Language shaping Solutions
Lesson Plans for French & Spanish
Integrate Culture into your Lessons
We provide profession lesson plans for Spanish and French teachers with students at the novice and intermediate levels. We also offer free resources from our classrooms.
Successful Teachers from Across the Country
Our teachers have taught in all regions of the country. They have been honored at the state and national levels. They are available via email to answer questions, help you get started on your own units and support the curriculum that you purchase from us.
Free and Professional Resources for Teachers
The teacher-authors at language shaping would also like to share many of the activities, templates, rubrics, and strategies developed for their classes. Each month, we add to our library of resources.
The language shaping team combines years of practical teaching experience with the latest research and best practices. All of our award winning teacher-authors hold advanced degrees and are recognized by their colleagues as leaders in the field.
Paris Granville, Director
Paris taught for 15 years before focusing on Language Shaping full time. Her teaching assignments range from preschool to adult education. She wrote the curriculum for a new foreign language in the elementary school (FLES) program in the Ankeny Public Schools in 1988. The Iowa Foreign Language Association named her the 1995 Iowa Elementary Foreign Language Teacher of the Year. Later, she taught at John Witherspoon middle school in Princeton, NJ, where she worked on aligning instruction with the National Standards. In California, she created thematic units for middle school curriculum that focused on weaving culture and literature into communication. During her tenure at Pleasant Hill Middle School, she was filmed by WGBH Boston for the Annenberg standards project. She is currently the editor of Learning Languages the academic journal of the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL). Her most recent book is Au Café. You can contact her at paris@languageshaping.com
Priscilla Russel, Author
Priscilla G. Russel is the Supervisor of World Languages and ESL/Bilingual Instruction for the Princeton (NJ) Regional Schools. She directs the K-12 language program that begins with Spanish for all students in Kindergarten and offers six languages in high school. Outside of the district Priscilla is a frequent speaker at state, regional and national meetings and is often invited to school districts. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Masters in Applied Spanish Program at The College of New Jersey and the World Languages Content Specialist for the Princeton University Teacher Prep program. She enjoys incorporating folk literature into curricula and thematic planning. The author of Unos animalitos astutos and Mitos del mundo azteca, folktale-based curricula published by Language Shaping, and Urban Parks, an online learning scenario commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Education, she is eager to collaborate with Eugenia on a thematic unit about the Galapagos Islands.
Joan Jobbins
Joan Jobbins began teaching 35 years ago and is still passionate about what she does. After teaching American culture and conversation in Tours, France through the Fulbright program, Joan finished her Master's Degree in French at Rutgers University where she also taught elementary and intermediate French. Since then, she has taught French in the middle school, high school and adult education. She has settled in the middle school, where she enjoys the energy, creativity and excitement of the age level. She designed the thematic unit La Cigale et la fourmi to be used with her seventh and eighth graders. In addition to stimulating and challenging students, she hopes that other teachers can find some ideas and tools to expand their own teaching "bag of tricks" with this unit.
Eugenia Porello
Born in Córdoba, Argentina, Eugenia Porello arrived in the USA through a faculty exchange program to teach Spanish as a second language to American students in the year 2000. Although Eugenia graduated as a teacher of English from the National University of Córdoba, she decided to go back to school when assigned to teach her native language. Her Master’s Degree in Applied Spanish from the College of New Jersey helped reshape her teaching philosophy and inspire her creativity. Porello’s passion is split between teaching and art. As an emerging self-taught artist, Eugenia started showing her work in the streets of Córdoba, then overseas in California, London, Amsterdam, Munich and Bologna. This book expands her artistic vision to another canvas and the world of digital illustration. Authoring her first book, Mitos del mundo azteca, inspired Eugenia to continue creating vibrant and exciting works of art while renewing her commitment to teaching.