CI-Reboot Presenters (2023 Version)

Dr. Liam Printer is the Leader of Pedagogical Innovation and Approaches to Learning at the International School of Lausanne in Switzerland where he also teaches Spanish in the middle and high school. He hosts The Motivated Classroom podcast, which focuses on raising motivation in the language classroom through comprehensible methods of instruction. The podcast has now reached over 200,000 downloads after 100 episodes and is listened to every week in over 95 countries. His Doctorate in Education focussed on motivation and teaching languages through co-created storytelling and his research has been published in two peer reviewed journals. Liam has been invited as the keynote speaker at a number of high profile international language teaching conferences, including the Dynamic Language Learning Conference in the Netherlands, the Irish Association of Spanish Teachers national conference and The Goethe Institute Annual Conference in London. He has worked as an educational consultant focussing on teaching languages with compelling, comprehensible input with schools in Australia, Finland, China, The US, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland.

Rachel Lucas is a Spanish teacher and Ed Tech Coach with over 17 years experience. She is passionate about helping language teachers learn how to use technology to save time and engage their students. Rachel is the founder of the Tech for World Language Teachers community. In addition, she is the founder of the World Language Teacher Tech Academy. Rachel regularly hosts online professional development workshops designed specifically for World Language teachers.

Rachel also regularly presents in workshops and conferences such as, the CI Reboot, World Language Teacher Summit and the Florida Foreign Language Association.

You can follow her Facebook page Tech for World Language Teachers. Join the Tech for World Language Teachers Facebook group. The group has over 15,000 language teachers who love to collaborate and share ideas and resources.

Looking for more resources for language teachers, check out the Tech for World Language Teachers blog.

For On-Demand workshops and No-Prep resources visit the World Language Teacher Tech Academy.

Must-Have Tech Tools for Teaching with Comprehensibly

This session will cover the latest tech tools for teaching using CI strategies.

Janique lives in Ghent, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. She started teaching Dutch to illiterate adults in 1985. Now, almost 37 years later, she is still teaching Dutch, but a lot has changed since the early years. Her big discovery was (first) TPR, then TPRS and then so many other CI methodologies. In the beginning it was not easy to use these methods to teach the language to her target audience, but gradually she started to use them more and more (with the necessary adjustments) and started to appreciate them.

At the moment, she cannot imagine teaching in any other way. Her students love coming to class and they really make progress. It is also very satisfying for Janique to be able to work in this way.

Janique gives trainings (also on CI) at the university of Antwerp on regular basis.In the past she presented in the Netherlands and in Sweden. She also gave presentations on previous conferences of Agen (France) and on online conferences “Comprehended!” and “Conference in the Clouds”. ​

Dutch Demo Lesson

I want to give a demo lesson of Dutch, but without any translations. After all, I don’t have a language in common with my students. In addition, my students can not read or write.

Kia London is a passionate educator, writer, and advocate for equity by way of representation in the world language curriculum. She earned a B.A. in Spanish, an M.A. in Linguistics, specializing in language and identity, and is now currently pursuing her M.A. in Spanish. Kia carries seventeen years of experience in the classroom, and has taught Spanish to second language learners, native, and heritage speakers, for all grade levels K-12. She currently teaches Spanish to 5th and 6th grade students, and works in an additional capacity as a DEI Coordinator in her school community.

As an active board member of ICTFL (Illinois Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages), she co-developed and co-leads the Affinity Groups for ICTFL. Kia works to provide fluid, consistent, and equitable professional development opportunities in her region, as well as informal gatherings for teachers. She is also a recipient of the 2022 ICTFL Distinguished Service Award to Foreign Language Learning, for exemplary teaching of language and culture and providing inspiration to students in teacher training and education programs.

Through her brand, Trailblaze Into Language Learning, Kia has provided workshops and webinars focused on student representation, the African Diaspora, and intercultural competence. She has presented at local, state, and regional conferences, as well as the ACTFL conference. As a writer of comprehensible short stories and articles, she successfully designs a rich curriculum filled with victories and stories of African identities, DEI, and student representation.

She enjoys teaching and learning with her students! Her hope and goal for world language education is that every teacher is confident to provide consistent, equitable, and inclusive instruction so that our current and future students can see themselves in the curriculum.

