March 28, 2015
Ever feel behind the times? I just caught the current #1 song on Latin Billboard and it struck me as having two golden ingredients for a good class song: high student appeal and a couple of high frequency structures repeated. (Though I wanted to say, Dude – she moved on, she’s happy, get over it! […]
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March 26, 2015
This post is primarily for parents wanting to raise bilingual children and educators in elementary immersion programs, but perhaps the rest of you will find something useful here as well. I have three children that I am trying to raise bilingual in Spanish. We started out fully committed to the one-parent, one-language method, in which […]
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March 24, 2015
Do you sometimes feel like we’re working in an all-or-nothing profession? I’m not sure if it’s an artifact of social media, of tweets and blog posts designed to be punchy and petite at the same time. I’m not sure if it’s a desire to be the next big thing, the acronym everyone’s talking about. I […]
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March 14, 2015
Good morning from a sunny, beautiful spring day in Minneapolis, the location of the 2015 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. My presentation here is called “Arming Students for a World of Incomprehensible Input.” It’s based on an episode of the Black Box Podcast from last year (listen here, read the script here), […]
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March 10, 2015
I’ve been hearing a flurry of comments, great ones, directing teachers to not get so distracted by the 90% TL goal that they forget to make sure they’re speaking comprehensibly. I’m sure you’ve seen and/or committed, as have I, one of these common unfortunate practices: speaking in target language and being super proud of it… except […]
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March 6, 2015
Poll: what conference proposals?
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Proposals are now open for two of my favorite conferences, my home conference, Kentucky World Language Association, and the 2016 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Conference presentations are only as good as they can relate to the content teachers actually need, so as usual, I’d like to know what you’d like […]
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March 2, 2015
Anatomy of a novice question
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If you’ve been through ACTFL’s Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) or Modified Oral Proficiency Interview (MOPI) training (I have not), perhaps you can help me clarify an issue when assessing novices. When talking to teachers about what a novice can and can’t do, I’ve heard teachers make this comment: But that’s a question, right? And novices […]
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February 24, 2015
I recently observed a teacher practicing prepositional phrases with students and it got me thinking about communicative ways to practice prepositions. A couple of notes: First, most textbook suggested vocabulary lists include way too many prepositions. Take a deep breathe, remember that you can’t control vocabulary, resist the pressure to cover too much content, and determine […]
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February 20, 2015
I’m looking forward to participating in a special interview with Paulino Brener on his EPC Show in about a week. Join us online to talk about motivational aspects of our curricula. Cross-posted from Paulino Brener at epcshow.com and you’ll find out more about where to find the video here: Join me on Saturday February 28 […]
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February 18, 2015
Are you ready for the most intense, profitable workshop on curriculum planning this summer? I’ve been planning for the 2015 Camp Musicuentos workshops since the inaugural workshop ended last June, and I’m so excited to announce that registration for the events (a 2-day workshop in Louisville, Kentucky, and a one-day workshop in Warwick, RI) is […]
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February 17, 2015
Shall we talk labor and delivery a moment? I suspect I have your attention! No worries, I’m not going to get gross. I don’t think so, anyway. But you will get to know me a little bit better. When I was pregnant with my third child, some family friends were visiting, a couple and their […]
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February 12, 2015
What does your seating arrangement say about your classroom style? In my last post I made a side comment about how I handle seating assignments and discovered that the only time I’ve written about it on the blog was in the last bullet point in a post on increasing student TL use. How unfortunate, since […]
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