A conversation with Gary DiBianca
If you’ve ever wondered, “CI is great for novices… but do my intermediate students really need it?”—you’re not alone. I hear that question a lot. In this episode of Growing with Proficiency: The Podcast, I invited Gary DiBianca to walk us through what CI looks like in his upper-level classes. His answer is clear: intermediate learners still need comprehensible, repeated, robust input—along with space to ask for clarification when meaning breaks. The strategies don’t disappear; they deepen.
Gary teaches Spanish 4 and Spanish 2 (sometimes Spanish 1) at a public high school in Northeast Ohio. He’s taught Spanish 4 for 23 years (24 total, with one year off that course). In his context, students often begin back in 6th grade, then progress through Levels 2, 3, 4, and AP; 50–70% of his juniors go on to AP Spanish Language and Culture. That mix creates a familiar reality: some students process quickly, others need more time—and everyone benefits from clarity, repetition, and intentional modeling.
What changes in Intermediate (and what doesn’t)
Gary’s core stays the same: teach meaningful content and talk about students’ lives. At Level 4, topics stretch further and go deeper. Grammar isn’t the core, but Gary is intentional about the language he produces and the language he asks students to study. In practice, that means he keeps the input comprehensible—even with advanced structures—repeats key language, and maintains a visible classroom norm to pause and ask when something isn’t clear.
A big early goal is confidence. As in any other language classes, there are students with different proficiency levels. Therefore, building the confidence of every student is key. Also celebrating growth at every starting point prevents students from shutting down. To support that, his room is full of scaffolds—slides with sentence starters, transition words, and language posted around the room—so students can actually do the tasks we ask of them.
How Gary plans: layering + an anchor text written for learners
When Gary plans, he thinks in layers. Take personal identity: students explore who they are, then layer in family expectations, then school expectations. He also believes students need to see that forms exist—not to drill conjugations, but so they can recognize meaning when forms appear in texts.
From there, he chooses an anchor story or novel written for learners. He picks and chooses pieces that match the themes he wants, then backwards plans from that anchor. He builds a web around it—infographics, short readings, short videos, songs, and film/cultural connections—and maps the language he wants to highlight (sometimes based on the time of year, sometimes pulled directly from the texts).
Crucially, the anchor is a text at learners’ level; that’s where the biggest gains happen. On top of that, he adds authentic resources—often one per class—and uses AP/IPA-style prompts (meaning, details, linguistic connections). He sprinkles in songs (quick fill-ins), too. And because many upper-level students miss story-asking, he brings it back—partly for joy, partly because it drives acquisition. He describes upper levels as a mix of acquisition and learning, and he’s comfortable with that balance.
Input he actually uses
While reading together, Gary asks a lot of questions and translates only when needed. He likes short videos (often under four minutes) and uses podcasts and articles, reminding students they won’t understand everything—the skill is finding main ideas and keywords. It’s training for real life and for assessments alike.
Output that builds skill (and reduces shortcuts)
Given the world of AI and translators, Gary leans on in-class writing—even ten minutes helps. He mentions Speakable (Speakable I.O) for instant AI feedback on writing/speaking so students can practice far more than any one teacher can grade. He also uses Boomalang so students can have vetted, one-on-one conversations with native speakers (15 minutes). The confidence shift after that first conversation is real.
Day to day, he uses small-group conversations, turn-and-talks (even more in Spanish 4 than Spanish 2, because question formation is still tough at Intermediate Low/Mid), and mini-presentations that require audience interaction—peers listen, respond, and ask questions.
He also runs Discussion Days, where students discuss about essential questions in a format similar to Socratic Seminars but not quite that complex.
For discussion day, students build a word bank before the talk. Gary projects five questions, sets a one-minute timer per question, students shout out needed words, and he writes them up. If something’s unknown, he pulls up WordReference and they look it up together. When they circle back to question one, a live, student-generated word bank is on the screen. His rubrics cue moves like agree/disagree, give an example, and ask a question—the kinds of behaviors students need for AP and STAMP—and the provided language keeps everyone from getting stuck.
He also uses Socratic seminars/circles (he has a long post about how he runs them). If that feels like a lot at first, he suggests starting with the shorter Discussion Days.
A do-this-tomorrow routine: A Cultural Picture Talk slide for Intermediates
Gary’s quick-start idea is simple and powerful: one Picture Talk slide that mirrors the language we want in output. Choose one picture (he’s aiming for more cultural images, though everyday photos work too). Put question words on the slide, plus the words “would,” “will,” “has/have [done],” and “past.” Around that, keep about ten high-frequency verbs visible.
As you talk, point to those time-frame words—“would” when you’re speaking in a conditional idea, “will” for future, and so on. This helps students develop thoughts across present, future, and past consistently—not perfectly—across many topics. It’s a scaffold for both teacher and students, without turning class into a grammar lecture. And if someone gets lost, they use the class norm and ask for clarification.
If you try the Discussion Day word-bank sprint or Gary’s Cultural Picture Talk this week, I’d love to hear how it goes. My biggest takeaway from this conversation: stay comprehensible, model the language you hope to hear back, and scaffold generously. That’s how intermediate learners grow. 🎧
