The AP and IB exams are just around the corner, and you may be feeling like there’s still so much to cover or that your students aren’t quite ready. But don’t panic! In episode 29 of the Growing with Proficiency The Podcast, we’re chatting with Bertha Delgadillo and Christina Margiore, who share their practical strategies for setting your learners up for success.
Bertha and Christina understand the unique challenges that world language teachers face in preparing students for these rigorous exams. That’s why they’re sharing specific tips and techniques that you can implement in your classroom right away to help your students succeed. You’ll also learn how to build student confidence, tailor instruction to different learning styles, and use targeted practice to hone specific skills.
So don’t miss out on this episode! In this post, I am highlighting a few ideas that they shared with me, but to hear all of their tips and strategies, click above to listen to episode 29 or on your favorite podcast player.
Bertha and Christina’s advice will not only help you and your students tackle the upcoming exams with confidence but also set you up for success throughout the year. You’ll also discover the super powerful strategies that will make a real difference in your student’s language proficiency and exam performance.
Give Your Students Confidence
Christina has IB level two seniors this year, who are taking the higher level exam. However, she also has some students taking the standard level exam. Christina shared that she learned throughout her time teaching these courses that as we get closer to these exams, we really have to boost our students confidence.
Christina explained that we all feel that our students aren’t going to be prepared. We should remember that, no matter what you do in a perfect world, you really are still not going to cover everything. There’s always a surprise on the exam, some random topic that you never would have covered that you can’t beat yourself up over. The most important thing is to give your students the confidence that they have enough language skills to be successful on the exam.
What To Expect with World Language Exams
Another thing we discussed was to make sure that students are familiar with the exam situation. What does this mean? You have to keep repeating what to expect many, many times to your students. If they know exactly what they’re walking into, it’s going to lower their stress and anxiety.
Make sure that at least once a week, they’re doing a practice reading and a practice writing in the exact style that they’re going to be doing on their world language exam. Christina suggests giving them space to read it, to figure it out, maybe work together and collaborate and just work through the situation. Listen to episode 29 where she goes into more detail about pulling from old exams and old writings. You can also grab a free IB Language Booster resource that Christina and I collaborated on.
Student Support
Bertha, on the other hand, has only AP Spanish students this year. She shared with us that she especially focuses on feedback the last few weeks before the exam. It’s also not just feedback from her. Bertha has trained her students on how to provide feedback to their peers. She also has a self-assessment rubric that her students use.
At the beginning, students don’t know how to give themselves feedback. So, we have to get them thinking. Bertha does peer assessment where she uses those same rubrics so that they can provide feedback to each other as well. Another strategy Bertha uses is playing a game version of America’s Got Talent. Listen to episode 29 to hear all about it.
Bertha continued to explain how she uses highlighters for even more support for her students. She has them highlight writing pieces. They have to highlight how they have quoted the sources or summarize the sources, their opinion, and their conclusion. Students also have to go back and circle transitional elements, and so on and so forth.
To help teachers with exam preparation, Bertha and I created a course called Making Advanced Spanish Courses Successful, MASCS. Find the link to this and more below. I also collaborated with Christina on Overcoming the Overwhelm of Teaching Language B course. I hope you find this episode and the resources helpful as we get closer to the AP and IB World Language exams.
Links & Resources From Episode 29
My Framework
Growing With CI FB Community
Blog
Teacher Pay Teachers Store
IG & Twitter: @claudiamelliott
AP Multiple Choice Guide for Language Teachers
AP FREE RESPONSE SUPPORT
IB Language Booster
AP Spanish Self-Assessment
AP Spanish Course
IB Spanish B Course
Christina’s Blog
Christina’s IG
Bertha’s Blog
You can also find all of the podcast episodes of Growing with Proficiency The Podcast HERE.
One Response
Thank you so much,dear Claudia yiu read my mind.