
I started attending Comprehensible Input workshops with a fabulous teacher named Amy in Washington, DC because it was free development, and I needed to keep up with my PD hours.Ā Amy and CI totally changed my teaching.Ā That following school year, our department of two implemented our own rollout of CI, and my studentsā proficiency BOOMED.Ā Previously, my Spanish 4 students had struggled to write a paragraph mid-year.Ā With CI, my confident Spanish 1ās were writing full-blown stories by December with a smattering of verbs, character descriptions and plot twists like you wouldnāt believe.
What changed?Ā I wasnāt scared anymore.Ā I took small steps to teach as much in Spanish as possible, and I just dove in and got started.Ā I wouldnāt say my class was at 90% Spanish – it still isnāt, but we work through at about 80% Spanish and 20% English.
How to Use Spanish Regularly in your Instruction
Clear Directions
Passing by my classroom, youāll often hear a cue like: āClase, vamos a escribirā and see me holding a pen or marker and miming writing.Ā Thereās a significant pause between clase and the next step.Ā This tells my class to listen before I explain what weāre doing.Ā Once Iāve got their attention, I might borrow a studentās notebook and show and tell what materials we need.
Once I see students starting to pull out notebooks, Iāll voice what I see.Ā āCairo tiene su cuaderno para escribirā¦Ā Alexa estĆ” preparada con su boliā¦āĀ This encourages hesitant students to look at their peers to see what they need.Ā Plus, theyāre all hearing the directions and seeing what they need, which builds language knowledge.
Drawings & Images

Fun Fact: I wanted to be an art teacher when I was little.Ā I loved art class, because my teacher was so creative and fun.Ā However, Iām a terrible artist.Ā But I donāt let that stop me from constantly drawing on the board or using images in my slides to convey meaning.Ā I also have students draw when Iām asking or telling stories so they can process and show understanding.Ā Not sure where to start with storytelling?Ā Check out this post from Srta. Spanish to get started!
Question Words
I love my question words.Ā There are tons on TpT, but I use these free question words from Martina Bex.Ā I keep them on magnets at the top of my white board so I can quickly pull them down toward me when Iām asking questions during class.Ā This helps my students know what kind of answer Iām looking for, because they understand the question word.
I also use my question words to support students in asking questions in Spanish.Ā If a student starts a question, Iāll grab a few question words to see which one they want, and Iāll write their question next to the question word so they can see the full question on the board.
Question words also help my students during independent work because they can easily understand worksheet questions by checking the question words at the front of the room.
Speak Slowly and Clearly & Repeat Yourself
This one speaks for itself but itās TRICKY!Ā When I started teaching, I taught middle school English Language Arts (ELA) and ESL.Ā Even as an ELA teacher, I was speaking too quickly for my English-speaking students!Ā They were overwhelmed, and I had to learn to slow down.Ā I learned to chunk directions, speak more slowly and clearly (which really helped as an ESL teacher too), and repeat myself when my students didnāt get the idea the first time.
Checks for Understanding
In addition to slowing down and speaking clearly, I also started checking for understanding by asking a student to explain what Iād just said.Ā All of these ideas apply in my Spanish classroom as well, and itās great when my students explain what Iāve said in Spanish because 1) Theyāve totally got it! and 2) Theyāre supporting other studentsā understanding.Ā Not into having a student explain in English?Ā Thatās fine.Ā Ask a student to show you what you want them to do.Ā This is a non-verbal check for understanding that shows that they know what to do, and it still supports othersā understanding.Ā To reinforce that vocabulary, you can voice over what theyāre doing in Spanish.
Authenticity & Vulnerability
I saved the best for last here:Ā BE YOURSELF!Ā Make mistakes.Ā Goof around.Ā Itās totally okay to make mistakes and model that vulnerability for your students.Ā When you make a mistake, own up to it – after all, we want our students to make mistakes.
Bonus Support: Word Walls
Another language support tool I use in my classroom is word walls.Ā If your students are like mine and they constantly ask ĀæCómo se diceā¦?, word walls come in really handy because I can direct them to that resource.Ā I have always had the top 50 Spanish words on my wall – get my copy here.
When I Use English in Spanish Class
I don’t often use English – like I said, maybe 20% of the time, but I do use English for…
- Redirection
- Clarification
- Urgent Communication
- Pop-up Grammar
- Connecting with Students
More to come about this in a future blog post – stay tuned!
What do you do in your classroom to stick with Spanish?Ā Leave a comment below!

What would you add to this list? Comment below!
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