Activities
March 12, 2016
A year passing between two versions of the same presentation changes things. That’s even more true when your teaching situation changes. Last year I presented at Central States a session about helping students face a world of incomprehensible input and turn it into the comprehensible input they need for acquisition by teaching circumlocution early and often. […]
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February 10, 2016
Who doesn’t want to talk about cute kids in awesome clothes? I’m sure you’re aware yesterday was Carnaval. Thanks to Allison Wienhold’s post on great Carnaval resources, I was able to give my students an Edmodo assignment that exposed them to some culture (cute culture at that!) and asked them to practice our current ongoing targets, description […]
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December 11, 2015
In March I discovered the catchy, learner-friendly song “El perdón” and blogged about ways to use it in both novice and intermediate classes. That post was the 5th-most popular post of 2015. New song: El perdón for two levels Ever feel behind the times? I just caught the current #1 song on Latin Billboard and […]
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October 27, 2015
You know that glassed-over look that your students get about halfway (a quarter of the way?) through your lesson? The same one you get about 15 minutes into the faculty meeting? Here’s how to fight it. First, realize it’s not your students’ fault. Their brains are designed to filter and process information and the brain […]
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October 16, 2015
Here at TFLA, as I do at many workshops and sessions, I’ll be asking participants to share their ideas, creativity, and lessons learned with those who aren’t able to be here. Most frequently I invite them to do that via Google Drive. I have discovered, however, that not everyone is familiar with how to share […]
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October 12, 2015
In the last year and a half, I have read a research article, recorded a Black Box Podcast, presented a conference session selected as a Central States All-Star session, and blogged – all on the topic of why we should teach the skill of circumlocution early and often. Aside: Circumlocution is the skill of talking […]
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September 25, 2015
¿Cómo y por qué usamos comerciales en la clase de español? Porque ofrecen cultura, una fuente auténtica para practicar la comprensión auditiva, estructuras útiles para mejorar el dominio del idioma y no son muy largos para agotar a los estudiantes con mucho contenido incomprensible. Aquí les doy las diapositivas de mi presentación para KWLA 2015. […]
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September 23, 2015
Who are the most beautiful of the beautiful? Let’s take a basic novice skill that we all have in all our curricula: I can describe someone using common adjectives. We’ve all seen and done a million activities to get students practicing description. Today, let me offer another alternative, one that offers a deep, critical-thinking aspect […]
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August 7, 2015
Easily one of the top five topics if you look at my most popular blog posts: Choice in homework. I won’t go to deeply into what I mean by homework choice because you can see a pretty good summary here in one of the most popular posts of 2014. After you look at that, you […]
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May 27, 2015
Embedded listening
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Are you subscribed to the CASLS weekly newsletter? If not, go here and sign up now, then come back. Every Monday you’ll get quick resources and bite-size, research-packed learning delivered to your inbox. One such week a listening activity caught my eye. The activity was adapted from an activity on Lanternworld (ESL) and with it, CASLS […]
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May 11, 2015
Every once in a while I come across an authentic resource so amazing I have to give it its own blog post to tell you USE THIS RESOURCE. And then there’s this one, which makes me shout #addthis and #bookmarkthis and THEN it leads me straight into an example of something I was just asking […]
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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 […]
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