Rubrics and Assessing Students for Success!

The vital necessity in any classroom community is setting your students up for success! Our students need to feel confident that they can grow and progress in their journey of acquiring the language. In In this session, the presenter will discuss strategies, and show examples of how to assess students that have been receiving comprehensible input. Furthermore, the presenter will elaborate on when and how to use specific rubrics, that will support students in their growth of proficiency in the culture and language.

MC Fasheh is currently working at Orange County School of the Arts teaching lower and upper level Spanish courses. She has been a teacher and instructional coach for five years. She learned about using CI in the classroom in her credential program at CSULB and it has been the only methodology she has ever used. She is a member and current president of COACH, a non-profit organization that organizes professional development for teachers specifying in the use of CI and CI strategies, located in Southern California. She loves helping other teachers realize the full potential of using CI in the classroom and believes that with the right supports, every teacher can feel empowered and confident using CI in their classrooms.

Backwards Planning from a Text – Lower Levels

In this session, participants will learn how to backwards plan from a text from how to pick the target structures to giving the input that prepares them to read to follow-up activities to increase exposure to the text.

Explaining the WHY of CI to Students

How do you explain language acquisition to your students? How do you help them understand that it’s not all madness, but carefully thought and planned out instruction? Learn how to explain language acquisition and what CI looks like in the classroom on day 1.

Bill Langley is a Spanish teacher in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the past-chair for the Comprehension-Based Communicative Language Teaching Special Interest Group for ACTFL. Bill organizes the Indiana TCI group, a monthly world language and CCLT support and training group. He is especially interested in supporting classroom practices with current SLA research, and how to get research into the hands of teachers.

Are you even teaching grammar?: A Real Look at Grammar Teaching in the CCLT Classroom

Have you ever gotten pushback from a colleague or administrator because your students don’t “know” grammar? This session is for you! In this session we will explore how Comprehension-Based teachers approach grammar in the classroom, get examples on how to teach “tough” grammar, and learn ways to help students succeed in if they end up in a traditional textbook class without giving up your beliefs about language aquisition.

Sabrina Sebban-Janczak was born and raised in Paris, France and moved to the United States in her late twenties. She currently teaches high school French as well as adults at large. Sabrina has written and translated readers and teacher guides for French learners. She regularly presents at national and international conferences on matters related to best practices in language teaching and acquisition. She regularly does consulting and trains teachers. Sabrina is a passionate language teacher and learner.

Writing Personalized Stories to Use As Readings

In this session, we will dive into the creation process that leads to a reading based on any story or narrative done in class. The primary objective is to show how this process becomes a reading written on the spot as the story unfolds or, equally valid, after the class ends. Often teachers find it difficult to address variances in a multi-level classroom. Our talk will delve into this concern and equip you with tools to meet that challenge. Here is a short description of each step of our process:

a.) Keeping the language comprehensible
b.) Making the experience fun and compelling
c.) Eliciting student input within the multi-level proficiencies of the learners
d.) Creating a data-base of texts that can be retrofitted and adapted to different classes
e.) If time permits, we will discuss our interpretation of how these co-constructed texts represent authentic material

Jenniffer Karilyn Saldaña Whyte was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and migrated to New York City where she became a U.S. citizen at 2 months old. Jenniffer graduated from the Center for the Teaching Profession at Miami Senior High School. She has a B.A. in Spanish education and a Masters degree in Teaching and Learning English. She and her husband have five children, three biological and two adopted, pastor a church together in Anniston, Alabama, and are both Afro-Latinos representing their nations. She is the president and founder of a non-profit 501 (c )(3) organization called Bilingual Kids, Inc., which promotes language learning, culture, and education for children and their families.

She organizes international trips for students to be fully immersed in the Spanish language through medical missions and teaches ESL to adults in her community. A high school Spanish teacher and the past chair of the African American Student Special Interest Group at ACTFL, she is also the very first Zumba instructor to teach a master class at ACTFL. She advocates for unity and the inclusion of Afro-Latinos and other world language learners of African descent in world language classes. Follow her on Facebook: Afro-Latina Teacher or join her groups: Incorporating Afro-Latino Culture in Spanish Classrooms, Incorporating the African Culture in World Language Classrooms. Also, follow her non-profit, Bilingual Kids, Inc. on Facebook.

