I’ve failed at Persona Especial. I can think of nothing more admirable and relevant and beneficial than making your students your curriculum. But as I have failed at becoming Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell in the past, I have failed at becoming Bryce Hedstrom. I run out of patience and so do the Read more…
Music is the magic bullet for all language learning. Whether it’s my daughter’s endless loop of counting and color and Christmas songs from her bilingual kindergarten classes or Sr. Wooly songs that end up in student presentations about the music that best represents them (“Puedo ir al baño”–not even kidding), Read more…
Sr. Wooly cracks me UP. He has a handful of videos I could watch on repeat all day and just laugh until I cried the whole time. However. There are some stories on his list that I just don’t GET. I can see where they would be beneficial vocabulary wise, but Read more…
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked that pizza and ranch is a thing. But when one of my students drew it next to her name for her first card talk, it got my wheels turning. We OBVIOUSLY had to start with the verb gustar if we were going to talk about Read more…
How and why are still probably the most important questions to answer for learning a language, but I forgot a very important question last year. There is one burning question that every novice language learner needs answered before they can even begin to explore purposes and strategies. And it’s a question that no one Read more…
I got so many great tools and ideas from attending the CI workshop with Ben Slavic and Tina Hargaden, so conveniently located in my home state! I know I said I was going to “stay home and process,” but I figured I could handle two days within an hour’s drive, Read more…
I don’t think anyone would call me a TPRS teacher, though I’ve certainly dabbled in comprehensible input for years, and I will gladly sip some CI Kool-Aid when offered a fresh serving, whether through organized national conferences or a workshop conveniently passing through my home state. I recently got the Read more…
Let me be clear: I am a Spanglish teacher. I went into this game an English teacher, and novels have been the basis for my approach to instruction for a goodly portion of my career. It took me a while to come around to the idea of using novels in Read more…
Going to iFLT last year was one of the most revolutionary professional experiences I have had–right up there with three years of grad school! However, after a year of lots and lots of traveling, I decided I needed the summer to stay put and process…after one more trip across the Read more…
Promise not to laugh? This is how I understood using authentic texts seven years ago. I do not know where the magic number 200 came from anymore, and WOW was I out of touch with even the CONCEPT of novice language learners. (Dra. Moser now claims she doesn’t remember me Read more…