If you are a CI teacher and you aren’t on Facebook, you are missing out. Here are 5 Facebook groups to get you started on your professional learning community on Facebook.

iFLT/ NTPRS/ CI Teaching Group

This one is humongous. You’re going to see a lot from Fluency Matters and people who write novels, like Karen Rowan (las aventuras de Isabela) and Carol Gaab (Brandon Brown series). But did you know Stephen Krashen will write on this page sometimes? There are authors of all your curriculums, bloggers and presenters like Martina Bex, Annabelle Allen, Jason Fritze, Erica Peplinski, Bryce Hedstrom, and Grant Boulanger to name a few. There is no way I could name all the brilliant minds on this Facebook group. If you have a question about CI or CI teaching, I can promise you that question has been answered on that Facebook group and probably multiple times.

So, go and join. It is a treasure mine. It would take you weeks to read all the content. There’s so much support plus information about any and all the upcoming events, conferences and other important announcements.

Woology–Sr. Wooly Teachers Group

This is Facebook group for those who use Señor Wooly materials. Señor Wooly has Spanish and French materials so again if you don’t know who Señor Wooly is then head on over to his site and then go join the Facebook group. Jim Wooldridge, himself, communicates with his teachers through this Facebook group as well as many others who have been teaching with Señor Wooly materials for a long time.

Wooly Week is a huge part of the academic year and Woology is main headquarters for information and announcement. Wooldridge also uses it to give information about upcoming products or updates. How cool is that!?! What other curriculum/materials give you a direct line to the creator? It’s amazing. You need to go be a part of this group especially if you use Señor Wooly materials.

SOMOS Curriculum Collaboration Group

If you use Somos curriculum, it just makes sense to join this group right away! Martina and her staff created this to communicate with teachers and it has all kinds of good information and support. There are training opportunities like Facebook Live, announcements, and Q & A.

I know right now they are working on getting all the distance and flex learning materials out there. I mean you can send a message to Martina and her staff. You can read how people are implementing the materials. If you use Garbanzo, there is a whole other Garbanzo Facebook group for just that. Garbanzo is tied to the Somos curriculum. It is a newer learning site and there are updates all the time. You can go in there and it has information on the updates. It has you know especially since it’s a newer website she post you know new updates.

CI Liftoff Group

The CI lift-off Facebook group grew from the main Facebook group (iFLT/NTPRS/CI teaching). Ben Slavic and Tina Hargaden created the group. Tina and her staff plus other teachers using her curriculum post there and discuss all kinds of CI topics. Tina has a new curriculum, website and Youtube channel. She is giving away a FREE curriculum called Stepping Stones. Check it out on Teachers Pay Teachers. I’m excited about this new curriculum because it is a lot of what I’ve wanted to do. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m super excited to to jump in and see what all is available. She has some great things on there.

The last one I’m going to mention is very specific to Spanish teachers and even more specific, it is for Spanish teachers who are not native speakers like me.

How do you say? for SPANISH TEACHERS

Now you might say, “Aren’t there online translators for things like this?” Yes, there are but we all know with as many countries and people who speak Spanish, there are different interpretations.

There is different vocabulary. There are nuances and colloquial meanings. This is the place to post a question to native speakers to get a good idea of the complexity of the Spanish language.

What does this mean? Does this sound natural to you? I saw this in reading, and I didn’t really understand. What it was talking about?

I want to use this word. You know i saw one earlier it was like? Is that considered rude in your country? Some people would say “Yes, that’s so crude!” and there are others who say “No that word is perfectly fine for that situation.”

So, you get to talk about the language and hear native speaker perspectives. Everybody is so kind and patient. I think non-native speakers sometimes are afraid to ask what a word/phrase means because they are worried about what would people think. Maybe they will think we’re not good at our jobs, but that just isn’t true. You’re only not good at your job if you’re not willing to self-reflect and ask for help. I had to put myself out there if I was ever going to be better.

So, those are the five Facebook groups that I highly recommend.

That should get you started, but there are tons more So, I want you to comment and link below Facebook groups you follow that have helped you. ¡Adiós!