Learn tricks of the trade from a master teacher. Jan Kittok has 25 years of experience as a K-12 Spanish teacher. In addition, she has 17 years of leading summer and weekend Spanish language immersion camping and study abroad programs. FLES* We Can! and Immersion or Submersion? apply language acquisition principles to practical strategies specific to K-8 and/or immersion settings. Also, check out Jan’s signature district workshops, Language Learning Redefined: Proficiency Through Global Studies. Contact Jan to schedule an inservice today.
FLES We Can! (for teachers of K-8 learners)
Magical Elementary Strategies: Music, Movement and Story
- Stories teach language in a natural context. Experience language acquisition through the students’ eyes and ears. Teachers become learners during a demonstration story lesson taught in Swedish! How can we maximize learning with limited class time?
- Learn a surefire step-by-step process for teaching a song or choral reading
- Canción del año: An original Spanish song with actions written by Jan Kittok to teach all the months, seasons, weather, calendar expressions and other high-frequency vocabulary. Receive a ready-to-duplicate copy of the lyrics, follow-up written activities and a teacher’s guide with lesson ideas. Teaching strategies apply of all languages.
- Top 10 TPR Tricks for high student engagement and keeping the teacher sane. The seminar leader will walk teachers through a process for designing, scripting and delivering TPR lessons with follow-up activities. These are tricks rarely taught in methods class or other workshops.
Optional follow-up FLES seminar: Global Competence in the FLES Classroom
Global competence development starts in the elementary grades. How can we teach geography, history and biographies to start building students’ foundational world knowledge in FLES programs? How can we do this in the target language?
*FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary School)
- Participants will talk immersion and be immersed. Teachers become learners during a demonstration story lesson taught in Swedish! How can we make a language comprehensible? See and feel how these strategies support the learner when you experience being a language learner yourself.
- Helping students feel at ease is a key to learning, not just language learning. What strategies can teachers use to intentionally create and maintain an atmosphere where students are encouraged to be risk-takers?
- Learning content while acquiring a new language is the core of immersion. Demonstration geography and biography mini-lessons illustrate key immersion principles. Discussion guides participants to applications in their own classrooms.
- Literacy: Experience how oral language development paves the way to reading comprehension. Experience reading a text where you must guess meaning from context. Teachers gain insights into recognizing text complexity and strategize about ways to help students overcome obstacles to comprehension.
“Your presentations were inspirational and informative, relevant and useful. Your presentation skills are world-class…Your workshops were well prepared, exposing us to a range of research, strategies and ideas…Your enthusiasm was boundless and you are a wonderfully talented entertainer…You made us laugh, you made us think and you made us learn some Swedish!”
Association of Chinese and Mongolian International Schools
Contact Jan to bring an inservice to your school/city.
See also Teacher Inservice, a game-changing professional development series.