April 12, 2014
An impromptu “langcamp”
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A few teachers had expressed interest in coming to hang out with me for a day, and I’ve finally been able to schedule such a thing. If you don’t live far from the Louisville area and you’d like to come “talk shop” with me on Monday, April 28, please let me know through the contact […]
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April 11, 2014
See you at ACTFL ’14
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I’m pleased to announce that I’m participating in three sessions you’ll see at the annual conference by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Kick the Vocab Quiz This session will offer reasons and strategies for eliminating vocabulary quizzes from your classroom, in the interest of fostering real long-term memory and deep vocabulary […]
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April 9, 2014
Textbooks can be really helpful. Yes, I did say that. They can give you structure and ideas. They can facilitate communication among you, parents, and schools. They can provide you with assessments, sometimes good ones. Sorry, I still don’t like them. I don’t like doing extra work any more than you do, but I still […]
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April 4, 2014
If you’re interested in the kind of professional development where: you suggest the topics you vote on the topics it’s no big deal if you don’t show up it can be life-changing when you do show up it grows your personal learning network by leaps and bounds every time if you don’t like the topic […]
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April 1, 2014
No April Fools’ joke here! Every project I work on matters to me, but some are just really close to my heart and I don’t know how else to explain it. One is the proficiency-based, comprehensible input-filled curriculum for homeschooled elementary students I’ve been working on with Calico Spanish. Another is the Musicuentos Black Box […]
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March 31, 2014
Got intermediate Spanish students you’re trying to push to use some advanced skills? How about using these authentic “memes” to illustrate some proficiency differences? All three of these phrases mean basically the same thing, but they use different language to express it. Once students get to intermediate low proficiency, pushing their proficiency higher has a […]
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March 28, 2014
To find out what curriculum planning I think is necessary before school begins, click here for Part 1. Before the unit starts If you haven’t already (see Part 1 #4), choose a platform to help you organize yourself. I use a simple Excel or Google Drive spreadsheet. On the left, I list the date, number […]
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March 25, 2014
One of my most popular posts last year was how to use Marc Anthony’s Latin Grammy-winning song Vivir mi vida to stage Spanish Class Idol in a novice class. A few people have asked me directly, and the topic has been brought up enough on Edmodo, about more clear directions of how to teach the song. […]
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March 24, 2014
A brand-new teaching resource is now available on the Learning Activity Resources page. The Complete Verb Pack contains the three charts in the free Simple Verb Pack (present, sudden past, and descriptive past) and five more charts designed to help your intermediate to pre-advanced students refine their accuracy. Each page contains an entire verb tense […]
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March 20, 2014
I’ve been told several times recently that the concept of planning your own curriculum is all well and good, but where do you start? What steps do you take? Now that I’ve been textbook-free for five years, I’ve refined my own process to the following steps. Before school starts If you think you have to […]
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March 18, 2014
Corrections to simple verb pack
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The beauty of offering digital resources is as soon as I notice an error I can fix it and let you know about it! I’ve made two corrections to the sudden past chart in the Simple Verb Pack. One is just a colon that was missing, but I had also added conducir as an afterthought […]
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March 13, 2014
Is this the best we can do?
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Last September Martin Lapworth wrote a blog post called “On CI, TPRS, Acquisition, etc. (I so want to believe…)“. As I read it and the comments on it (which, incidentally, include one authored by CI king Stephen Krashen), I found myself asking a question that I’ve felt for a long time is forefront in the […]
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