The Cardinal

Nicola Work, OWLA President 2026-2027
Associate Professor of French, University of Dayton 

Welcome to the 2026–2027 school year! As your OWLA president, I’m excited to kick off the year and share all of the wonderful things we have planned for you—from in-person workshops, online meetups, and professional development to a one-day mini conference and our full conference in fall 2027. And that’s not all…we have an exciting year ahead!

Gather & Grow: OWLA Fall Workshops

Join us October 24 at Buckeye Valley High School for a day of in-person professional development. Choose “Assess with Finesse” or “Hands-on AI Tools” for the morning workshop, followed by “Five Activities, Countless Options” or “Coaching & Collaboration” in the afternoon. Find more information and the registration link here.

Two years ago, I was selected to present at the Ohio World Language Association (OWLA) spring conference. I was presenting ideas to help engage students in the classroom. There was a teacher who attended my presentation. I wish I had her name; I will just call her Angel! She shared that she emails parents at the beginning of the year to request a baby picture of their student. She uses those pictures to help provide comprehensible input. Fast-forward to this school year: I finally figured out how to use that idea. I do a Who Do You Know Wednesday every week. I secretly emailed parents and got so many baby pictures. I placed those pictures in a Google Slide, then covered the pictures with flashcard boxes. The students slowly uncover the picture and try to figure out who it is. The first week, the students were shocked! It was so much fun.

Gail Burkhardt Seay, OWLA Executive Vice President
Spanish Teacher, Marysville Early College High School

Are you looking for a fun way to build community and add a little whimsy to your classroom? Student family groups might be your answer. I learned about creating family groups at a joint OFLA/CSCTFL conference several years ago, and I was excited to try it. It was a little rough at first, but after many tweaks and new ideas, it is now one of my favorite parts of teaching. These are the strategies and ideas that have worked in my classroom.

Deborah Varga, OWLA Immediate Past President
Spanish Teacher, McKinley Senior High School

As I write this article, I am reflecting on what works best for me in my teaching at the beginning of the school year. The first step is that I look at my handouts and digital materials to see if there are any items that need to be modified, completely changed, or sent to the “circular file.” I also do this at the end of the school year, and I still keep a “future activities” folder before summer vacation.

Secondly, I think about how every group of students is different, with different educational and social-emotional needs. This impacts activities and assessments from year to year, especially with pacing. Even gamification activities, such as Gimkit, Kahoot, or Blooket, can pose a dilemma, as some classes prefer one type of activity within a platform. I use Edpuzzle as progress or practice points in class, and I am planning to adapt it with follow-up activities of a non-tech nature. A student recently said that they just click on any answer in an Edpuzzle as they progress through the questions (even though they catch on to concepts quickly). Creating a non-tech follow-up activity, even as an exit ticket, can encourage accountability.

Teri Wiechart, OWLA Parliamentarian & Bylaws Chair
Retired, Delphos Jefferson High School

To fulfill OWLA’s mission, “Every Ohio student will be proficient in a second language, which is essential to a world-class education,” the Executive Board has been quietly doing important work behind the scenes — strengthening the governance structures that keep our organization running smoothly and serving educators across Ohio. We have been focusing on providing strong, useful professional development and other initiatives so that teachers in Ohio are better equipped to fulfill the mission.

Not all of this work is flashy, but it’s foundational. It ensures that OWLA can make decisions consistently and fairly, protect the organization’s mission and resources, and build trust with members through transparency. A strong governance framework means OWLA can spend less time navigating ambiguity and more time advocating for world language education.

Lauren Shaffer, OWLA Executive Recorder & Editor of The Cardinal
Spanish Teacher, Dalton High School

My first grader recently came home from school with a handwritten list of her favorite zoo animals. She proudly informed me that she wrote the list all by herself, without any help from her teacher. Before I explain why her list inspired me to write this article, let’s take a quick quiz. How many of the animal words from her list can you decode?

Megan Frate, OWLA Membership Chair
Spanish Teacher, Westerville City Schools

My PhD is a marathon, not a sprint. I take one class per semester and usually walk away the better for it. This semester the course is titled “Case Studies.” Although I need to be viewing it through the lens of my research interests, I can’t stop thinking about how this information will benefit my 25 AP Spanish students who need to confidently tackle the new course project. This is because the revised AP World Language course positions students as researchers who use the target language to investigate cultural questions.

This new take forces teachers to consider the question:
How do we teach students to become better researchers while simultaneously developing their language proficiency?

Kaleigh Baker, OWLA Editor for Electronic Media
Spanish Teacher, Covington High School

A number of years ago, I started teaching about El Camino de Santiago in my Spanish 3 class. It is always very well received and has made me want to make the unit even more robust this year. I used The Comprehensible Classroom’s Somos 1, Unit 23, as a starting point and then supplemented it with a lot of my own materials, culminating in a Camino around the school!

Over the years, I have accumulated a lot of resources about El Camino, and I combined them into one big HyperDoc. A HyperDoc kind of works like a WebQuest, except instead of sending students to a website, I link a lot of different resources in a Google Doc. Students work through it, clicking on the links to the resources. Here is a link to my HyperDoc so you can see it!

Alexis Blum, OWLA Professional Development Chair
Spanish Teacher, Wapakoneta High School

Welcome back, OWLA! I hope your school year is off to a great start. Over the summer, I spent some time reflecting on my classroom activities and things that I wanted to improve for this school year. Every May, I find myself looking back on the year and thinking, “Next year I will do XYZ differently.” Like many teachers, I feel that I am constantly adapting my curriculum to meet the needs of my students and making changes that benefit the learning environment for everyone.

For context, I teach Spanish 1 and a mixed-level class of Spanish 3 and 4 students. Every class period brings a wide variety of learning needs and proficiency levels. Over the last few years, I have found it increasingly difficult to engage students in activities that require extended focus or concentration. I love to play games and incorporate highly engaging activities in my classroom, but over the course of last year I found that my students really struggled to engage with content that wasn’t presented in a game. I was constantly being asked, “Are we doing something fun today?” or “Are we playing any games today?” I was mildly offended because I think my class is fun every day! And why was there an expectation that if we weren’t playing a game, we were wasting our time?

Terri Marlow, OWLA Public Relations & Advocacy Chair 

Bear with me a moment before reading one idea that answers the “HOW?”

Consider the power of an image. Does this graphic remind you of Ohio’s Wright brothers and their journey to realize an uncertain goal?   What personal qualities does the image represent? Creativity? Struggle? Determination? Resilience? Daring? Perseverance? And eventual success? Isn’t it interesting that most of these qualities reflect the personal traits and transferable skills that college admissions officers and employers list as highly desirable in candidates?

Equally interesting is the scientifically proven fact that these characteristics are a natural “byproduct” of second-language learning (L²L). Leveraging this connection, we can make an important point to legislators, educators, and officials who make educational policy decisions: incorporating L²L as an essential element in the K–12 curriculum is an efficient and cost-effective way to help our students acquire the skills they will need in the 21^st century — skills that will provide them a lifetime of benefits.

And now, one answer to the “HOW?” — BE VISIBLE!