Enhancing SPANISH LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION: Practical Activities to Strengthen Your Students' Proficiency in Spanish (Grades 6-12)

Presented by Diego Ojeda
National Award-Winning Spanish Teacher, Author and Presenter

Developed Specifically for Educators Teaching Spanish at the Middle School and High School Levels

Take with you more than 100 activities and games that help build Spanish language proficiency
Original and out-of-the-box techniques for increasing success for all students in your Spanish classes
Engaging strategies that make your students WANT to learn Spanish
Receive a comprehensive digital resource handbook full of strategies to enhance Spanish learning

Practical Ideas and Strategies

This seminar is designed specifically to provide Spanish teachers with dozens of easy-to-implement activities and strategies to enhance students’ success communicating in Spanish. Award-winning Spanish teacher Diego Ojeda has created an idea-packed seminar that will show you how your students can discover and experience the Spanish language in an active and energetic way. Based on an effective use of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning, this seminar incorporates a variety of proven approaches to help each student achieve greater success in learning Spanish. More than 100 engaging language activities will be presented to help strengthen your Spanish language instruction.

You’ll leave this seminar with a valuable collection of innovative teaching strategies in addition to a comprehensive Spanish language teaching digital resource handbook to help you begin to immediately implement these ideas in your Spanish classes.

Ten Key Benefits of Attending

Improve Spanish Language Instruction: Accelerate Your Students’ Achievement in Spanish
This seminar is specifically designed for Spanish teachers looking for a variety of resources and teaching ideas to increase the proficiency of all students in their Spanish language classrooms
Use Comprehensible Input Strategies to Increase Your Students’ Proficiency in Spanish
Help all your students gain proficiency in Spanish through Comprehensible Input strategies
Expand Your Students’ Acquisition of Spanish Vocabulary
Take with you creative and fun activities that will help your students practice and retain their Spanish vocabulary
Increase Students’ Interest in Spanish Language and Culture
Explore proven techniques for strengthening your students’ motivation for speaking and using Spanish
Learn Time-Efficient Ways to Create Virtual Spanish Lessons
Boost student engagement and proficiency in Spanish with virtual Spanish lessons … Here’s how
Help Your Students Speak Spanish
Ways to speak so your students can understand and interact in Spanish
Create a Classroom Community that Motivates Use of the Target Language
Learn techniques on how to create community in the classroom to maximize students’ potential while learning Spanish
Add Energy and Rhythm to Your Spanish Language Classes
Receive practical tips for creating a classroom full of movement and abundant on-task target language usage
Learn About FVR and Comprehensible Readings
Adopt new approaches to reading in the classroom and get a variety of tittles and authors for your FVR library
Receive a Comprehensive Spanish Language Teaching Digital Resource Handbook
Your digital resource handbook has been specifically designed for this seminar … It contains a variety of Spanish language teaching strategies and activities as well as extensive resource lists of Spanish language teaching materials

Outstanding Strategies You Can Use Immediately

Comprehensible input techniques to increase students’ proficiency in the Spanish language
Proven strategies to increase students’ use of the Spanish language
Creative teaching activities you can use right away without extensive preparation
Proven ideas to create a Spanish class environment in which every student feels comfortable
How to use the newest, proven web tools to enhance your Spanish class instruction
Innovative, interactive activities that allow students to use Spanish in a meaningful way
Tips to effectively use music as a teaching aid
Apply a learning-styles approach to more effectively accommodate diverse student abilities during skits and plays
How to motivate your students to converse more in Spanish staying in the target language through comprehensive input
Highly effective learning strategies based on brain research to help your students realize their potential in language learning activities
Interactive strategies to build literacy in Spanish through shared writing and reading
Proven ways to make homework assignments more relevant and connected with your classroom activities

A Message From Your Seminar Leader

Dear Colleague:

Technology, media and more opportunities to travel abroad have made a great impact on the way our students see and perceive their world. It is not just about learning a few words in Spanish in order to survive a week of vacationing in Acapulco or Cancun. Today we see the need to communicate in languages other than English. The case of the Spanish language in the United States is unique. As Spanish teachers, we have the responsibility not only to teach the language, but also to take into account the cultural, social and emotional content. These days the demand for using Spanish is present in many of our students’ very own neighborhoods.

This new dynamic calls for a Spanish teacher who can incorporate cutting-edge technology and stay current with new and innovative world language instruction, someone ready to face the challenge of constant change, who is willing to organize his/her classes in accordance with the students’ real world.

This seminar translates recent language learning initiatives such as proficiency-based instruction, and the use of Comprehensible Input techniques supported by into practical applications that will help you create an enthusiastic, friendly, and culturally aware environment for your Spanish students.

I will share with you the best resources I have used in my own classroom, and we will work with a variety of activities that will help your students communicate in Spanish.

More than 30 years of experience teaching Spanish language in my native Colombia and in the United States at middle, high school and college levels has given me the opportunity to explore, apply and choose the best approaches for every and any context. I have found that the more “tried-and-true” secrets we share with our colleagues, the better our students will learn, and, ultimately, the better we will teach. I invite you to attend my seminar. I’m sure you’ll find it worthwhile and inspiring.

Sincerely,
Diego Ojeda

P.S. Again, the focus in this seminar is on practical teaching ideas specifically designed and adapted for the Spanish language classroom.

Who Should Attend

Spanish Language Teachers, Department Heads and Administrators serving Middle School and High School, and Technology Support Staff who work with Spanish Language Educators

Special Benefits of Attending

Extensive Resource Handbook
Each participant will receive an extensive Spanish language teaching digital resource handbook specifically designed for this seminar. The handbook includes:

Strategies and techniques for enhancing your program
Reproducible templates and worksheets

For in-person seminars, registrants will also receive a printed copy of the resource handbook as long as their registration is received in the BER office at least 15 calendar days before the event.

Share Ideas with Other Educators
This seminar provides participants a great opportunity to share ideas with other educators interested in strengthening their Spanish language instructional program.

Consultation Available
Diego Ojeda will be available for consultation regarding your questions and the unique needs of your own Spanish program.

Semester Credit Option
UMASS Logo Up to four graduate level professional development credits are available with an additional fee and completion of follow-up practicum activities. Details for direct enrollment with University of Massachusetts Global, a nonprofit affiliate, will be available at this program.

Meet Inservice Requirements
At the end of the program, each attendee will receive a certificate of participation that may be used to verify hours of participation in meeting continuing education requirements.

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