Teaching preschool and elementary Spanish is a journey. We always want the best for our students, and our expectations reflect that. It is important to realize that second language acquisition is a long-term endeavor. Your students’ success in Spanish class depends not so much on each individual lesson, but rather on the experience of being […]
Authentic, quality Spanish literature is one of the most important components of any Spanish class. We have written frequently in this blog about the benefits of reading in the foreign language classroom. A difficulty that exists for many teachers is finding quality Spanish storybooks. It is not enough just to have books in Spanish. They must be […]
With spring in the air and beautiful weather, I couldn’t bring myself to teach Spanish inside this week. After some warm-up songs and games on the playground from Sonrisas Level I, I passed out paper and pencils to each student and assigned each one a color. At the top of their pages they wrote headings: […]
The Importance of Early Language Education This is an excellent article by Kathleen M. Marcos from The ERIC Review, 6(1), 2-5. It reaffirms the importance of the work we are doing teaching preschool and elementary Spanish to young children. Second Language Learning: Everyone Can Benefit Kathleen M. Marcos* The 1990s have been a decade of […]
We continue with our series on engaging the imagination through the senses. In this post: SEE, SMELL AND TASTE. To engage the visual imaginations of your preschool and elementary Spanish students, you can use books, photographs, puppets, maps, globes, and artwork. When teaching the seasons, for example, you can bring in pieces of colorful construction paper, […]
In this series we will discuss the importance of engaging the imagination for preschool and elementary Spanish, and we will look at different ways to do this. Engaging the imagination through the senses is a methodology that can make teaching and learning preschool and elementary Spanish almost effortless. At Sonrisas Spanish School, we value the depth […]
We continue with our discussion of the benefits of reading children’s Spanish literature in the elementary Spanish class: Many children’s Spanish books provide opportunities for students to gain an understanding of the relationship between the practices, products, and perspectives of Spanish-speaking cultures. Not only can a book draw students into the target language experience, it […]
We are getting very excited about our new curricula that is almost ready for release. I wanted to post a blog to let everyone know about the new curricula—what is new and improved. Both of our new curricula are part of Sonrisas Spanish School: A Preschool and Elementary Curriculum. The new curricula are Sonrisas Level […]
In the previous blog post I reviewed how to do shared reading in preschool and elementary Spanish classes. Now let’s look at some of the different kinds of books that are effective for shared reading. In each Sonrisas lesson, there are several choices of books for Story Time. The books have been chosen on the basis of […]
What is shared reading? At Sonrisas Spanish School, when we read stories during our preschool and elementary Spanish classes, we use a form of storytelling that is commonly called “shared reading” in the educational world. In her book Invitations, Regie Routman defines shared reading as “any rewarding reading situation in which a learner—or group of […]
