Uncategorized
March 31, 2011
If you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say this post is about dismantling myths, go back and read this post. Photo by T. Hart Myths 2 & 3:2. Learning about language is enough (Or, “I don’t have to speak the TL in the classroom”). and its cousin 3. Grammatical terms are actually […]
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March 29, 2011
Activity 1: Cuento poco a poco
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Telling a story by categories photo by flamingoo This idea came from a session at CSC on theater that was generally so awful that I left halfway through. Really, it was so bad it was painful. But, I came away with this activity that I thought I could make work in my classroom. In “Cuento […]
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March 23, 2011
(Trying to) Make learning fun
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What happens when all the fun goes out of learning language? The students disengage. Learning doesn’t have to be entertainment for entertainment’s sake, but I’m learning that if students aren’t engaged in learning, they see it as hard and not just boring–the opposite of fun. Hi, my name is Sra. Cottrell and I am not […]
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February 25, 2011
In the past week I added two new options to my AP class’s out-of-class fluency homework options. One is from personal experience and the other came as a result of tech recommendations from @usamimi74 on Twitter. photo by Israel Avila The first is to post-it 10 items in your house that you don’t know the […]
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February 23, 2011
photo by Jorge Mejía Peralta Sra. Birch commented on this post adding my lyrics file to Google docs, offering a link to her awesome wiki that has a link to her spreadsheet of music. It’s an amazing store of music categorized by singer, title, grammar focus, and other info, including YouTube links. It’s cool enough […]
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February 17, 2011
If you didn’t catch my post about my ACTFL proposal, Dismantling the Myths that Prevent Proficiency, you’ll need to back up a bit and read this. Myth #1: A speaker who isn’t proficient can be a language teacher (or, “I have a degree in this; of course I’m qualified.”) Photo by Susheela Willis I remember […]
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February 15, 2011
photo by Holger Lükerath Callie and Krista recently commented on a song post, asking for my lyrics file. So, here’s another Google document for you – my lyrics file updated as of today, all 189 pages of it. Thanks Callie and Krista for getting me to put it in the cloud – that’s an awful […]
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February 14, 2011
#Charlando para aprender
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¡Hola! Soy profesora de español en el estado de Kentucky en los Estados Unidos. Unos cuantos otros profesores y yo hemos decidido pedirles a nuestros estudiantes que se involucren en Twitter – twitteando en español, con otros hispanohablantes, para que aprendan comunicarse mejor en la comunicación interpersonal. ¿Es usted un hispanohablante que quiera twittear con […]
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February 14, 2011
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February 11, 2011
There are a lot of problems with current world language teaching in the U.S. I think the biggest problem is that we’re trying to teach it the way we teach everything else, when language used for communication is not learned or stored the way other subjects are, and the answer is to look back at […]
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February 10, 2011
Tonight’s #Langchat topic is using games to support instruction. I have no idea how to describe a game in 140 characters so I thought I’d post it here. This is a game good for low levels. It works great to reinforce describing people. It’s useful for students to have the verbs ‘have’ ‘wear’ and ‘is.’ […]
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February 4, 2011
I’m going to an unconference tomorrow – my first full one. I managed to attend part of one before and enjoyed it. It’s being put on by @tmsaue1 with the public school district and they’re kind enough to invite private school teachers to tag along. This post is for the unconference (and you). Last year […]
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