In episode 87, Stacey interviews Heather Sherrow about the novice-level unit on descriptions that she developed called Soy Yo: Bringing Life, Purpose, and Meaning to Your Novice Descriptions Unit. This unit tackles stereotypes, celebrates differences, and encourages students to be themselves using songs, memes, commercials, tweets, infographics, and other authentic resources. Heather has presented this unit at several conferences including this past November at ACTFL and has generously shared all of her resources online. Listen as Heather describes her unit and then click through to the show notes to access everything mentioned in the episode!
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BONUS RESOURCE: Please print off this Episode Guide to use as a resource as you listen!
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Show Notes
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Heather Sherrow is a middle school Spanish teacher in Howard County, MD. Episode based on presentation done at ACTFL, NECTFL, and MFLA. You can reach out to Heather on Twitter @heather_sherrow
Resources mentioned in this episode…
…Heather’s ENTIRE presentation and ALL of her resources is available at https://tinyurl.com/novicedescriptionsunit
…Courtney Cochran’s dating game
…Kara Jacobs’s resources for Soy Yo
…an article about research that indicates that we make less emotional decisions in a second language
…Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell’s most beautiful people blog post
Previous episodes of WTL you might enjoy if you like this topic…
…Episode 82: Social Justice and Representation with LJ Randolph
…Episode 75: Comprehensifying and Extending Authentic Resources with Kara Jacobs
…Episode 51: Developing as a Professional and Presenting at Conferences with Erin Carlson
This was such a fantastic episode. Heather’s materials are so rich and full of really great input. I feel can easily be adapted to teach my novice college students. I can see how much hard work she put into this. Thank you!
I loved this episode. Thank you for walking us through your thought process in creating this unit, for sharing all of your amazing resources and sparking new ideas for me!
This is why I love our community. Heather freely shares an amazing unit that inspired others and by giving her materials (which are incredible), someone new to the best practices promoted by ACTFL can use and then try to tweak their own units.