best practices
March 30, 2013
I’ve been faced with many dilemmas this year as I inherited a Spanish 3 class with low proficiency- I mean, at least a couple of Novice High students in Spanish 3. I don’t know how or why exactly they made it through to my class with these struggles. I feel like part of it must […]
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March 22, 2013
Last tips on avoiding burnout
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This is the last set of tips to avoid burning out in communicative teaching. Check out “Burning out or burning bright?,” “More tips on avoiding burnout,” “Still more tips on avoiding burnout,” and “Even more tips on avoiding burnout” for more help on how to stay sane and effective at the same time. Stop looking […]
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March 1, 2013
More tips on avoiding burnout
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This is the second post in a series on tips to avoid burnout. See “Burning out or burning bright?” and continue to check back on Fridays for more tips on how to stay sane and effective at the same time. Abandon perfectionism. I’ve found that teachers tend to have a perfectionist personality (raising my hand […]
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February 25, 2013
Recently the topic for the weekly Twitter chat addressing world language teaching issues, #langchat, was the role of the textbook in the classroom. Teachers on Twitter just seem naturally more progressive to me anyway, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how many teachers are working to break their chains to the textbook. What’s wrong […]
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February 21, 2013
Burning out or burning bright?
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Some time ago a couple of tweets came from my PLN that caught my eye. Blair Richards (@ouiouicestlavie) commented, “4 years into teaching and I’m exhausted. Any wisdom on how to make this a sustainable career without killing myself?” Then Katie Hellerman (@klhellerman) wrote, “I love #TPRS and the results. But even after 3 years I find […]
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February 19, 2013
Feel like your class is disengaged and/or bored? This atmosphere could be rooted in all sorts of problems, but one of the main causes is that you have students focused on the same activity for too long. Based on research, your brain needs breaks from a particular learning-intensive activity in order to process and encode […]
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February 8, 2013
Tech tools gone wrong
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When I first became active on Twitter, I followed the general #edchat quite a bit and was stunned and fascinated by all the tech tools people were tweeting about. I read blog posts and reviews about the latest web 2.0 tool someone was using in X class and got excited. I tried many new tools […]
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January 8, 2013
More choice every day
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One of my most popular posts ever – and most popular conference topics – is about giving students choice in their homework assignments. After a while I thought, well, if giving students more choice in homework is so motivating, why not in other assessments? Why not in their final exam? And so I moved my […]
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December 28, 2012
You could probably guess what the most popular New Year’s resolutions are; you’ve probably made them yourself. Get in shape, eat better, save money, quit smoking, volunteer. You could probably also guess many of the popular resolutions for teachers: be more organized, have a positive attitude, involve students more, set goals. What about you? Are […]
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August 28, 2012
Myth #7: Spanish Mike is a taco.
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It’s about time I picked up the task of finishing my myths posts! For the original post, click here. Myth #7: Media produced for language learners counts as authentic materials (or, “The ‘First Semester of Spanish Love Song’ is the best video ever!”) Most media in the world language classroom is a taco. It’s not just […]
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July 26, 2012
Advice for teachers in training
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I’ve gotten two emails lately from teachers in training asking for advice. If there are any significant number of preservice teachers like them, asking such good questions and determined to pursue excellence, we’re headed for great things in language learning. One just asked me for general advice for a preservice teacher. Here are a couple […]
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July 17, 2012
Book review: The Talent Code
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The newest addition is eating a lot and sleeping, well, not so long as Baby Whisperer says she should be, so suffice to say I’m getting a lot of reading done these days [okay, mostly nights], particularly since my library started eBook lending. So far this summer I’ve read, for example, Brain Rules for Baby and The […]
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