Problems
February 9, 2015
Preservice world language teachers are asking experienced teachers questions they’d like to hear about from the trenches. To find out more about what #Teach2Teach is, see here for an explanation of how it came about, and what the questions are, or how to submit your own question if you’re a teacher in training or a […]
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January 22, 2015
What’s the number one problem in world language teaching? I’d be super interested to hear your answer. After careful thought, here’s mine: Teacher Training Programs I have the great privilege of communicating with a lot of world language teachers, which is a huge change from where I was just ten years ago, where I’m not […]
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January 5, 2015
Happy New Year, Musicuentos readers and language teachers everywhere! It’s that time of year we all like to step back and think about areas we can change or improve in the year ahead. I’ve been enjoying the #oneword posts I’ve seen (especially Laura’s one on less) from teachers choosing a word to guide their 2015. […]
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December 30, 2014
It wasn’t even close. My post on the biggest mistake we make (and are pushed in so many ways to make) as language teachers was hit more than 40% more than the #2 post. We know we’re covering too much content, and we’re tired of being told that’s the right thing to do. Oh- and HAPPY […]
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November 8, 2014
Since I had my precious Cottrell-itos on my trip to the annual conference of the Indiana Foreign Language Teacher’s Association, I didn’t get to spend as much time involved in the conference as I would have liked to, but I did greatly enjoy the time I did have. I reconnected with “old” friends, made new […]
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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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January 27, 2014
Last year I blogged a post about the top 3 mistakes teachers of novices make. It made a big splash, in the cyber world anyway. Something about that post resonated with teachers. But it didn’t address the biggest mistake all of us make – the cancer that plagues world language teaching and makes programs far and […]
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June 30, 2013
This summer I’m reposting some of the gems from the early days, partly because I’ve gotten a lot of readership since then and really, who has time to go back mulling over old blogs, and partly because my traffic is significantly slower and I’m working on other projects in the summer. This topic is from […]
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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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December 7, 2009
Switch to a communicative set-up
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How is your classroom laid out? Is it conducive to communicative teaching and acquisition? Recently my principal came back from a visit to another school and showed me a picture (on his iPhone of course) of a classroom that made him think of me. The teacher had put several tables together and then cut a […]
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February 6, 2009
Relating everything to English
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Cross-linguistic transfer, the problem of a learner’s native language interfering with the one being learned, is a big enough issue without us as teachers compounding it by constantly relating things to English. For example, giving students ways to remember words by relating them to English is not always a smart idea, in my opinion. I […]
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September 6, 2008
Lest you think that I think that musicuentos is the fix for every language acquisition issue, I don’t. Friday was a good example of holding on to the good ones and trying to let the other stuff slide off my back while learning from it. This year I’m teaching six periods of Spanish–two Spanish 1, […]
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