miércoles, 1 de octubre de 2025

ACQUIRE & INSPIRE: Immersive Spanish Teacher Workshop Series in Segovia, Spain

 

Join Kara Jacobs and AnneMarie Chase on a ten day Professional Development trip in Segovia, Spain from June 16 – June 25, 2026.

Workshops:

You will participate in six morning workshops designed to hone your Acquisition Driven Instruction skills, taught by Kara and AnneMarie. Topics range from Unit Design, Comprehensible Culture, Assessment and you’ll even experience acquiring a new language like our students do.  Our small group (limited to 12 participants) will allow you plenty of time to dig in, ask loads of questions and process your learning along with other motivated, like-minded ADI  Spanish teachers from all over the US and beyond. The cherry on top is the location of our workshops: overlooking the Plaza Mayor of Segovia, right next to the Cathedral! There’s no AC at our workshop location, but we’ll be comfortable with Segovia’s mild morning temperatures. 

Homestay:

You will spend 9 nights with a Spanish host family, right in the city of Segovia, within walking distance from our workshop location. You’ll enjoy a light breakfast, lunch and dinner with your new familia española who is excited to share their city and home with you!   And just to put your mind at ease, our host families are carefully vetted and have been hosting students for years with Centro de Estudios Hispánicos de Segovia, our partner in this trip. Additionally,  you’ll have your own bedroom during your homestay.

Cultural Activities:

Segovia has so much to offer and we will take advantage of it! You’ll spend most mornings in professional development workshops, but afternoons and evenings are dedicated to discovering Segovia and its culture. No visit would be complete without exploring the magnificent Alcázar de Segovia. We’ll also learn about the historic acueducto romano that towers over the city and wander through the walled casco histórico. In addition, we’ll take a day trip to the charming town of San Ildefonso to enjoy its magnificent gardens and tour the Palacio Real de La Granja. Saturday is yours to design—whether that means visiting Segovia’s many museums and cafés, strolling its picturesque plazas, or even taking a quick day trip to Madrid or Salamanca with your colegas. We also have a few cultural surprises planned along the way. By the end of the program, you’ll leave Segovia not only steeped in Spanish culture, but also inspired and ready to bring fresh ideas and experiences back to your classroom.

Who is this trip designed for?!

Spanish teachers who are interested in developing their Acquisition Driven Instruction/ Comprehensible Input Teaching skills alongside like minded teachers. An adventurous spirit is important too: if public transportation, staying with a Spanish family who won’t have air conditioning and lots of walking, a bit of hiking, climbing stairs and maybe even taking a dance lesson doesn’t sound like a good time, this isn’t the trip for you! If you have questions or concerns, please reach out; we’d love to chat with you! 

Sound like the trip of a lifetime? We would love for you to join the adventure! Spots are limited to 12  participants, so don’t wait to sign up!

Total Cost: $2,700 USD

What’s included? 

  • Included in the trip cost:
  • Homestay experience (private bedroom, shared bathroom) including a light breakfast, lunch and dinner each day
  • 6 Professional Development Workshops (divided into 14 sessions) taught by Kara Jacobs and AnneMarie Chase
  • Cultural activities in the afternoons/evenings
  • Farewell dinner
  • Certificate of completion for 50 hours of Professional Development

What’s not included?

  • Flight to and from Madrid
  • Transportation to and from Segovia  (Bus or Taxi, we will provide detailed recommendations)
  • Travel Insurance, optional but recommended
  • Snacks, souvenirs and spending money (our participants enjoy going out for a quick bite during our morning break, since Spanish breakfasts are much lighter than typical American ones.)
  • Optional graduate credits through Southern New Hampshire University, if this interests you, please inquire!
2025 participants enjoying a cafecito during
our morning break on the Plaza mayor

Ready to join us?! Next steps and important dates:

ASAP: Sign up here and pay $700 deposit to reserve your spot, limited to the first 12 registrations!

  • Deposits can be paid by check, made out to “Spanish Teacher PD Abroad LLC” and mailed to:  Kara Jacobs PO Box 500, Andover, NH 03216. Checks must be received within 10 days of completing the form to hold your space. 
  • If you prefer to pay by credit card, you can pay via PayPal paypal.me/SegoviaADI, however PayPal charges a 3% processing fee so the deposit total is $721

January 31st – 2nd payment of $1000 

($1030 if you pay by credit card through paypal.me/SegoviaADI)

May 1st – final payment of $1000

             ($1030 if you pay by credit card through paypal.me/SegoviaADI)

TBD: Zoom meeting for participants, to learn more details regarding schedule, packing, etc. 

