on biases and stereotypes they might have.
✅ Fill in your own cultural knowledge gaps through research.
One of the most fun activities Bertha shared was Reverse Charades, a game she learned from Sarah Berkeley.
🎭 How to Play Reverse Charades:
1️⃣ Divide the class into two teams.
2️⃣ Each team has two guessers, while the rest are actors.
3️⃣ Show a sentence that the actors must act out (without speaking!).
4️⃣ The guessers write down their answer in the target langauge.
5️⃣ The first team to guess correctly wins!
Students love this game because it’s fast-paced and forces them to think in Spanish. Plus, it builds confidence in both speaking and writing. This is a video of Sarah explaining the game.
What’s Next?
Whew! That was a lot, but I hope you found something useful to try in your classroom. These strategies can make a huge difference in engagement and language acquisition.
In Part 2, I’ll share even more—specifically, output strategies and activities you can use to keep your students interacting in Spanish.
Curious about our Spanish teacher community? Join the waitlist for the Growing With Proficiency Spanish Teacher Academy to receive more information!
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