Casa Xelajú Training Workshops, Curriculum Development and Research

Casa Xelajú´s main concern is how to keep the highest standards Spanish education when our teachers go over the Spanish language with students. We know that this is a challenge for our teachers because we have students from all over the world with different linguistic backgrounds and styles of learning a new language. Our teachers are well prepared to teach Spanish in this setting because Casa Xelajú keeps researching to see what is new in the second language acquisition, and often times we invite sociolinguistic experts to train our teachers and they also participate in curriculum development sessions.

Below you will find a partial list of workshops, curriculum development lectures, and seminars that our teachers have received as part of Casa Xelajú´s effort to improve their knowledge and skills in teaching Spanish and Spanish literature to our students.

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CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 2007

In order to make our educational materials more interesting to our students, our teachers work with articles published in newspapers and magazines in Guatemala and Latin America as a part of their curriculum development. These articles focus on local, national and world issues. This is a tremendous benefit for our students because they learn about the social and cultural issues of Guatemala and Latin American while accomplishing linguistics objectives.

All the educational material produced by our staff is based on Bloom's Taxonomy.

December:

1. Abuse of Women by the National Civil Police (PNC)
2. The Death of Pinochet (Ex-Dictator of Chile)

January:

3. Who are the Benítez Brothers?
4. Car Theft in Guatemala
5. The Most Sought After Man in the Closing of BanCafé
6. International Women´s Day (Less Tears and More Action)

February:

7. Under the Boot of the Military: A National Civil Police That Receives Orders From the Military
8. The Interrogation of the Minister of Goverment Carlos Vielmann (The Throwing Out For Lack of Confidence)
9. Gangs Operating Urban Transport

March:

10. Latin America and the Problem of the Name
11. The Literature of Latin America
12. Latin American Plural-Culturalism and Its Women Celebrities
13. Latin America and Its People

 

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WORKSHOPS

Linguistic
R. McKena Brown
Spanish Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University

How to teach Total Physical Response (TPR)
Jonathan Townsend
Southwest High School, Minneapolis.

How to integrate Shelter Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) in your lesson plans.
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

The Adaptation of PACE Model in Teaching Spanish as a Second Language in One on One Instruction
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

Disadventages of Using the Traditional Botton Up Methodology in the Classroom
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

How Students Learn Without Pain: The Use of Top Down Methodology as a New Tool to Improve the Students' Motivation and Accelerate their Language Learning
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

How to Understand and Administrate the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI).
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

Aligning Casa Xelaju's Spanish Curriculum to American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Standards.
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

Adapting to Your Students' learning styles.
Julio E. Batres
Director General, Casa Xelaju.

Literatura Quetzalteca
Francisco Cajas
Escritor e Historiado