Prepping for MaFLA 2026 got me in a sharing mood

I am very excited to be heading to MaFLA to be presenting a session called "Spoiler Alert" this Friday, 10/30/26. I attended MaFLA numerous times and I have presented there quite a bit: a six hour workshop (2013), a three hour workshop (2018) and various other sessions. One of my faves was this one from 2012 when Twitter #langchat was a thriving PD space... seems so long ago now! Not only have I shared a lot at the MaFLA conference, but I have learned A LOT. MaFLA is an excellent state organization! 

Working on my MaFLA presentation this weekend had me looking through my blog and and seeing how much I have posted, share and reflected here throughout the years - whoa, that is a lot! That has me in a sharing and reflecting mood...

I am at a new school this year - back to PUBLIC education and back in my home state of Massachusetts - which I am very happy about. 

My students (and colleagues - hey Molly if you are reading!) are a pleasure to work with! I have some curriculum docs to work with, but I also have some freedom to get where I need to get. It is the first time in a VERY long time that I don't have readers, which I am adapting to, but really missing. Instead of readers, I am using Gemini to help me create stories and I will also be using some movies along the way.

For my Spanish 3 Honors class, our theme for the quarter is "La vida buena". So far, we have done two units, both based on stories that are based on songs/music videos. The first one was "El mismo sol" (very easy - just wanted to see where students were and have them feel comfortable. The second unit was a much more robust and it was based on the song and music video "La Samaria"(see below). I can't share the entire unit because I compiled a lot of purchased resources that can't be shared, but here is a version with some links and docs taken out and here is the slideshow with some videos and docs taken out. Gemini helped me create the story (not a super engaging story, but it worked) and a few other things - and saved me LOTS of time!

I am excited about the final (shorter) unit for "La buena vida" theme! It is based on one of my favorite Ana Tijoux songs, "Millonaria". I LOVE the song, the video and the message so much! 

I used Gemini to help me with quite a few things in this unit, including the story which is a bit weird and more of a description of the video and song. 

• Here is the unit packet.
• Here is the presentation to go along with it or see below. A few things I love:
• AnneMarie Chase inspired ¿Cómo te sientes hoy?  slides - one created by me and the other by Gemini
• A version of AnneMarie Chase's Art Memory starting on slide 10
• This "¿Estás de acuerdo o no?"activity at the beginning of the unit
• This "Match the line of the song to the simplified phrase" activity
• The personalized questions sprinkled in throughout the story
• The assessment 

On the note of PD, if you are looking for something pretty special to do this summer, join me and AnneMarie Chase in Segovia, Spain!