A few more things:

We need a minimum of 12 participants for this trip to move forward. In addition, given current economic uncertainty and fluctuations in the USD-Euro exchange rate, we are monitoring costs closely to ensure the trip remains feasible. With this in mind, we ask that you wait until January 15th before purchasing plane tickets or making final travel arrangements. On that date, we will confirm whether the trip is officially on—at which point you can book your flights, start packing, and get excited! If we are unable to move forward with this trip, your $700 deposit will be fully refunded.

Cancellation & Refund Policy

We understand that plans can change, and we want to be as fair as possible while also ensuring that we can meet our commitments in Spain. Please review the following cancellation policy before reserving your spot:

  • Deposit ($700 / $721 via PayPal): Fully refundable (less PayPal fees if applicable) if the trip is canceled by organizers. If you withdraw, deposits are refundable until January 15, 2026. After January 15, the  deposit is non-refundable, unless we can fill your spot.
  • Second Payment ($1000 / $1030 via PayPal, due January 31, 2026): Refundable (less PayPal fees if applicable) until March 1, 2026. After March 1st, this payment is non-refundable, unless we can fill your spot.
  • Final Payment ($1000 / $1030 via PayPal, due May 1, 2026): Refundable (less PayPal fees if applicable) until June 1, 2026. After June 1st, this payment is non-refundable, unless we can fill your spot.

If the trip is canceled by organizers (e.g., not reaching 12 participants, extreme circumstances): All payments, including deposits, will be refunded in full.

If you have any questions, email AnneMarie (senorachase@gmail.com) or Kara (kjacobs147@gmail.com). We hope you can join us!

martes, 12 de agosto de 2025

New post-AP-Film class --> First unit: Diarios de Motocicleta

 For a variety of reasons, I am so excited for this school year! It is my third year at my current year (after 18 years at the same school 💚 and 24 years in public) and I am excited to be teaching and creating a new course for our post-AP (or heritage speakers or native speakers or Intermediate High students). This is the description of the course:

This course is for students with an Intermediate High or above proficiency level in Spanish. Through authentic films, students will learn about a variety of cultural products, practices and perspectives from a variety of Spanish speaking countries. In addition, students will learn about the history, politics, arts, and music of a variety of Spanish speaking countries. This class will be conducted entirely in Spanish. Assessments will be widely varied and will be in the three modes of communication. Discussion based classes will be frequent and will be student-led.

I use lots of films in AP, but I have always wanted to develop this course. In particular because I won't have the pressure of test prep ---> writing argumentative essays, teaching multiple choice strategies, etc.

For the first unit, I am going to use a movie that I haven't used in years: Diarios de Motocicleta. When I was in Segovia on a fab PD experience, one of the teachers - Justine! - reminded me of it. While the film has a few issues and a couple of scenes that I will skip, I think it will be an excellent, nuanced film to start the course... and I LOVE Gael García Bernal (we will also be doing a unit with También la lluvia, an all time fave!).


I have created resources here (still a bit of a work in progress): unit packet and slideshow that walks through the unit. I got a lot of help from ChatGPT throughout - saves SO MUCH TIME!!

Some things that the unit includes:



domingo, 4 de mayo de 2025

Un recurso para enseñar sobre la inmigración



I have taught about immigration/migration MANY times, in many levels (scroll through some of my previous posts here). It is can be tricky, but it is also VERY important. 

I just taught a variation of some of those units in my AP class (here is the unit packet). The main resources were the movie Icebox (from 2019, but sitll relevant!), the book Testigo: La historia de Brayan (I was way for four class days, so my students read it on their own) and a wide variety of songs related to immigration/migration. Feel free to check out the Essential Questions and Assessments in the unit packet as well.

In addition to the obvious goals of acquiring lots of language and communicating (interpretively, interpersonally and presentationally) with each other about the topic, a few of my other goals for this unit were for students to:

  • Understand how COMPLICATED immigration is.
  • Have empathy for people who are undocumented. 
  • Learn some facts about things that are happening right now.
My AMAZING students were VERY engaged and learned a TON.

Feel free to peruse what we did in the unit packet (lots of great stuff, including some good input dictados for Icebox), but the main thing I wanted to share is what we did with this  New York Times article "¿Qué derechos tienen las personas migrantes en EE. UU.?".

I made this slideshow and this student sheet to delve into the article and make it interactive (students had to work in groups and guess some of the answers).