July 5, 2016
Ever feel like the world and our profession are changing so fast you can’t keep up? Which of those five new tech tools appearing on your Bloglovin’ feed is the one that you should use to finally start your students on proficiency portfolios (and where will you find the time to figure it out?)? It’s […]
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June 30, 2016
Welcome, again
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Finally. It’s been almost exactly four years since Musicuentos.com appeared, and that’s kind of old in the website design world. It’s time for something new, not for the sake of having something new, but in this case to make this site easier to navigate for you who primarily use your mobile devices to read blogs. […]
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June 13, 2016
Here’s a question for your summer: Can you dare to go YONG? At the end of the 2013-2014 school year, I was finishing a seven-year stint at a particular school. In a nutshell, the school had a new administrator that year and had swung from what some might call a little too much chaotic familiarity […]
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May 25, 2016
The internet and the calendar (and Allison, Maris, Wendy, Melanie, Valerie, and Megan) say it’s time to confess and reflect. Inspired by a summary of an old #langchat, and then having that inspiration reinforced by these reflective teachers sharing their journey, here is a post more for me than for you. What will – or […]
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April 26, 2016
They couldn’t hear the word “no”
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The school year is almost over for my students and me- really, this Friday is our last day. You may know by now that we’ve been working through the movie Canela as the entire foundation of our curriculum this semester, and it’s been fabulous. It’s been a gold mine of authentic language and culture for my Novice […]
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April 19, 2016
Have you seen the movie Canela? This semester I’ve been so grateful that Kara Jacobs and Elena López introduced me – FINALLY – to an authentic Mexican family film that’s appropriate for any classroom and any student anywhere (a rare find in Spanish-language cinema available in the U.S., as I’m sure you know). So grateful, in fact, […]
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April 14, 2016
Have you ever felt like as much as you know your students need more comprehensible input than they’ve been getting, the strategies you’ve tried have fallen flat in your classroom? How about we explore what’s up with that together this summer? Kim Earley and the administration and world languages department at Liberty Christian School in […]
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April 12, 2016
Dear Everyboy, The other day I saw you at your new cashier job in Kroger – congratulations! The two women in front of me- wow, that was a situation, wasn’t it? Buying all those chips and Diet Coke with their food stamp card. Except their card only had $1.28 left on it. And their English […]
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April 8, 2016
In our journey to stay in target language and start to use more phrases, my students and I have stumbled onto a target-language activity we use to transition from one activity to the next. I share it with you here, and as I knew I couldn’t just put it into words, my kids graciously demonstrated […]
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April 7, 2016
Twenty-plus teachers will be getting together in Louisville, Kentucky this June to walk a continuum of curriculum planning, from unit selection and design, to setting daily goals with the long-term in mind, to lesson planning that incorporates comprehensible input that fits you and your students and helps them reach their goals. I was and am […]
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April 5, 2016
This post was authored by Justin Slocum Bailey and posted on Indwelling Language in response to my invitation for conversation on the learning vs. acquisition dichotomy, particularly in the context of translation, in the post Better acquisition by altering (not eliminating) translation.” (Finally! Someone is willing to talk about this!) Justin and Indwelling Language co-sponsor […]
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April 1, 2016
Not for novices, anyway. It’s too hard for them. I’m giving up. They simply cannot navigate them in a meaningful way to provide the comprehensible input necessary for language acquisition, so why even try? I’m buying into what a teacher trainer told me this week: “Authentic language isn’t comprehensible for beginners.” Take this, for example. […]
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