I had a choice. In theory my students have been working on one self-improvement goal since the snow days in January. In practice not so much. The cool thing is that they can totally express to me in Spanish “No he cambiado” perfectly clearly and explain how they need their goal, Read more…
I’m excited to have been asked to contribute a language teacher’s perspective on technology for the CUE Blog (thanks for the referral, Sra. Rhodes!) Here’s an excerpt: What a time to be alive! The whole world is inside our classrooms every day. I like to pretend it’s me bringing it to Read more…
The first three-ring circus of grades is done for this semester. Three rings, because this was my first attempt at incorporating Integrated Performance Assessments as tests instead of portfolios, and I’m trying to make use of badges in a meaningful way now too. As you can imagine, though, managing all Read more…
After students have collected a certain amount of information and begun to absorb relevant vocabulary through repeated authentic exposure, they need to start thinking “So what?” I don’t mean we should turn our precious angels into little nihilists, of course. I mean that input is well and good, but it Read more…
In-depth inquiry is key to Project-Based Learning, according to the Buck Institute for Education, but in-depth inquiry is tricky in a novice language class striving for ACTFL’s recommended 90%. I, for one, have my novices do a lot of research with infographs, which you really can’t beat for novice authentic Read more…
What is feedback for learning, and how well do you give it to students? Here is every single way I can think of that I give feedback in a day: Pronunciation: Underlining on the board Escuchen y repitan Perfecto Excelente Eso es Spelling & mechanics: Blog comments Color-coded highlights Google Read more…
Teaching Creative Writing was dangled in front of me once before: 8 years ago, in fact. I immediately started formulating a vision, setting goals, developing plans …that I never got to use. This year, a spring Creative Writing class was proffered once more, though I dared not get my hopes up Read more…
Writers’ Workshop has gone through several incarnations this semester of Creative Writing alone. We started off in a circle with hard copies and pens in hand. As the stories got longer, though, the screams of the murdered trees haunted my dreams. I also didn’t relish the idea of having to Read more…
You keep getting the same problems over and over again. You wish you had a stamp made so you wouldn’t have to keep writing the same thing over and over. Maybe you’ve developed a highlighter color code for types of errors. Maybe you have a document of all the comments Read more…
Time in class is not enough.Extra classes are not enough.Edmodo updates straight to their phones are not enough. Exciting topics are not enough.Contextual activities are not enough.Steady input is not enough. These kids just won’t do their work.Or they won’t turn it in.Hard to tell which sometimes. So what do Read more…