Tag Archives: meredith white

106: Interpersonal Activities and Student Engagement

Posted on | Leave a comment


This is episode 5 in my 2023 summer headspace series. This is a chance to revisit episodes from the previous school year during the summer months when you may have a little extra time. Beginning August 28th, you will see new episodes with exciting new topics every Monday.  For today we take a look back at episodes 78 where Meredith White shares lots of interpersonal activities and episode 82 where Wendy Mercado and Valérie Greer give us a wealth of engaging language activities.  Let’s jump in.

  • Meredith White (76): how prescribed (curriculum) grammar and vocabulary come into play with communicative activities
  • effective interpersonal (and communicative) activities that we can use in our classrooms
  • Wendy Mercado & Valérie Greer (82): how “games” or “activities” address skill development and standards
  • lots of ideas for engaging activities and games
    • High Tech
    • Some Tech
    • Low Tech
    • No Tech

Episodes: 

Work with Joshua either in person or remotely.

Follow wherever you listen to podcasts.

Teachers want to hear from you and what you are proud of in your classroom.
Join me on the podcast.
We record conversations remotely, so you can be anywhere.

Leave a comment

Posted in Podcast Episodes

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

76: Interpersonal Activities with Meredith White

Posted on | 3 comments


Are you getting the most out of the interpersonal activities that you use in your classroom?   In this episode, THE Meredith White, a Spanish teacher in Georgia, joins me with lots of ideas for interpersonal activities that you can use right away in your classroom.  So many of my guests have mentioned Meredith White and the activities that she shares. I had to get right to the source …So let’s jump in. 

Topics in this episode:

  • Meredith’s  personal journey with interpersonal activities
  • feedback from Thomas Sauer : “But what’s the point?”
  • what makes an activity communicative and what about those partner activities that appear to be interactive and interpersonal, but might not be
  • how prescribed (curriculum) grammar and vocabulary come into play with communicative activities?
  • effective interpersonal (and communicative) activities that we can use in our classrooms

Connect with Meredith White:

Work with Joshua either in person or remotely.

Follow wherever you listen to podcasts.

Teachers want to hear from you and what you are proud of in your classroom.
Join me on the podcast.
We record conversations remotely, so you can be anywhere.

3 Comments

Posted in Activities and Games, Classroom Procedures, Podcast Episodes

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Use Google Slides™ to Create Interactive Stacks

Posted on | Leave a comment

Once in a while I see a post on or tweet and it sparks a new idea.  Maybe I don’t do it the exact way that it was shown, but it gets the wheels turning.

This happed last week when I saw a tweet from Meredith White, a Spanish teacher in Georgia.  She shared a Google Slide™ tip and I got to thinking right away about all the ways that I could use it to engage students with their language learning.

Use Google Slides™ to Create Interactive Stacks (French, Spanish)

Essentially, Meredith showed that you can pile up text boxes and then have students work through the “stack” and move the boxes around the screen.

Here is the run-down of how to do it:

🖱 Click image
🖱 Duplicate as many times as you want
🖱 To turn those into a stack, select all images
🖱 Click arrange, choose left
🖱 Click arrange, choose top
✨ Now students can drag & drop from a stack.

And here is a quick video that shows how to do this and an idea that I came up with that uses the stack:

I hope this inspired you in the same way it inspired me.

Leave a comment

Posted in Activities and Games, Grammar and Structures, Online Activities, Technology

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,