Personal development
February 21, 2013
Burning out or burning bright?
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Some time ago a couple of tweets came from my PLN that caught my eye. Blair Richards (@ouiouicestlavie) commented, “4 years into teaching and I’m exhausted. Any wisdom on how to make this a sustainable career without killing myself?” Then Katie Hellerman (@klhellerman) wrote, “I love #TPRS and the results. But even after 3 years I find […]
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January 16, 2013
For the original myths post, click here. You can also view all of the myths posts. Because myths 8 and 9 are related, I want to address them together. The connection between them is that they both make us give up on giving novices authentic materials. When I wrote about myth 7, I compared Taco […]
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December 28, 2012
You could probably guess what the most popular New Year’s resolutions are; you’ve probably made them yourself. Get in shape, eat better, save money, quit smoking, volunteer. You could probably also guess many of the popular resolutions for teachers: be more organized, have a positive attitude, involve students more, set goals. What about you? Are […]
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September 22, 2012
Here is the Prezi for my presentation about student choice in homework and assessment for the Kentucky World Language Association’s Fall 2012 conference. For more information, see the original post It’s time for them to use their time, as well as Design your own final exam and the Google doc of my class’s weekly activity […]
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September 21, 2012
Here’s the Prezi from my presentation at the Kentucky World Language Association, Kick the Vocab Quiz. For all my posts tagged ‘vocabulary,’ click here.
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August 28, 2012
Myth #7: Spanish Mike is a taco.
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It’s about time I picked up the task of finishing my myths posts! For the original post, click here. Myth #7: Media produced for language learners counts as authentic materials (or, “The ‘First Semester of Spanish Love Song’ is the best video ever!”) Most media in the world language classroom is a taco. It’s not just […]
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August 26, 2012
Last spring, we surveyed our 8th, 10th, and 11th grade students about 1) their outlook or motivation for continuing or not continuing to learn Spanish and 2) what they thought they could do in Spanish. After the motivation questions, students were given a list of “I Can” statements related to communicative functions in Spanish. Options […]
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August 8, 2012
Maintaining personal proficiency
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This question has been suggested a couple of times on #langchat: How do you maintain your personal proficiency? Someone asked me this same question at a PD session I was at last year, adding that she only teaches novice learners and so she feels like she’s only speaking novice language for practice. Then I […]
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July 30, 2012
A study in motivation
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I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on the continuity of our Spanish program at my school. We have a new 2nd grade – 8th grade teacher coming in this year, and I consider that a good opportunity to take a fresh look at how the three of us Spanish teachers are working together to […]
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July 17, 2012
Book review: The Talent Code
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The newest addition is eating a lot and sleeping, well, not so long as Baby Whisperer says she should be, so suffice to say I’m getting a lot of reading done these days [okay, mostly nights], particularly since my library started eBook lending. So far this summer I’ve read, for example, Brain Rules for Baby and The […]
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September 30, 2008
Think you can’t know if students understand without them giving you translations (or you providing them)? See if this presentation can change your mind. Tips on why and how we should be assessing comprehension without English in the world language classroom. This presentation was given at the Kentucky World Language Association’s fall 2008 conference in […]
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