I’m not really assigning homework this semester. My students are setting their own language goals and figuring out how to accomplish them. It’s an idea I got from Jeorg Ellen Sauer at #ACTFL13, but I’ve had to tweak it a little bit for the high school level, scaffolding a bit Read more…
Maybe it’s the honeymoon phase talking…or the small classes…or the weather delays. Still, I feel like I’ve discovered the cure for the common class! Well, for my common class. I finally feel like I’m headed in the right direction and pointing my kids that way too! I attribute this honeymoon high to Read more…
I think one of the biggest problems my students had with Genius Hour this past semester was choosing a topic that would drive them. Sure, they picked things they were mildly curious about, but as I’ve said before, if you don’t feel like you’re getting away with something during Genius Read more…
ACTFL 2013 in Orlando was my first national conference as a Spanglish teacher, and a presenter. I’d attended NCTE 3 times as a mere English teacher, but those were also in the days before I discovered potty training and Twitter. Suffice it to say, the experience has changed! In addition Read more…
At an unconference you can learn about anything you want to learn about as long as you’re willing to facilitate and have enough kindred spirits in attendance. I attended my first Edcamp last week in South Carolina, and I had the pleasure and honor of co-facilitating a session on PBL Read more…
Literacy expert Tim Rasinski gave me an idea for a bellringer that I think will improve students’ vocabulary, fluency, listening, reading, and speaking skills and get them hooked. Rasinski proposes an acronym for those wishing to improve students’ literacy skills, and although Rasinski’s research and strategies revolve around L1 literacy, I Read more…
“If you’ve got the manpower, we’ve got the bouncy house!” I went to a session on what the local YMCA had to offer, on the hunt for some community connections. Of course I asked if they had any special programs for the Latino community in the area, and they said Read more…
I am of the opinion that both acquisition and language are essential to achieving fluency in a second language. I believe the two are interdependent, that there must be both conscious and unconscious practice of language and that the one feeds the other in a big ol’ Ouroboros. I believe Read more…
I’m on a roll! Not just workshops, but booths at my new district’s Teaching & Learning Conference have inspired still more driving questions. Plus I’ve been ruminating over how to phrase questions for materials I’ve used before (with minimal to moderate success but potential somewhere in there deep down). I Read more…
If teachers are safecrackers, each assessment is a number in the combination that helps us unlock the treasure. Assessments are not whole combinations unto themselves, if done correctly. We should have to listen carefully, find the right tools to detect when we hit the number we need next. If the Read more…