Teachers: a free 4-week root & register warmup sequence
Four weeks of 10–15 minute classroom warmups for Spanish, French, German, and Italian — roots, register swaps, collocations, and media Fridays.
How to run a warmup
Ten to fifteen minutes. Projector or paper. Students speak or write — they do not only tap. Hide glosses when possible. End with one reusable sentence as the exit ticket.
- Keep the clock honest — if half the room cannot finish, shorten the prompt and show a model earlier.
- Do not replace a failed warmup with a new app demo.
- Collect exit tickets; return one highlight next class.
Four-week plan
Week 1 · Roots — Mon: one Explorer family, invent sentences. Wed: cloze from the same family. Fri: students teach one member to a partner.
Week 2 · Register swaps — Mon: formal vs informal openings. Wed: rewrite a text message into an email. Fri: roleplay complaint desk (Lei/Sie/usted/vous).
Week 3 · Collocations — Mon: five high-frequency collocations. Wed: find the trap calque. Fri: write a 60-word paragraph forced to use three collocations.
Week 4 · Media Friday chain — Tue: preview vocab. Fri: 3-minute clip + retell pairs + one neutral summary. Use media sheets.
Full nine weeks with timing and answer keys: teachers sequence. Optional PDF: Classroom Warmups ($12).
One worked cycle
Complete one media or reading input, one production task with model compare, and one register sprint. Write down a single phrase you will reuse in a real message this week. If you skip the reuse step, the cycle does not count.
Time-box: twelve minutes to draft, three minutes to edit for register only. Speak the final version once. If speech and writing disagree, simplify the written text until both match.
Model micro-task: write forty words, speak them, then edit one register feature only (opening, hedge, or closing). Stop when speech and writing agree.
Differentiation
A2: allow English retell once. B1: target language only. C1: add a register constraint (must use two hedges). Homeschool: same steps, voice-note exit ticket.
Self-score rubric (every Friday)
- Task (0–2) — answered the brief completely
- Register (0–2) — formality matches the situation
- Collocation / connectors (0–2) — natural glue, not calques
- Control (0–2) — forms stable under time pressure
Aim for 6/8 before increasing difficulty. Below 4/8: repeat the same brief once — do not add new apps. For fast Fridays, score exit tickets 0–2 for task and register only.
Printable exit-ticket bank
Roots: one sentence with two family members. Register: one SMS rewritten as email. Collocations: one paragraph with three forced phrases. Media: one neutral three-sentence summary.
Seven-day practice contract
For the next seven days, complete three finished loops only: input with retell, production with model compare, and a fifteen-minute register or collocation sprint. Write scores in a simple table. If any loop is skipped, restart the seven-day contract rather than stacking guilt. Tools and guides on this site exist to make that loop obvious — not to multiply options.
Related: tools · guides · academic banks · teachers sequence · B2→C1 emails.
FAQ
- Is this a full curriculum?
- No. It is a warmup spine you can attach to any textbook. For a longer map, see the 9-week teachers sequence.