research
November 18, 2023
Meet Jack, the mean clown who wants to help you remember the map to TL Memory Lane. Earlier this year, I blogged about the lessons we can learn from Lisa Genova‘s book Remember. Check out that blog post for a more in-depth look at the content of the book. I mentioned there that my dear […]
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October 4, 2023
It’s so sweet to be back, y’all. Last weekend, the annual conference of the Kentucky World Language Association returned to Lexington, Kentucky. Last year, KWLA was my first conference since I paused blogging while I wrapped my mind around a diagnosis of MS. I embraced friends, sat quietly, absorbed the learning– but I didn’t present. […]
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May 9, 2023
Remember that car that was parked two spaces down from you, at that store you went to, for that thing you wanted to buy? Of course you don’t. Every day, thousands of events pass through our experience, and they do not stay with us. For most of us, these experiences go in, they’re briefly acknowledged […]
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May 22, 2017
I’m betting you hear this as much as I do: “Oh, you’re a language teacher? I wish I could speak (X). But I’m just no good at learning languages.” I’m also betting many of you have answered the way I have. It’s not about being “good” at languages. If you’ve acquired a first language, you’ve proven […]
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December 13, 2016
The fourth-most popular post of 2016 on Musicuentos was a post in which I detailed where I felt the agreement was among people with very different opinions in our field (and there are as many opinions as there are us!). Where are the points of agreement in language teaching? When I graduated from my master’s […]
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October 19, 2016
Caution: There is danger in listening to only one voice. Whether in politics or teaching philosophy, we tend to surround ourselves with people who think pretty much like we do. It takes a lot of mental energy to be challenged on closely-held beliefs and defend them, and we’re already spending a lot of mental energy just […]
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September 8, 2016
Missing the Black Box videocasts? This newest research-based videocast about language learning and teaching was completed months ago and I’ve been quite remiss in not blogging about it yet. This one is quite different: the whole team divvied up the work of bringing you a Throwback ThurSLAy version of our videocast. Normally we review articles […]
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April 5, 2016
This post was authored by Justin Slocum Bailey and posted on Indwelling Language in response to my invitation for conversation on the learning vs. acquisition dichotomy, particularly in the context of translation, in the post Better acquisition by altering (not eliminating) translation.” (Finally! Someone is willing to talk about this!) Justin and Indwelling Language co-sponsor […]
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March 30, 2016
My friend Amy Lenord and I are tired of drawing out our primacy/recency map on paper to keep us focused on planning the right stuff at the right time. So, a couple of weeks ago Amy emailed me the template she had whipped up to print out and fill in. It was super simple and […]
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December 29, 2015
Book Club 2015: Make It Stick
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I appreciate anecdotes, but I’ve been passionate for a long time about finding out what science says about how people learn in general, and how people learn language, and why people choose to learn anything. It’s what makes Brain Rules and Drive my top two books from the last decade to recommend to any teacher. […]
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December 15, 2015
Voice and choice! Right? Well, if the sheer volume of content under my “choice” tag is any indication, I believe so. I’m convinced by research on autonomy and purpose that if we can give students options that speak to their inner motivation, then and only then will we end up with significant percentages of proficient speakers out […]
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November 24, 2015
We’ve been talking for a long time about how we should infuse language classes with language that communicates meaning. We’ve also been talking about how we can make sure the meanings we’re choosing are the ones students actually need and want to communicate in the real world. When meaningful language meets meaningful purposes, whether you realize […]
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