Proficiency Insider

Bold ideas and practical resources for your language classroom

• Help your students take a risk
• Speak up for languages
• Catch up with us at a fall language conference
• Watch a video on how to use our new proficiency trackers

What would you like to read about? We'd love to hear from you! 

Happy Teaching!


 

Help your students take a risk

Your voice matters

On the road with Wayside

Proficiency trackers

Help your students track their growth and their performance toward proficiency with our new proficiency trackers, now available on the Learning Site. Available for both our Spanish series EntreCulturas and our French series EntreCultures, you can use the trackers by downloading and printing them from the Learning Site or assign them online for each unit and for the entire year. 



Here's a brief tutorial with our digital specialist Jen Cornell, who walks you through how to find and implement the trackers, using EntreCulturas as an example. 


 

Not familiar with our Learning Site yet? Sign up now to explore our Spanish and French series, including the Proficiency Trackers, or to sample any of our other language programs.



 

Ya sabes

Bold ideas and practical resources for your Spanish classroom

Dear educators:

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Ya sabes, your go-to source for everything you need to take your Spanish language instruction to the next level. In this issue: 

• Get creative by incorporating art and music into your lessons
• Find out how to make the most of online learning communities
• Preview the upcoming addition to the EntreCulturas series
• Watch as the authors of Triángulo APreciado talk proficiency

What would you like to read about? We’d love to hear from you! 

¡Felicidades!


 

Salvador Dalí meets Lady Gaga

“One of the most effective ways to elicit emotion-driven learning in our language classes is through the universal medium of art,” says EntreCulturas 4 coauthor Cecilia Herrera. In our latest post on the Wayside Blog, she explains how she brings together Salvador Dalí’s art and Lady Gaga’s music and performances for an engaging and relevant classroom activity. 


 

5 tips for making the most of online learning communities

Do you ever feel isolated as you plan, grade, or build relationships with your students? Fortunately, there are thriving world language teacher communities online, ready to lend support. Ashley Uyaguari, host of the Inspired Proficiency podcast series, shares her best tips for finding and making the most of these communities. 

Peek inside EntreCulturas 4

Prepare your learners for the rigors of the AP® Spanish exam and beyond with the AP®-style tasks in EntreCulturas 4. EntreCulturas 4 is designed so that students engage with content in a sequence that drives retention; connect with meaning through vocabulary and grammar discovery; and participate in classroom communication that is real and relevant. EntreCulturas 4 is packed with authentic resources, vocabulary and grammar exploration, and opportunities to develop intercultural awareness.


 

Triángulo APreciado authors talk about the new sixth edition

Did you know?

The new edition of Triángulo APreciado is the ONLY proficiency-driven advanced Spanish textbook that includes and meets all of the latest College Board updates and requirements for the AP® Spanish Language and Culture Exam.

Triángulo APreciado has all of the AP® test preparation you would expect without having to teach only to the test. Triángulo APreciado prepares students to go beyond a successful exam. It prepares them to communicate with their neighbors in a grocery store, to understand global issues from an intercultural perspective, and to participate in adulthood as a global citizen. 

We recently talked to Triángulo APreciado authors Frank Masel and Lou Baskinger who gave us some inside details on what makes this new edition so special. 

        
 

A propos

Ideas and resources for your French classroom

In this issue:

• Making the case for interculturality
• More paths to proficiency for your novice learners
• 5 tips for making the most of online learning communities

What would you like to read about in the next issue? We’d love to hear from you! 

Bon cours,

In case you missed it: Making the case for interculturality

We loved meeting so many of you at this year’s AATF conference in Philadelphia. 

In case you missed EntreCultures coauthor Ed Weiss’ presentation on interculturality, you can catch up with his latest post on our blog, where he argues that there is no way to replicate the experience of living in a country where the target language is spoken. 


 

More paths to proficiency for your novice French learners

We launched our groundbreaking French language program, EntreCultures 1 and 2, this summer. Now we are pleased to introduce EntreCultures 1A and 1B in a new special edition for middle schools and for schools that use non-traditional scheduling. 

EntreCultures 1A (novice-low to novice-mid) and EntreCulturas 1B (novice-mid to novice-high) allow greater flexibility for classrooms to complete the first year of French over a longer period of time. The topics, resources, and themes are relevant and appropriate for middle school students and an overlapping unit between the two editions allows for continuity.

  
 

Take a peek inside EntreCultures 3

EntreCultures 3 will take your students’ proficiency and knowledge of French culture to the pre-AP® level. Covering engaging topics like friendships, the effects of digital media, and healthy habits, EntreCultures 3 integrates a diverse variety of authentic resources that drive the cultural contexts for communicative tasks. 

EntreCultures 3 will be available in late 2020, but you can take a peek inside now!

  
 

5 tips for making the most of online learning communities

Do you ever feel isolated as you plan, grade, or build relationships with your students? Fortunately, there are thriving world language teacher communities online, ready to lend support. Ashley Uyaguari, host of the Inspired Proficiency podcast series, collected her best tips for finding and making the most of these communities.