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Growing With Proficiency The Podcast
Welcome to Growing With Proficiency: The Podcast! Are you a World Language teacher who is looking for ideas, strategies, activities, and inspiration to create a World Language class where you and your students enjoy using the language to learn about the world and each other? Do you want to transform your class into an acquisition-driven instruction space where you intentionally provide a ton of comprehensible input?
If you are, you're in the right place.
Let's start this journey together. Head over to IG, and send me a DM @claudiamelliott to let me know what topics you would like me to cover in an upcoming episode.Join my free Facebook community, Growing With C. Also, check out my blog to start discovering some of these ideas and strategies at growingwithproficiency.com
Growing With Proficiency The Podcast
Episode 173: Why Curiosity is Key for Motivation in Language Class: ACTFL Takeaways + Easy CI Strategies for December
If you are exhausted this December and looking for simple, meaningful ways to keep your students engaged — this episode is your cafecito.
I’m sharing what truly stood out at ACTFL this year, and spoiler alert: it wasn’t a new app, a new tech tool, or a shiny new curriculum. It was something much more human:
✨ Curiosity + Safety = Motivation.
In a powerful session with Samara Spielberg, she shared how dopamine rises when learners experience curiosity, anticipation, and the desire to know what happens next. And the moment she said that, everything clicked. I suddenly saw the pattern in the effective activities.
In today’s episode, I break down three simple, low-prep strategies I learned at ACTFL you can use right away in your world language class — even in December — to spark that curiosity while keeping comprehension and safety at the center.
🌟 In this episode you’ll learn:
- Why curiosity naturally increases student motivation
- How Picture Talk with one compelling image can create instant intrigue (learned from Mira Canion)
- How cultural storytelling (inspired by Carolina Gómez) builds prediction, anticipation, and deep meaning
- How the Movie Trailer Technique gives you easy engagement with zero prep
- How simple “cliff-hanger” moments create dopamine, motivation, and comprehension
- Why motivation is not about hype… it’s about relevance, safety, and curiosity
And toward the end, I talk about the piece many of us forget: teachers need community too. ACTFL reminded me that when we feel supported, inspired, and connected — our classrooms change.
Which is exactly why I’m so excited about the six-month membership option now open inside Growing With Proficiency: The Spanish Teacher Academy. This is for any Spanish teacher who wants to grow as a teacher, to gain practical, comprehensible-input strategies, and to access culturally rich units, and a supportive community — without burning out.
If you’re thinking, “I want to teach better, but I need it to feel manageable…” this six-month option is exactly for you. 👉 Join the Academy
The World Largets Lesson with SDG
Samara Spielberg IG: @samaraspielberg
Carolina Gómez IG: @funforspanishteachers
Mira Canion www.miracanion.com
Episode of Growing With Proficiency on Picture Talk
Episode with Karen Rowan on storytelling, comprehension, and brain-friendly instruction
If this episode gave you a spark of hope this December, share it on IG and tag me @growingwithproficiency.
