From Input to Output: 5 High-Impact Strategies From our Summer Conference at GWP The Spanish Teacher Academy

In episode 112 of “Growing With Proficiency The Podcast,” we dive into five game-changing, low-prep strategies that can transform your world language classroom. 

Whether you’re looking to build stronger connections with your students, make reading more interactive, or boost student output with minimal prep, these ideas have you covered. 

Low-Prep Strategy #1: Passwords

‘Passwords’ were part of Dahiana Castro’s presentation in the conference. What are passwords? They are expressions or rejoinders given to students as a class code to enter class. 

How do you use passwords? It’s simple. As you are standing at the entrance of class, your students will say the expression or rejoinder as they enter and you respond to them. For example, the password expression could be “Hola Buena Suerte” (Hi, Good Luck).  Then, you would say the students name and respond with the same expression. 

Passwords may sound silly, but it has benefits. These moments help build community and personal connections with your students, especially in large classes, because you are making eye contact with your students and saying their name. I couldn’t believe the impact this has had on my students!

Low-Prep Strategy #2: Popcorn

The next strategy I share is the popcorn game (palomitas) learned from Nelly Andrade’s conference session on reading. The game involves creating cards with 10-15 tasks, such as questions, sentences, or illustrations, and placing them in a popcorn or brown bag.

These are great after you read something, especially a novel. Students work in groups of three to four to complete tasks. One student starts when the student has the bag. They select a paper, open it up, read the task, question, sentence, or illustration, and then this student completes the task. If the group says, “Yes, that was correct”, the student will hold the card. The winner is the student who has the most cards. But, if they pull out a popcorn card, they must put all other cards back. 

In episode 112, I share some variations that you can do with this game to make it even more fun, such as throwing in a Brain Break. Listen above or here for those extra suggestions. I also share some ideas for upper levels. 

Low-Prep Strategy #3: Scrambled Chapter Titles

The next strategy was presented by Jennifer Degenhardt and Teresa Marrama. Its ‘Scrambled Chapter Titles’. Basically, the concept is to scramble chapter titles from a novel and having students rearrange them in order. It can really help students get excited and curious about a book. 

In episode 112, I suggest adding key sentences from each chapter to provide more context and help students understand the book better. This activity can be used as a pre-reading or post-reading activity to create curiosity and engagement with the text.

Jennifer also mentioned in the session about character autopsy, and I love this idea because it’s a post-reading activity. The character autopsy activity involves illustrating a character and creating sentences for each body part. I share all of the details about character autopsy in Episode Nine of GWP The Podcast. Listen here. 

I also created a template for this activity, and you can get that template through the link in the resource section below.

Output 

Next in episode 112, I moved onto output. Output doesn’t help us to acquire the language, but output has its own role. I mentioned in the podcast that I did two incredible episodes about output with Dr Florencia Henshaw in Episode 56 and 57  that I want you to listen to if you’re interested in understanding more about output.

Frameworks for Leveling Up Language

Bethanie Drew presented in the conference on the subject of supporting student output. She introduced three frameworks for supporting students in producing language output: affirmative and negative, myself and someone else, and answer and add more information. This is strategy #4 that I share in episode 112. 

For ‘myself and someone else’, one example is that I want to say, “I like to ski, but my kids, Lucas and Matteo, love to ski also”. So, I’m adding a new person, which is going to give me more ideas to write a more detailed and more elaborated text. 

For the third one, ‘answer and add more information’, an example would be, “This weekend, I will go to the movies with my friends to watch the new movie”. In episode 112, I also give an example of ‘affirmative and negative’.

These frameworks help students create more complex sentences and elaborate on their ideas. It’s also super important to model the language for your students. 

Low-Prep Strategy #5: Silent Discussions

The strategy ‘silent discussions’ is where students engage in written conversations rather than spoken ones. Chelsea Lawrence presented on this topic at the conference. Some of the benefits of silent discussions are that it encourages participation and helps you see each student’s response. 

Silent discussions involve students responding to prompts or materials in writing and using different color markers so you can identify individual contributions. I suggest using existing activities like ‘weekend chat’ and adapting them to silent discussions for better engagement and participation.

You can find Bethany’s weekend chats here. You can also listen to episode 9 at the link below to hear more about her strategies. Listen to episode 112 above or here for my full explanation of silent discussions with more examples.

Don’t miss out on these simple yet transformative ideas that can make a big impact in your classroom, listen to episode 112 here. In the episode, I also share a special invitation to a private tour of the Growing With Proficiency Spanish Teacher Academy! Find the link below. Each year, members have access to two conferences. Sign up for the full tour of the Academy to learn more.