Toolbox of Goodies: Everything you need to Incorporate African Culture into Your Curriculum

Bringing in the African culture into your curriculum can take some adjustments and planning. Use this practical toolbox of essentials needed in order to incorporate the African culture into your classroom. Participants will receive a guide of units to use in your classroom that will help you be more culturally inclusive.

Donna Tatum-Johns’s passion is twofold: teaching French using CI strategies and supporting teachers in these same techniques. Donna has been teaching French at all levels for 35 years and has been training teachers in acquisition-driven approaches for over 19 years. In addition to teaching full-time in Kentucky, she regularly presents at national, regional and start conferences.

Got Game?: Inserting Play into CI Lessons

Heavy lessons and topics can turn off even the most serious and motivated student. Try breaking up your lessons with a bit of light-hearted play that won’t skimp on the input and might even help students forget that they are learning. In this interactive session, experience various game-like activities suited for virtual, hybrid, or in-person classes that get students up and out of their seats, yelling for more.

AbdelKader Khila currently teaches French and English Language Development at Boyce Middle School in the Upper Saint Clair School District, a suburb of Pittsburgh. He is very passionate about his students and the teaching of languages. Abdelkader is a native of Morocco where he completed his college studies and holds a bachelor degree in Hospitality management from l’Institut Supérieur International du Tourisme, in Tangier, Morocco. AbdelKader immigrated to the U.S in 1997 and was hired by the Walt Disney World company as a Cultural Representative at Epcot. He then moved to Pittsburgh in 1999, and subsequently embarked on a long career as a chef, but ultimately decided to switch careers in 2005 and pursue his dream of becoming a teacher.

AbdelKader holds an MAT (Masters of Arts in Teaching) from the University of Pittsburgh. He also holds an English as a Second Language Program Specialist certification and teaching certifications in French, Arabic, and Middle School Mathematics.

After he was introduced to TPRS by a colleague in 2007, he was instantly hooked and as a result attended various conferences and professional developments in subsequent years. AbdelKader Khila loves to spend time with his kids, Maria 16 and Adam 14. He also enjoys cooking, cycling, bikepacking, playing soccer, traveling, and exploring other cultures.

Teaching CI through Current Events: Le Maroc, grande surprise de la Coupe du Monde

Teaching comprehensible language and culture through the use of current events. The session will include a short background on the recent World Cup in Qatar and on the French speaking country of Morocco who shocked the world by being the first African country to reach the semi finals of the World Cup.

A.C. Quintero is a Spanish teacher in Chicago, IL with 17 years of experience as an International Baccalaureate middle school teacher, high school teacher, and adjunct instructor. She holds a Master’s in Latin American Literature and Cultures coupled with a Master’s in Educational Leadership. These dual degrees have afforded her a vantage point from both ends of the educational spectrum. A.C. has been sharing her unique perspective on pedagogy and language acquisition for more than ten years at national, regional, and state conferences. She was recently the recipient of the AATSP inaugural DEI award. She currently teaches a course on AfroLatinx curriculum integration for Idioma consulting, which has enabled her to help fellow educators thrive in their journey to diversity their curriculum. A.C. is equally passionate about writing curriculum, and comprehensible novels for students. She’s written over 10 novels, which teachers continue to use in their curricula. Novels such as: La clase de confesiones (series)

• El escape
• Las apariencias engañan (series)

These novels provide students with compelling storylines, accessible language, diversity, and most importantly, valuable life lessons.

Myths About Diversifying the Curriculum

This session will challenge the myths that educators believe around diversifying the curriculum, narratives that prevent them rising to their full potential. These myths have paralyzed some teachers to even throw in the towel, because they don’t want to misstep. This session will not only debunk such conspiracies, but also offer teachers strategies for making their curriculum more diverse, student-centered, rich, and robust.

Rachel Lucas is a Spanish teacher and Ed Tech Coach with over 17 years experience. She is passionate about helping language teachers learn how to use technology to save time and engage their students. Rachel is the founder of the Tech for World Language Teachers community. In addition, she is the founder of the World Language Teacher Tech Academy. Rachel regularly hosts online professional development workshops designed specifically for World Language teachers.

