June 8, 2015
What is the point of teaching culture, anyway? Is it to get kids to realize that people are different? (They already do.) Is it to get them to try a new food? (Lengua, eww, gross. Does that have peanuts in it?) No, cultural awareness is more about perspective-taking. According to the research, children who show […]
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the world language teaching profession recently, it’s that we’re plagued with arguments about why one method trumps another. As it turns out, we’re wasting our time on that argument, and we should be asking a different question altogether. I know, I’ve dropped off the internet a bit lately and […]
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May 27, 2015
Embedded listening
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Are you subscribed to the CASLS weekly newsletter? If not, go here and sign up now, then come back. Every Monday you’ll get quick resources and bite-size, research-packed learning delivered to your inbox. One such week a listening activity caught my eye. The activity was adapted from an activity on Lanternworld (ESL) and with it, CASLS […]
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May 14, 2015
Forgive me while I brainstorm in public a moment. Almost four years ago I created this rubric, based on the ACTFL guidelines and the Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools’ world language rubric. I loved it. It’s one of my most requested resources. I used it for years. But as I wrap up my first year […]
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May 11, 2015
Every once in a while I come across an authentic resource so amazing I have to give it its own blog post to tell you USE THIS RESOURCE. And then there’s this one, which makes me shout #addthis and #bookmarkthis and THEN it leads me straight into an example of something I was just asking […]
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May 5, 2015
If you know me you know I love a good research book, particularly one that tells us in lay language what it’s going to take to help kids succeed in a world we can’t even imagine, one that’s vastly different from the one we grew up in. The other day, Zoe asked me, Mami, what’s […]
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April 23, 2015
As promised, here are the “Three Before Me” posters for German and French. Big props to some good friends who helped me out with these translations, Wendy Farabaugh, Don Doehla, and Thomas Sauer. Download the free posters via Teachers Pay Teachers: German Bevor du anfängst mit der Fragerei, probier doch erstmal diese drei: 1) dich […]
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April 21, 2015
Three before me
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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 […]
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April 17, 2015
Recently on #langchat we were discussing interpretive and interpersonal tasks and someone asked whether interpersonal also functioned as interpretive, since the listener is interpreting auditory information. I thought it was Lisa Shepard, a lesson to me to note my sources right away, but I can’t find the conversation. So while I can’t credit my interlocutor, […]
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April 15, 2015
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 […]
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I’ve had a burr in my saddle for a little over a year, probably longer, a problem that pricks me and try as I might to find a solution, I just can’t put my finger on it. On the one hand, we’ve got a robust body of research coming from both applied and theoretical linguistics […]
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April 6, 2015
What do you do when you’re being forced into a textbook adoption that’s stifling the creative community in your school? Sometimes you turn to someone with a generally poor opinion of textbooks for advice. One of my favorite parts of doing what I do is the conversations I get to watch and sometimes even facilitate. […]
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