March 14, 2015
Good morning from a sunny, beautiful spring day in Minneapolis, the location of the 2015 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. My presentation here is called “Arming Students for a World of Incomprehensible Input.” It’s based on an episode of the Black Box Podcast from last year (listen here, read the script here), […]
premium
March 10, 2015
I’ve been hearing a flurry of comments, great ones, directing teachers to not get so distracted by the 90% TL goal that they forget to make sure they’re speaking comprehensibly. I’m sure you’ve seen and/or committed, as have I, one of these common unfortunate practices: speaking in target language and being super proud of it… except […]
premium
March 6, 2015
Poll: what conference proposals?
premium
Proposals are now open for two of my favorite conferences, my home conference, Kentucky World Language Association, and the 2016 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Conference presentations are only as good as they can relate to the content teachers actually need, so as usual, I’d like to know what you’d like […]
premium
March 2, 2015
Anatomy of a novice question
premium
If you’ve been through ACTFL’s Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) or Modified Oral Proficiency Interview (MOPI) training (I have not), perhaps you can help me clarify an issue when assessing novices. When talking to teachers about what a novice can and can’t do, I’ve heard teachers make this comment: But that’s a question, right? And novices […]
premium
February 24, 2015
I recently observed a teacher practicing prepositional phrases with students and it got me thinking about communicative ways to practice prepositions. A couple of notes: First, most textbook suggested vocabulary lists include way too many prepositions. Take a deep breathe, remember that you can’t control vocabulary, resist the pressure to cover too much content, and determine […]
premium
February 20, 2015
I’m looking forward to participating in a special interview with Paulino Brener on his EPC Show in about a week. Join us online to talk about motivational aspects of our curricula. Cross-posted from Paulino Brener at epcshow.com and you’ll find out more about where to find the video here: Join me on Saturday February 28 […]
premium
February 18, 2015
Are you ready for the most intense, profitable workshop on curriculum planning this summer? I’ve been planning for the 2015 Camp Musicuentos workshops since the inaugural workshop ended last June, and I’m so excited to announce that registration for the events (a 2-day workshop in Louisville, Kentucky, and a one-day workshop in Warwick, RI) is […]
premium
February 17, 2015
Shall we talk labor and delivery a moment? I suspect I have your attention! No worries, I’m not going to get gross. I don’t think so, anyway. But you will get to know me a little bit better. When I was pregnant with my third child, some family friends were visiting, a couple and their […]
premium
February 12, 2015
What does your seating arrangement say about your classroom style? In my last post I made a side comment about how I handle seating assignments and discovered that the only time I’ve written about it on the blog was in the last bullet point in a post on increasing student TL use. How unfortunate, since […]
premium
February 9, 2015
Preservice world language teachers are asking experienced teachers questions they’d like to hear about from the trenches. To find out more about what #Teach2Teach is, see here for an explanation of how it came about, and what the questions are, or how to submit your own question if you’re a teacher in training or a […]
premium
February 3, 2015
Pronunciation gold: Forvo.com
premium
If you haven’t found this resource yet, let me introduce you to Forvo, where you and your students will find close to three million pronunciations of almost as many words in 324 languages. I’m a teacher of a language with very specific pronunciation rules (Spanish) and I have a pretty deep knowledge of how (and […]
premium
January 30, 2015
For the original myths post, click here. You can also view all of the myths posts. This, my eleventh post on myths I believe make us ineffective in the world language classroom, is about saying we’re assessing something without actually asking students to do it. 11. A multiple-choice question counts as a valid assessment of […]
premium