Rachel also regularly presents in workshops and conferences such as, the CI Reboot, World Language Teacher Summit and the Florida Foreign Language Association.

You can follow her Facebook page Tech for World Language Teachers. Join the Tech for World Language Teachers Facebook group. The group has over 15,000 language teachers who love to collaborate and share ideas and resources.

Looking for more resources for language teachers, check out the Tech for World Language Teachers blog.

For On-Demand workshops and No-Prep resources visit the World Language Teacher Tech Academy.

Mandarin Language Tasting

Total Physical Response in Mandarin. Cameras on! Come ready to participate and feel what it’s like to be a student. As a teacher, can we speak in the target language from day 1? How much? With TPR, maybe more than you think!

Claudia Elliott is a Spanish teacher in Jacksonville, Florida. She has been teaching Spanish since 2005 and is currently teaching Spanish 1, Spanish 3 IB, and AP Spanish Language and Culture. Claudia is very passionate to implement acquisition-driven instruction in her class while building a strong community with her students. Claudia is the 2021-2022 FFL TOY, and 2022 SCOLT TOY. Claudia also is the host of Growing With Proficiency The Podcast.

How To Engage Students With Comprehensible and Compelling Input?

How can I keep my students engaged? That’s the million-dollar question. The reality is that a good game or activity can help momentarily to boost engagement, but it will not solve the problem. In this session, participants will discover how we can make our classes engaging authentically with content that is not only comprehensible but also compelling. The best part is that most of the strategies shared in this session are low prep so you can reclaim your time while keeping students willingly listening to you.

Elicia Cárdenas is a former middle school Spanish teacher with extensive experience teaching a variety of levels, ages, and subjects. Her experience includes working with preservice teachers at Westminster College and teaching assistant for MIT Teaching Systems Lab and writes for the Education Ethics program at Harvard. Although she was trained as an elementary teacher, she shifted her focus to understanding of second language acquisition and its application to classroom instruction in a world language classroom. She presents regularly at national, regional, and state conferences and is proud to be a member of the IFLT coaching staff. Her areas of expertise include assessment with an equity lens and working to make sure all students are successful at acquiring another language. She is the Director of Training for The Comprehensible Classroom, and is the founder of the Deskless Classroom.

What you didn’t learn in your “methods” class: How languages are acquired

Methods classes are known for focusing on what to do in world language classes, often without providing a foundational understanding of the nature of language acquisition. This session will introduce teachers to some fundamentals about language acquisition, so that teachers can make informed instructional decisions that support all learners.

Haiyun Lu has been an educator since 1993. She is also a certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher from Brown University. She is passionate about employing storytelling in her classes and implementing mindfulness in education. She was a mindfulness coach for her school’s track and field team and the volleyball team. She has been training and coaching language teachers with “teaching with comprehensible input-based instruction” throughout North America and Asia. She is the co-founder of the Comprehensible Midwest Conference, Learn Together Academy and Ignite Chinese. She is a columnist for Intrepid Ed News. She is a blogger and writer; she has written 16 storybooks in Mandarin. When she is not teaching, she likes to hike, meditate, drink tea with friends, enjoy a good meal with family and play games with her son.

Teaching with Comprehensible Input, with the Whole Picture in Mind

It is such an overwhelmingly drowning feeling for anyone new to the TCI world to see the bottom of the ocean clearly. On top of making the paradigm shift in one’s theoretical understanding, harnessing fundamental Acquisition Driven Instructional skills and delivering the classroom execution; one also needs to pivot on their existing curriculum, classroom management, assessment, and grading system. Simply, it is too much to wrap the brain around!

If you are in this boat, no worries! After more than a decade of learning, implementing, tweaking, and pondering on how to break down the fundamentals in TCI, the presenter has also developed a clear TCI framework for you to use as a map. With the map in hand, you will see every step is a benchmark on a big journey.

