I think I’ve come to the end of the acquisition vs. learning distinction for the purposes of language learning in a classroom. Rewind. When I first started investigating second language acquisition research, I was blown away by what I learned about how people really learn languages. It revolutionized my classroom. It brought me to incorporate […]
In case you couldn’t tell, I love storytelling! And at Central States today I had the opportunity to talk about it with a lot of fun teachers and in particular my co-presenter Wendy Farabaugh. It’s not particularly useful for me to offer our slides as we had all of 4 of them; it was not […]
In eleven years of lesson planning, I’ve learned to have a healthy fear of one particular word in that process: and. Picture this: Recently I’m working on a lesson plan, and because I’m “behind” and trying to catch up on the syllabus (which I wrote, and can really change anytime I want), here’s what I end […]
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 […]
Given how long Thomas Sauer and I have been colleagues and friends, I can’t believe we haven’t presented together before. Well, we fixed that on Saturday and presented a 3-hour workshop on effective lesson planning. Two things: 1. Three hours was not enough. 2. I learned at least as much from Thomas as anyone there learned […]
What could you get out of #langchat? You never know! No matter how many years you’ve been teaching, everyone’s bound to come away with some treasurable, profitable nuggets from #langchat. I’m not even sure which recent #langchat this came from. It could have been when we were discussing grit, how we could help learners persevere […]
A few weeks ago the topic for #langchat was about timing and transitioning activities in a class. Then, shortly after, I was teaching a novice-high class of sixth-graders as part of an interview to perhaps go back to teaching next year (MAYBE). (Lesson plan coming soon.) Anyway, it made me think more about this issue […]
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), […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It wasn’t even close. My post on the biggest mistake we make (and are pushed in so many ways to make) as language teachers was hit more than 40% more than the #2 post. We know we’re covering too much content, and we’re tired of being told that’s the right thing to do. Oh- and HAPPY […]