Are you wrapping up a particular reading in your language class? My middle-grades class has just finished El Ekeko by Katie Baker. This book is perhaps my favorite Fluency Matters reader yet! This week, as we look to end our semester, I’ll be going back to something I tried last year. It was a great segue from […]
Here’s a deeply interesting question for us: why is my language ability even in interpersonal skills measured by what I can do alone, when what I can do with you, my conversation partner who can meet me in my “zone of proximal development,” is a lot more? If you’re not familiar with Vygotsky and sociocultural […]
After a year “off,” this fall I’ll be back to teaching, in a unique opportunity (homeschool co-op) that I’m really excited about. And apprehensive about. Things that worry me: Mostly, time. I’ll be seeing my students only once a week (60 minutes for elementary, 90 minutes for upper grades). I’ll be finding something for them […]
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 […]
For the original myths post, click here. You can also view all of the myths posts. This, my eleventh post on myths I believe make us ineffective in the world language classroom, is about saying we’re assessing something without actually asking students to do it. 11. A multiple-choice question counts as a valid assessment of […]
What would you do if you had taught high school Spanish for years and then suddenly you were given new responsibilities involving… KINDERGARTEN?! If you’re like me, your first day you’d come away thinking What are they thinking? What was I thinking? WHAT DO I DO?! Learning from the best In high school we can […]
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 […]