Adriana Ramírez is a Spanish teacher, author, and teacher trainer. She shares her knowledge and experience of more than 20 years in the classroom, by constantly training other teachers on how to teach with CI methodologies as well as how to incorporate anti-bias and anti-racist work in the language classroom. Adriana has trained teachers in Canada, the US and Europe. She also holds a double major in Psychology, a degree in Clinical Psychology and a Master’s degree in Education. Adriana has a big passion for sharing with the world the beauty of her country and her people. You can see this love through all her published novels. A big advocate of the #OwnVoices movement, Adriana strongly believes that those who come from traditionally oppressed and colonized countries and territories, must reclaim their right to tell their own stories and build their own narratives. Originally from Colombia, she actively works on recuperating the stories and the narrative that are part of her roots and her heritage. You can find her on IG at @veganadri, her website is adrianaramirez.ca, and her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@learningthroughreading

Assessing With The Proficiency Scale In The Language Classroom

Karen Lichtman recently left Northern Illinois University, where she taught Spanish linguistics, methods courses, and directed the Educator Licensure program for ten years. She does research on instructed second language acquisition and TPRS, including her book Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS): An Input-Based Approach to Second Language Instruction.

Research on machine translation and AI in the language classroom

Google Translate and ChatBot: friends, or foes? I will present briefly on the research on machine translation use by language students, and highlight a recent study I did with Angela Gardner where she used a surprisingly simple questioning technique to reduce student temptation to use translators.

Dahiana Castro teaches high school Spanish and French in Long Beach, California. She has a Masters degree in Multi-cultural Education and Second Language Acquisition. She was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Puerto Rico. She moved to California in 2005. She has been teaching Spanish and French for Fluency Fast since 2019 and training teachers in Comprehension-Based Methods since 2017. She is a member of the COACH Foreign Language Project in Southern California and in her spare time she crochets, dances Salsa, travels, runs and grades papers.

Backward Planning Song Lyrics

Music is a great to acquire vocabulary and to expose students to culture. In this session in this session, we will teach you how to use authentic song lyrics as text. We will teach the steps of selecting and planning the vocabulary, how to create a story using the vocabulary from the lyrics, how read the lyrics and listen to the song in many ways and other activities.

Using Current Events As Story Starters

Alpacas escaped from the zoo? Snake found in the sofa? Using unusual current events and images as compelling story starters.

Personalizing Pre Scripted Stories

Co-create a basic story in French with collaboration from the students and to use their contributions to hold their attention and build a positive classroom culture.

Afro-Latin Americans and the Harlem Renaissance

Compelling Culture: How to make most culture topics understandable to novice learners by simplifying the language.

Play a game, guess a riddle, acquire the language

In this session, Dahiana Castro and Carla Tarini will show you how they adapted a familiar guessing game into a fully engaging, multi-purpose CI activity that will have your students listening intently, reading/building pictures in their minds, and squirming in their seats to shout out the answer. Students will beg to play it for the entire period. This game also naturally develops circumlocution skills, creates a bridge from novice to intermediate levels, and provides opportunities for writing and speaking if students are ready. We will demonstrate with examples based on the forthcoming series, À Quoi je pense? / En Qué estoy pensando? however, teachers can easily follow the format in class based on our demo. In English with examples in Spanish and French.

John Bracey has been a Latin teacher in Massachusetts since 2010. He has a B.A. in Classics from UMass Amherst and an MA from Boston College. He has taught Latin exclusively using Comprehensible Input for the past several years. He leads workshops around the country for language teachers of all kinds. He was also the 2016 Massachusetts Latin teacher of the year!

Sustainable CI for the Working Teacher

School years are long and tiring. In this session, attendees will learn easy to implement practices that will make it possible to consistently deliver comprehensible input without burning out.

AbdelKader Khila currently teaches French and English Language Development at Boyce Middle School in the Upper Saint Clair School District, a suburb of Pittsburgh. He is very passionate about his students and the teaching of languages. Abdelkader is a native of Morocco where he completed his college studies and holds a bachelor degree in Hospitality management from l’Institut Supérieur International du Tourisme, in Tangier, Morocco. AbdelKader immigrated to the U.S in 1997 and was hired by the Walt Disney World company as a Cultural Representative at Epcot. He then moved to Pittsburgh in 1999, and subsequently embarked on a long career as a chef, but ultimately decided to switch careers in 2005 and pursue his dream of becoming a teacher. AbdelKader holds an MAT (Masters of Arts in Teaching) from the University of Pittsburgh. He also holds an English as a Second Language Program Specialist certification and teaching certifications in French, Arabic, and Middle School Mathematics. After he was introduced to TPRS by a colleague in 2007, he was instantly hooked and as a result attended various conferences and professional developments in subsequent years. AbdelKader Khila loves to spend time with his kids, Maria 16 and Adam 14. He also enjoys cooking, cycling, bikepacking, playing soccer, traveling, and exploring other cultures.

