Curriculum
February 24, 2016
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 […]
premium
December 26, 2015
In the twelfth year of designing syllabi, you may not have “the syllabus to end them all” – of course not! We’re always changing based on successes and challenges, right? But by this time I knew the five ingredients I had to have in a syllabus, and you wanted to hear about them. This August […]
premium
December 13, 2015
After years of teaching students between Novice High and Intermediate Mid, I found myself teaching students with no measurable proficiency. They did not know what loco meant (and had never heard of Zorro!?!) (and hated all heartthrob boy bands?!?!). It was new territory for me. And it was time to take a look at my homework choice […]
premium
November 24, 2015
We’ve been talking for a long time about how we should infuse language classes with language that communicates meaning. We’ve also been talking about how we can make sure the meanings we’re choosing are the ones students actually need and want to communicate in the real world. When meaningful language meets meaningful purposes, whether you realize […]
premium
November 16, 2015
Love the textbook or hate it? Convinced you can’t teach well unless you pitch that textbook in the trash? Convinced you can’t teach without it or you’ll lose your sanity? Wherever you fall, if a textbook is a tool in your classroom, this post is for you. Note that I believe a textbook is just […]
premium
October 21, 2015
Does this sound familiar to you? Via Facebook, Twitter, Edmodo, Google search, or a two-hour plummet down the rabbit hole known as Pinterest, you found exactly the right authentic resource for your upcoming lesson on members of the family. You spent 72 minutes designing a scaffolding activity that would help make it comprehensible and focus your […]
premium
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 […]
premium
September 28, 2015
The Best Laid Plans (KWLA ’15)
premium
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 […]
premium
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. […]
premium
August 13, 2015
What would homework choice look like for elementary students? I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to ask this question earlier. I knew this year I was going to have a group of students ages 6 to 10 but I thought I’d just give them the same options sheet as my older group. Ha! […]
premium
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 […]
premium
August 1, 2015
Can language that’s learned be used in spontaneous communication? Yes. No. Maybe. It’s a big debate in the field of Second Language Acquisition research, and the authors of this article want to encourage all sides to take a more nuanced view of the issue. This question is really complex (when I was unpacking the article […]
premium