Tips, Tricks, & Techniques: Helping Students Learn, Use, and Recall Kerisa Baedke Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Chicago, Illinois 2009 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Chicago, Illinois 2009

How do you solve a problem like María? How do you teach a child to conjugate? How do you make her see all that she’s meant to be? How do you help her agree, command, and negate? Oh how do you solve a problem like María? How do you help a student understand?

Our job can be more difficult at times than that of Mother Superior and the good sisters. It is our task to help students move concepts and ideas from their short term to their long term memory. I’ve heard it described as moving things off of a student’s working desk and into her filing cabinet, where she can find them whenever she needs them.

Tips, Tricks & Techniques  Chants & Rhymes  Games  Gestures  Graphics  Metaphors  Mnemonics  Music  Sayings  Songs  Chants & Rhymes  Games  Gestures  Graphics  Metaphors  Mnemonics  Music  Sayings  Songs

Spanish Chants - o- amos - as- áis - a- an Yo soyNosotros somos Tú eresVosotros sois Ud./él/ella esUds./ellos/ellas son Uds./ellos/ellas son ellas son

A Rhyme for Spanish Stem-changing verbs give their old stems the boot. 8 stems change, 2 keep their root, to help remember, draw the boot.

Games Card game - 99 Flyswatter vowels Verbs patty-cake Dice games Bingo

Gestures Questions for beginning conversation X, X, T - pouvoir S, S, rien - regular -re verbs Tildes LL, LL, LL, L, L, LL - appeler Belle, bel, beaux Hay Les accents La familia 2 steps forward, 1 step back - reflexives

Graphics / Visuals neparlepas No hay nadie Lucsouvent.

Footwear for verbs

A shoe for every occasion Boot Stem-changers in Spanish & French Regular -er verbs in French -er & -ir verb conjugations in Spanish Shoe Stem-changers with an irregular yo Sandal -ir stem-changers in the preterite

Boots, boots, it’s all about the boots

My cousin & me

Metaphors a wedding a play The subjunctive el pretérito vs el imperfecto

Mnemonic Memory Devices Words or phrases to help students memorize a lot of material, generally lists. They are helpful for learning vocabulary or lists of rules. You generally take the first letter of each word and either arrange them to make a word or you assign a word to each and you make a sentence. I have some mnemonic devices that I give students, but I prefer having students make up their own.

Mnemonics DISHESDISHES ARAR RERER ABERABER STARSTAR ABERABER Los verbos irregulares en el presente del subjuntivo While we do the DISHES this is what we say: Haya, vaya, sea, Sepa, dé, esté.

More Mnemonics PLACEPLACE erception ocation ction ondition motion Uses of the verb estar

Y más WEDDINGWEDDING ish / ill motion oubt / enial esire eneral (prepositions) egation mpersonal expressions Usos del subjuntivo

Student Mnemonics Los Pueblos Invasores en España I - iberos C - celtas F - fenicios G - griegos C - cartagineses R - romanos V - visigodos M - moros Ignacio comerá frutas y gazpacho con Raúl Valdez mañana. Isabel cuenta fuegos grandes cuando Ramón va a mirarlos.

Music Share with a neighbor how you use music in your language classroom. Here are some of my favorites. While students enter. While students work in pairs. While students test. To show the difference between the PC and the imperfect. To review vocabulary and structures.

Sayings & Expressions “In the nous” or “In the no” Are you included in the nous or the nosotros in the question? Y yo, y yo, y yo To T or not to T - that is the question Anybody & I is the nosotros (as) form of the verb Do you need to add a T in the inverted French question? Va - T - il? Peut - elle? Ir is an -ar wannabe Ir wants to run with the in crowd. So it pretends to be a regular -ar verb “var.”

Sing-Along Time ¡Cantemos ya!

Gracias, Thanks For handouts go to If you have tips to share, questions or feedback, please me at