tips
September 16, 2019
One thing at a time: Step One
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It’s happened at my Camp Musicuentos workshops. It’s happened in inservice sessions. It’s happened in conference presentations and workshops and on Twitter and in blog comments. It’s the big question that many preservice, new, and second-profession teachers ask: I want to be a great language teacher and do all this curriculum stuff and teach all […]
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December 26, 2015
In the twelfth year of designing syllabi, you may not have “the syllabus to end them all” – of course not! We’re always changing based on successes and challenges, right? But by this time I knew the five ingredients I had to have in a syllabus, and you wanted to hear about them. This August […]
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November 27, 2015
Your turkey is digested and your shopping is all done. Now, are you ready for a shocking confession? Last week at the 2015 ACTFL Convention & Expo in San Diego, California, I was not able to attend a single session other than the ones I collaborated on. Shocking, I know. Part of the reason was […]
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November 16, 2015
Love the textbook or hate it? Convinced you can’t teach well unless you pitch that textbook in the trash? Convinced you can’t teach without it or you’ll lose your sanity? Wherever you fall, if a textbook is a tool in your classroom, this post is for you. Note that I believe a textbook is just […]
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August 31, 2015
What items are really perking up the start of your school year? After a year’s hiatus from being in a classroom with students I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to explore how to make this new situation (small classes of homeschooled students -ages 6 to 14- meeting with me once a week) work […]
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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 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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January 10, 2014
What an important resolution to make! If you’re only going to make one resolution this year, there are so many options to choose from – more comprehensible input would probably be the top one I’d pick. But this one is so close. My last suggestion for a resolution for 2014 is to 5. Use more […]
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January 7, 2014
If you’ve read me long, you’ve heard it before – no matter how good the textbook is, at least in my experience, it’s never motivated students past September, and it’s out of date as soon as it’s printed. Of course there are lots of other arguments – artificial order, ridiculously expensive supplements, faulty companion assessments, […]
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December 27, 2013
2013’s second most popular post offers tips for those of us approaching the new world language AP exams. The world of AP World Language teachers is all abuzz with the vast changes made to the exams this year. Six years ago the Spanish language exam changed to what was a more proficiency-based format. Last year […]
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September 17, 2013
Seven keys to a great story
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It’s no secret – I believe the single best way to keep students’ attention, deliver comprehensible input, frame new content, and interact with vocabulary is storytelling. You may not think you are a natural storyteller, but you are. Everyone is. Telling stories is a part of life. You tell your spouse the crazy things your child […]
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August 26, 2013
I recently joined the Ñandu listserv, a service of Ñandutí, the Center for Applied Linguistics‘s resource center for early (K-8) language learning. As a member of the listserv I get questions and recommendations from other elementary world language teachers. (I don’t currently teach elementary levels formally, but I do a workshop for 18 months to […]
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