Teaching CI through Current Events: Le Maroc, grande surprise de la Coupe du Monde

Teaching comprehensible language and culture through the use of current events. The session will include a short background on the recent World Cup in Qatar and on the French speaking country of Morocco who shocked the world by being the first African country to reach the semi finals of the World Cup.

Welcoming Colleagues to the Table: How to Share What Works

All too often, attempts to share success or to influence other teachers—whether about a specific technique or an overall approach rich in communicative comprehensible input—fall flat or, worse, actually discourage or alienate. Geared especially toward teachers who train or mentor others, who share practices in person or online, or whose colleagues have disparate philosophies, this session will help you build trust, communicate clearly, and make a lasting positive impact. We will cover general principles of winsome communication as well as specific ways to memorably share concepts of second language acquisition CI-rich practices.

Benjamin M. Tinsley – A teacher of 14 years and a lifelong student, Ben has dedicated his professional and personal life to the pursuit of substantive diversity, equity, and belonging in education. In the classroom, he has had the opportunity to work with teachers and schools around the world to develop curricula that center Black Indigenous Communities of Color and other historically marginalized peoples.

Ben’s recent work has focused primarily on leveraging language acquisition and language education toward developing global literacy and 21st-Century competencies.

Storytelling In The Real World

In this session, attendees will takeaway concrete practices to leverage geography & history in storytelling to foster intercultural proficiency growth.

Margarita Pérez García is a Venezuelan author of Easy-to-Read literature in Spanish for beginning language learners. With over 25 years of experience as a Spanish and French teacher, Margarita writes high-interest stories about Venezuela’s natural beauty and diverse wildlife, natural disasters and the human impact on the environment combining conservation themes with myths and legends of indigenous cultures. Margarita specialises in supporting struggling readers and learners with reading difficulties and has become a leading author of Easy-to-Read literature. Margarita is a founding member of Acento Latino Libros™, a collective of independent Latin American authors who write easy readers for Spanish language learners. She has authored several books under 100 unique words ideal for level 1 students such as: Juliana, Itipurú y el monstruo del océano, Mosca, ¡¡Mosca!!, Mosca en leche, Mosca, ¿Estás en la Luna? And Arroz con cosas.
Visit her at margaritaperezgarcia.com

Widening perspectives: incorporating indigenous culture in the language classroom

See the rich depth of knowledge held by Indigenous people being embraced, shared and celebrated in your classroom, and broaden your students’ horizons through 10 concrete comprehension-based practices connecting students to kinship, land, law, language and ceremony.

Bertha Delgadillo is a high school Spanish teacher to novice, intermediate ,and heritage Spanish learners in Savannah, Georgia. Originally from Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico & a National Board Certified teacher, Bertha currently shares best practices & professional development for World Language teachers through her blog & active Facebook Page & YouTube Channel “Profesora Delgadillo.” Bertha also serves as the leader of the GA HS Spanish Teacher PLC by providing actionable monthly professional development. Additionally, Bertha facilitates training & observations for new teachers at her school district. She has also presented & facilitated workshops for SCOLT, WL GADoe, Conference in the Cloud, World Language Teacher Summit and numerous districts in the country. She enjoys empowering teachers to continue to stay connected to their passion for world language teaching through sharing practical engagement & student agency strategies all while placing students at the center of the learning experience.

Music to My Ears: Infuse Joy & Inspire in Your WL Classroom with Songs

Songs are powerful authentic resources in our Spanish classroom! Find a song and transform it into an engaging acquisition experience for your students. Discover new ways to connect your learners to the target culture by leading students to discover new artists, making lyrics comprehensible, and providing interactive acquisition-driven activities. Participants will examine several engaging strategies to facilitate a meaningful connection with music in the target language from the target culture.

