Tips, Tricks, & Techniques:
Helping Students Learn,
Use, and Recall
Kerisa Baedke
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
Spanish Chants
-o
- amos
- as
- áis
-a
- an
-a
- an
-a
- an
Yo soy
Nosotros somos
Tú eres
Vosotros sois
Ud./él/ella es
Uds./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
Luc
ne
No
parle
hay
pas souvent.
nadie
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
The subjunctive
a play
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
D
I
S
H
E
S
A
R
E
A
S
A
R
B
T
B
E
A
E
R
R
R
R
While we do the DISHES
Los verbos irregulares en el
presente del subjuntivo
this is what we say:
Haya, vaya, sea,
Sepa, dé, esté.
More Mnemonics
P erception
L ocation
A ction
C ondition
E motion
Uses of the verb estar
Y más
W ish / ill
E
motion
D
oubt / enial
D
esire
I
mpersonal expressions
N egation
G eneral (prepositions)
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 review vocabulary and structures.
To show the difference between the PC
and the imperfect.
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
Anybody & I is the nosotros (as) form of the verb
To T or not to T - that is the question
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
http://home.mchsi.com/~kbaedke/index.html
If you have tips to share, questions or
feedback, please email me at
kbaedke@waukee.k12.ia.us