Claribel Timmins, Spanish Teacher, Bowling Green Middle School

As a first-year high school Spanish teacher, I walked into my classroom in the fall full of energy, ideas, and a lot of curiosity. I had studied language acquisition theory and communicative approaches, and I had designed engaging lessons. I prepared a mix of traditional and creative activities. But I knew that real insights would come from the students themselves—from what they responded to, what they remembered, and what made them want to participate.

Now, after completing my first full year, I conducted a simple poll to better understand which activities had the biggest impact on my students’ learning. The results were clear—and they confirmed a major lesson I learned this year: Students acquire language most effectively when they are active, engaged, and immersed—especially through culture and games.

Poll Results: What My Students Said Helped Them Learn Best

Activity	% Preference
Learning through culture (e.g., ofrendas, cooking, films, art)	40.7%
Online games (Conjuguemos.com, Kahoot, Wordwall, Bamboozled)	20%
Classroom games (charades, bingo, puzzles, movement-based tasks)	20%
Singing songs	6.8%
Presenting in front of the class	5.1%
Reading a TPR story	3.3%
Creating Google Slides (e.g., mi familia, schedule)	1.7%
Individual work (handouts, worksheets, solo digital tasks)	1.7%
Being asked questions and answering	0%
Using the online textbook (Savvas)	0%

These results didn’t just confirm what my students preferred—they validated much of what language acquisition theory suggests about how people truly acquire a second language.

Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
Stephen Krashen emphasized that learners need comprehensible input—language just above their level that they can still understand. Cultural activities, such as watching films, creating ofrendas, and drawing spirit animals (alebrijes) gave students that input in meaningful, memorable ways. They were learning language in context, not in isolation.

Swain’s Output Hypothesis
Merrill Swain argued that students also need opportunities for output—speaking, writing, and expressing themselves. Activities like classroom games, presentations, and silly songs gave students space to try, make mistakes, and grow more comfortable using Spanish in real time.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Vygotsky taught us that learning happens through social interaction. That’s exactly what I witnessed when students learned how to cook pupusas, laughed during Kahoot games, worked together on puzzles, or moved around the classroom to complete a task. Language was no longer a subject—it became a shared experience.

Interestingly—and not surprisingly, the activities that involved less interaction and less movement scored the lowest. Students reported little benefit from:

• Using the online textbook (0%)
• Doing individual work like worksheets or slide projects (1.7%)
• Being asked and answering questions in a traditional format (0%)

These methods lacked the engagement, collaboration, and personal connection that make language stick. While they served their purpose at times for review or assessment, they didn’t spark joy or long-term retention.

This first year of teaching taught me more than I could have predicted—especially about the power of creating an active, student-centered classroom. Based on these findings and my own observations, here’s what I plan to continue and expand:

• More culture — Culture isn’t a side unit; it’s the core of meaningful language learning. Students connected emotionally and intellectually through cooking, art, and celebration.
• More movement and collaboration — Walking around the room for task cards or playing musical chairs with vocabulary created energy and excitement.
• More games, more fun — Games lower stress, increase repetition, and promote community. They made my classroom a place students wanted to be.
• Less focus on perfection, more focus on participation — I learned that fluency comes from trying, not from always getting it right. My job is to make space for students to try—confidently and often.

As I reflect on my first-year teaching Spanish, I’m grateful not just for what I learned, but for what my students taught me: language learning thrives when it’s active, creative, social, and real.

Whether through games, singing, storytelling, or cultural projects, my students reminded me that language isn’t something we study—it’s something we live. And when we live it together in the classroom, real learning happens. Here’s to year two—and to more culture, more play, more growth, and more joy in the journey of language acquisition.