Carla Tarini attended her first CI workshop over 10 years ago and was hooked within minutes. Since then, she has spent part of almost every summer heading to conferences to learn, coach, and present. Although she just retired from teaching French to middle schoolers, she has not retired from the CI community. In fact, she is thrilled to devote more time to creating reading materials for novice and intermediate level students. She is the author of Qui parle français?, a 10-book series that introduces learners to French speakers from around the world. Her second non-fiction series, in both French and Spanish, À quoi je pense? and ¿En que estoy pensando?, is a twist on the familiar 20-questions guessing game. Carla enjoys working with teachers who are new to CI and sharing with them all the CI tips and tricks she has in her bag.

Play a game, guess a riddle, acquire the language.

In this session, we will show you how we adapted a familiar guessing game into a fully engaging, multi-purpose CI activity that will have your students listening intently, reading/building pictures in their minds, and squirming in their seats to shout out the answer. Students will beg to play it for the entire period. This game also naturally develops circumlocution skills, creates a bridge from novice to intermediate levels, and provides opportunities for writing and speaking if students are ready. We will demonstrate with examples based on the series, À Quoi je pense? / ¿En Qué estoy pensando? however, teachers can easily make up their own riddles in their classes by using ideas from our demo. In English with examples in Spanish and French.

Karen Rowan is the founder and administrator of the IFLT / NTPRS / CI Teaching Facebook Professional Learning Community of 12,000+ teachers.

​She is the author of Las aventuras de Isabela, Isabela captura un congo, ​Carl no quiere ir a México, ​Don Quijote: El último caballero, El callejón del beso (also in French, English, Latin, Russian and Italian) published through Command Performance Language Institute; The Fluency Fast Guide to Self-Coaching, Reader’s Theater for the World Language Classroom, TPR Stories for Paso a paso 1 and 2 and TPR Stories for Realidades 1 and 2. She became the owner of Command Performance when Contee Seely retired in 2019, and now distributes for an additional 35 independently published authors of CI novels.

​She has taught elementary, middle, high school and college as well as adults through Fluency Fast Language Classes using Comprehension-Based methods. For more than 20 years she has trained teachers nationally and internationally. Rowan presents inservices on TPR Storytelling, Comprehension-Based Methods, Reader’s Theater, Self-Coaching for teachers, Adapting the Textbook, Curriculum Development, Storytelling and Personalization. Her school district inservices range from one day through two semesters of training, curriculum development and in-class demonstrations and coaching.

​Rowan created the original Coaching workshops within the National TPRS Conference and was the director of NTPRS for 5 years. In 2008 she was one of the founding members of the International Forum on Language Teaching, IFLT. In 2020 she hosted the CISOS fundraiser for teachers transitioning to online teaching. In 2021 Adriana Ramírez, Dahiana Castro and Karen Rowan launched the first #CIReboot. 

Pre-recorded sessions

Scaffolding Mini-Stories to get to 90% Comprehensible Input,

How to create a text story

What is a Reading Walk?

Using audio books to rest your voice while they act it out, read it simultaneously or draw it

Ben Fisher-Rodriguez is a high school German and Spanish teacher located in Seattle, WA. He has presented at national, regional, and local conferences on lesson planning, high-leverage teaching strategies, and inclusive teaching practices. He is a German Embassy Teacher of Excellence and the WAFLT Teacher of the Year for 2022. He is also the President of the Language Learner Literature Advisory Board. Ben can be found on Twitter @MrFisherSays, and blogs about CI practices at MrFisherSays.com.

The ACTFL Proficiency Levels in Your Classroom

How are the ACTFL Proficiency (Sub-)Levels different from one another, and how can I apply my knowledge of them to my teaching in the classroom? Learn how to differentiate proficiency sublevels in student writing and speaking, and use CI techniques to boost students up the proficiency ladder.

LGBTQ+ Life in Your Stories, Units, and Curriculum

You want to be more inclusive in your curriculum, so that students of all genders and sexualities see themselves and grow in their empathy for others. Great! But maybe you’re getting stuck on the “how?”. Let’s talk ways to include more LGBTQ+ life into your stories, units, and curricula in manageable, actionable steps.

