Tag Team Coaching and Demos: One Word Images

Classroom Demos, Coaching and Teacher Talk, and Written Explanations

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In this online workshop, learn all the nuts and bolts of making a One Word Image (OWI) and how to adjust the strategy for your beginner, intermediates, and advanced classes.

Short video clips of Kaitlin Leppert and links to specific segments in two videos of Jodi Stokdyk’s Spanish 1 and Spanish 3+ classes lead you through each step.

Clips from a session on One Word Images with Tina Hargaden from Summer Institutes explain the steps and body and voice skills that help you make this fun, creative, simple activity comprehensible and engaging!


Learn concrete, simple steps to create a One Word Image.

Learn to create an "Academic" One Word Image aligned to AP, IB, more advanced topics, or your required themes.

You will receive a list of questions aligned to each of the six AP themes that will allow your students to make personal connections, through the safety of their class's character, to deeper issues of identity, family, science and technology, global challenges, and other real-world issues.


One Word Images are, for many students and teachers, one of their favorite "go-to" strategies, especially for the Description cycle in the latest book from CI Liftoff, Stepping Stones Year One and Beyond. They are really much easier than you think, if you have the tools and training to keep them simple.

Using the resources and information in this short online workshop, you could start tomorrow and create a menagerie of original, adorable characters that most students and teachers love! These characters can become beloved class mascots, and can later go on to star in their own stories, during the "Narration" and "Description within Narration" cycles from Stepping Stones Year One and Beyond.


Your Instructor


Kaitlin and Tina
Kaitlin and Tina

Kaitlin Leppert began a successful transition to teaching with comprehensible input three years ago, and went from wanting to quit teaching to not being able to imagine doing anything else! Kaitlin's students have a passion for communicating in Spanish that shows the joy and happiness that this way of teaching has brought to her classroom. Her passion is supporting other World Language teachers to take it one step at the time, build from success to success, and avoid the overwhelm and lost feeling that can overtake us as we make big changes in our professional life. She enjoys sharing practical, kid- and teacher-friendly strategies for instruction and assessment that allow the brain to exercise its natural ability to build language proficiency.

Tina Hargaden has been a K-12 educator for 14 years, and has taught middle and high school English Language Arts, Reading, Social Studies, French, Spanish and ESOL. Her passion is supporting teachers to strengthen their literacy instruction, design courses that foster efficient and lasting language acquisition, and implement authentic performance assessment, because it is her firm belief that when we shift our language instruction to a proficiency stance, we help ensure equitable access to academic success for more students. She lives in Portland, Oregon and is the founder of the World Language Proficiency Project and CI Liftoff. Tina is the co-author of the book, Year-One:A Natural Approach to the Year, which provides step-by-step guidance for a year of communicative, proficiency-oriented World Language instruction. She has presented and keynoted at numerous state, regional, and national conferences, worked with many school districts and departments, and given workshops and institutes to educators all over to support them in strengthening language outcomes for all students.

Tina and Kaitlin love working together to support other language educators in transforming student outcomes and bringing more joy, connection, and fun into the language classroom!


Frequently Asked Questions


When does the course start and finish?
The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish. The videos and downloads will be available for you whenever you want to access them, and you can download all the documents or read them online, here in the course or as Google Docs.
How long do I have access to the course?
How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.
What if I am unhappy with the course?
We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 30 days and we will give you a full refund!

At the end of the course, you will receive a professional development certificate for four hours of online training.

Get started now!