May 27, 2014
Stop calling this easy & fast
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As you navigate the internet, and particularly with Google and Facebook getting so smart and marketing to what seem to be your interests based on your internet activity, I’m sure you’ve seen some of these advertisements. You know- the ones that promise that you can learn any language you want. It’s easy! It’s fast! It’ll […]
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May 23, 2014
I just taught my last class for the foreseeable future and what a sweet handful of minutes it was. I decided to revisit the Photopeach final this year, after having not done it for 2 years because of babies arriving at the end of the school year. I’ve blogged about Photopeach and this particular project […]
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May 20, 2014
In the many tasks you’re trying to accomplish, are you doing the best you can? Perhaps a better question is, should you be? Recently someone made a comment to me that made me think about us as teachers, and parents, and coaches, and servants, and how we stress about not being able to do any […]
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If you listened to episode 3 of the Musicuentos Black Box Podcast, you heard all about the first two parts on Daniel Pink’s book on influencing others, To Sell Is Human, including why all of us (and especially those of us in education) are in sales now, and what we should be in order to effectively […]
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May 14, 2014
What if a summer day changed your whole school year for the better? Come join me on Friday, June 27 and see how one day of intense, collaborative curriculum mapping will make your 2014-2015 school year feel easier and smoother and filled with proficiency-based teaching and assessments. I’ll warn you, it’s not going to be […]
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May 13, 2014
If you haven’t heard, you have many amazing professional development opportunities this summer. You can mix with the people who really know TPRS at NTPRS and iFLT. Also, if hands-on collaborative planning is your thing, you do not want to miss at least one of two opportunities to work with fellow teachers on proficiency-based curriculum planning […]
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May 7, 2014
4 ways to tweak the exit ticket
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When I first heard about the exit ticket, I thought it was a great idea. It seemed like a way to keep myself accountable to assess every student, and it seemed like a way to keep students accountable to do something to show me they’d learned what I’d taught. It also seemed like a decent […]
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May 3, 2014
Could it be that as a teacher, you actually work in sales? Daniel Pink says the answer is yes in his latest book, To Sell Is Human, the topic of both Musicuentos Black Box Podcasts this month. In part 1, I’ll walk you through why Pink says everyone works in sales now, and the three characteristics you […]
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April 25, 2014
Top 25 Spanish novels
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As a Spanish speaker, I know that if I don’t use the language I get rusty in it, and as a teacher/linguist, I know that after a certain point, most of a person’s new vocabulary is acquired through reading words in context. So I enjoy reading in Spanish for the fun of it and for […]
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April 21, 2014
Let’s play
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Learning vs. play Where did kids get the idea that school was not fun? That learning was not fun? A couple of weeks ago I was interviewing another teacher’s student for a proficiency assessment and I asked about school. He said that he liked learning but didn’t like school. Isn’t that sad? Well, maybe it’s not. I […]
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April 17, 2014
In a recent focus on social media and political upheaval, I needed an interpersonal communication activity that related to the issues. I needed to present students with relevant authentic material to spur conversation. I needed a way to monitor what they were doing. I wanted it all to apply to the focus. And so, TweetFest […]
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April 15, 2014
What is circumlocution? Can it be taught? Should you teach it? When? If novices shouldn’t be required to produce language, should we teach them circumlocution as a tool to solve communication problems? All of these questions are addressed in this second episode of the Musicuentos Black Box Podcast. I had a real light-bulb moment working […]
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