November 2025 ACTFL Convention
Dawn Kleint
Upper School French Teacher
ACTFL Convention, New Orleans, LA - November 21-23
I went into the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Convention in New Orleans with an open mind, not knowing what to expect, yet hoping to gain some great insights into language teaching. I started the convention on Friday morning with a full schedule, ready to go to all the French seminars that were offered. The first one I attended, a presentation from a doctoral student in French, was very theoretical, and didn’t provide any real-world examples for classroom use. So, I decided after that to broaden my plans a bit to include other languages.
I ended up attending a session called Soy Profe! from a high school Spanish teacher in Baltimore. She was very engaging and enthusiastic. She involved the audience (of adults), provided a handout and showed visuals, including a video of her students doing a demo lesson. Her presentation was one of the most useful ones I attended because it was hands-on, interesting, and easy to replicate.
This teacher implements a daily student-led lesson called Profe de clase, in which she hands over the reins to a student for the first 5 minutes of each class. The student starts out by asking how everyone is doing, reviewing useful emotion vocabulary. Then, she mentions the date and weather, followed by what she calls Calendar Talk. The student mentions any important upcoming dates or events. Then, they finish by asking the class a round or two of personal questions, such as “Do you prefer watermelons or strawberries?”
The class demonstration was performed in a High School Spanish 2 classroom at a private all-girls’ school. It seemed very basic and almost too easy for students’ levels. But I realized after watching it that it provides students with an opportunity to display their knowledge in front of their classmates and to practice speaking in a useful context. The students were engaged because it was one of their peers presenting, and they were excited to learn from them. They also participated actively and perceived the task as attainable – not too easy but not too challenging. Additionally, it was useful for the teacher to be part of the audience. It helped her gauge where each student was in terms of their speaking ability and class engagement. It also gave her an idea of students’ interests and helped settled them into class before the teacher began the lesson. For this reason, it was one of the sessions that created the most lasting impression on me, and which I hope to implement in my own classroom.