The easy-to-implement activities and strategies in this book will help middle and high school foreign language teachers enhance their students' success. It shows how to create a classroom in which students can actively experience, experiment and discover a foreign language. It applies brain research, multiple intelligences, alternative assessment, technology and other educational innovations to the foreign language classroom.

Enhance your students’ success and improve the likelihood of retention with the easy-to-implement activities and strategies in this book! Bestselling author Deborah Blaz shows how to create a classroom in which students can actively experience and explore a world language. The new edition features updates in every chapter and incorporates the latest ACTFL standards, more information on teaching with authentic resources, a new chapter on teaching with technology, and additional resources for personalized learning. It is organized to allow you to easily find and pull activities you want to use in your classroom the very next day. You’ll learn how to... mix up your repertoire of activities, games, and exercises to keep students engaged; introduce students to the culture of the language you teach by hosting parties and celebrations; overcome some of the biggest obstacles in the path to fluency, including verb conjugation, using object pronouns, and the subjunctive mood; customize your teaching strategies to accommodate a broader range of talents, skills, and intelligences; implement new assessment strategies to improve verbal skills and reading comprehension; and more! Bonus: Downloadable versions of some of the resources in this book are available on the Routledge website at www.routledge.com/9781032258294 so you can print and distribute them for immediate classroom use.

Enhance your students’ success and improve the likelihood of retention with the easy-to-implement activities and strategies in this book! Bestselling author Deborah Blaz shows how to create a classroom in which students can actively experience, experiment with and discover a world language. The new edition features updated strategies based on brain-based research and new ideas for using technology and personalized learning. In addition, the book has been reorganized to help you easily find and pull activities you want to use in your classroom the very next day. You’ll learn how to... mix up your repertoire of activities, games, and exercises to keep students engaged; introduce students to the culture of the language you teach by hosting parties and celebrations; overcome some of the biggest obstacles in the path to fluency, including verb conjugation, using object pronouns, and the subjunctive mood; customize your teaching strategies to accommodate a broader range of talents, skills, and intelligences; implement new assessment strategies to improve verbal skills and reading comprehension; and more! Bonus: Downloadable versions of some of the resources in this book are available on the Routledge website at www.routledge.com/9781138049574, so you can print and distribute them for immediate classroom use.

The current thrust in the field of education is to improve teachers’ understanding of how research on best practices can improve student learning. The field of world language education introduces a double, perhaps a triple, bind: teachers must be able to design and deliver instruction that aligns with national expectations for developing students’ language and intercultural abilities for success in the global workplace, yet in schools across America, all K-12 students do not have the opportunity to study languages, even though research supports their astonishing facility for acquisition. Schools and teachers without resources, including time to investigate and implement evidence-based best practices, are ultimately held accountable for student performance. If world language teachers are to advocate for languages, they must use their expertise and share evidence of their students’ progress. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) recently began development of a national research priorities agenda for grades preK-16. Action research, which is classroom-centered and inquiry-based, can contribute to our profession’s efforts, as it helps us to increase awareness of the critical need for language study in grades preK-16. World language teachers can become teacher-researchers in their own classrooms, gathering deeply meaningful insights into their students’ progress that they can share with others. Teacher-researchers investigate innovative approaches in response to their questions about teaching and learning, which are rooted in daily experience. They engage their students in fresh learning activities, and student feedback helps them to make better decisions about instructional and assessment strategies. Results can be shared with stakeholders, including parents, administrators, school board members, and guidance counselors, as evidence of what all kinds of students can do in languages. At a time in our history when we are striving to prepare teachers for 21st-century schools that prioritize global competence, Action Research in the World Language Classroom is a timely resource for the profession. It describes a natural, engaging, motivating way to contribute, particularly for preservice teachers who are shaping their views and understanding about world language instruction and the connections between research and best practices. The book includes four studies conducted by preservice teachers during their student teaching internships in North Carolina public schools. The editor hopes that their work and observations will inspire and assist world language educators at all stages of their careers.

This book focuses on large and small group educational settings and offers brief strategies to engage learners to assure active learning strategies are core to the learning environment. The book opens with an introduction on active learning principles. Each chapter follows with a specific description of a strategy written by authors who are experienced in using the strategy in a classroom environment with students. The chapters are designed to be accessible and practical for the reader to apply in their learning environments.

In this new edition of a bestseller, author Deborah Blaz helps you differentiate lessons for your world language students based on their learning styles, interests, prior knowledge, and comfort zones. This practical book uses brain-based teaching strategies to help students of all ability levels thrive in a rigorous differentiated learning environment. Each chapter provides classroom-tested activities and tiered lesson plans to help you teach vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading, and writing in world language classes in ways that are interactive, engaging, and effective for all learners. Features new to this edition include: Sample thematic units to make your lessons more authentic and immersive New strategies for using technology to differentiate world language instruction Additional checklists, rubrics, and feedback forms to help you organize your lesson plans and track students’ progress New connections to the Common Core State Standards, the ACTFL Standards, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Bloom’s Taxonomy You’ll also learn how to differentiate assessment effectively to help all students show their full potential. Classroom-ready tools and templates can be downloaded as free eResources from our website (www.routledge.com/9781138906181) for immediate use.

This publication provides essential reading for any language teacher. Pupil engagement in the language-learning process is key to success, and with this in mind the authors provide a comprehensive list of ideas as well as explaining the underlying principles of successful language-learning. Neil Jones, Assistant Headteacher Learning a language, especially in a class or group, is an intensely practical subject. Active participation by students is the key to successful language learning at any age or ability level. This book offers teachers a multitude of practical activities in which students take the lead, and clearly links these to the various linguistic and pragmatic skills. The book provides clear and comprehensive guidance on the classroom environment, models of teaching and learning, and assessment. It aims to help teachers plan engaging lessons which will enable all students to develop the key skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing in the target language. Topics covered include: The essentials of language learning Use of the target language; training the ear and training the voice Exploiting audio and video recordings Exploiting texts and pictures Using stories and drama in the classroom, and independent reading Making good use of written work Integrating multimedia resources and the Internet across the language skills Integrating grammar into communication Teaching and Learning Languages has been written in line with national and European language policies, reflecting contemporary trends in the teaching and learning of languages. The text’s focus on active learning and its indispensable guidance for planning lessons make it essential reading for all trainee and practising teachers.