Leslie Davison has 20+ years experience teaching Spanish to students of all ages and all levels. A Google Certified Innovator and National Board Certified Teacher, Leslie currently serves as an Instructional Coach and Spanish/English teacher at a Dual Language Immersion School in Colorado.

Passionate about providing classes full of compelling content based on her students, culture and social justice, Leslie presents at many conferences each year and helps to train teachers around the United States.

Leslie has lived and taught in both Honduras and Singapore and has authored two books: An Educator’s Guide to Dual Language Instruction and El chico global, a comprehension based reader for students learning Spanish. Leslie is currently leading a trip where adult students will learn Spanish while walking a portion of El Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.

Google Walking Tours (Part 1 of 3)

Alisa Shapiro – After a year as a second-grade bilingual teacher, Alisa helped establish her district’s elementary World Language program. She enjoys presenting with her district’s World Language team at local and national workshops & conferences.

Alisa is also a Hebrew instructional trainer. Focusing on meaning and interest, she employs comprehensible input (CI) strategies for highly scaffolded Hebrew language instruction that is understandable to the learner. Her classes are conducted almost exclusively in conversational Hebrew. “CI is engaging, effective and fun, employing collaborative ‘story spinning,’ improvisation and drama, and exploits Hebrew’s most practical, high-frequency vocab.” Blog: cmovan.edublogs.org

Hebrew Language Tasting

CI strategies including story-asking, drama, gesturing and sound effects to spin scenes in Hebrew

Alisa Shapiro – After a year as a second-grade bilingual teacher, Alisa helped establish her district’s elementary World Language program. She enjoys presenting with her district’s World Language team at local and national workshops & conferences.

Alisa is also a Hebrew instructional trainer. Focusing on meaning and interest, she employs comprehensible input (CI) strategies for highly scaffolded Hebrew language instruction that is understandable to the learner. Her classes are conducted almost exclusively in conversational Hebrew. “CI is engaging, effective and fun, employing collaborative ‘story spinning,’ improvisation and drama, and exploits Hebrew’s most practical, high-frequency vocab.” Blog: cmovan.edublogs.org

The Centrality of Implicit Learning

Over the years, researchers and theorists have converged on the following: implicit learning and implicit knowledge are at the heart of acquisition. In this presentation, I will review why implicit learning–and not explicit learning–is central to what learners do. I will then provide implications for acquisition-based communicative language teaching, many of which teachers may have already heard, but may have been reluctant to adopt.

Jason Fritze’s classes are one part stand-up comedy, one part drama class. In story after story, Jason entertains his students while at the same time bringing a vast knowledge of methods that guarantee successful language acquisition. It’s hard to believe you’re in a class at all. Jason has lived in Spain and traveled extensively. He brings culture and language to life when he teaches. His personality and immense knowledge of how languages are acquired and how reading contributes to increasing proficiency make him a valuable asset.

Jason is a National Board Certified Teacher in World Languages Other Than English. He is originally from Oklahoma, where he taught Spanish and French for seven years in Norman Public Schools and was named teacher of the year. He has also taught in New Jersey and Tennessee, and his teaching experience spans from early elementary to adult. He regularly presents at state, regional and national language conferences and conducts workshops/in-services for language teachers throughout the United States on Comprehension-Based Methods and Reading Strategies in the WL classroom. Jason has collected hundreds of children’s books in both Spanish and French that he uses to provide additional reading for students. Jason began teaching Spanish and French for Fluency Fast in 2005.

Jason presents in-services for school districts throughout the year on reading as well as Comprehension-Based Methods and is frequently invited to present at state and national conferences as a keynote speaker and workshop presenter. Contact karen@fluencyfast for availability.

Jason Fritze is the Spirit of Laguna Award Recipient . The award recognizes a District staff member who exemplifies extraordinary service to others.

“I laugh every day with my students. When you tap into the joy that students bring, every day is special.”, says Jason.

What is Comprehension-Based Teaching?

How are languages acquired and what is necessary to foster that acquisition? External noise can distract us from the core of how we can optimize our limited contact time with students to get the biggest bang for our class time minute. This introduction to CI Teaching is meant for beginners and experienced teachers alike.