Vygotsky
I'm having something of a renaissance with Vygotsky. I personally have mined all I can from Krashen and see Vygotsky as perhaps the one researcher who can help us more with the new challenges brought by COVID. Frank James Johnson
Out of Discomfort
Someone once asked this truly important question a few years ago, so this is a repost: I need help! I have a VERY challenging group of Spanish 1 at the worst time of day. They are energetic but compulsively talk chatter
Managing the CI Classroom
Rule 2 of the Classroom Rules has been getting a lot of attention, but Rule 1 is of equal importance: Listen with the Intent to Understand. Such an obvious behavior is rarely done by students in schools. They listen with
Daisy
This is an individually created image (ICI). The post is directed to Maya and Sean. ICIs to me are better than OWIs and student cards to move to increasing in our language classroom social awareness and lead to discussions about
Building Community – 10
I remember how I had to fill out forms that detailed what I was going to teach in class that day. I should have just written that I was going to use the language to try to build community, so
Building Community – 9
I worked myself into a frazzle for twenty four years in South Carolina before moving to a middle school in Colorado where, thanks to Susan Gross and Blaine Ray, I found the treasure of comprehensible input instruction (then in the
Global Competence
A repost: Our national parent organization, ACTFL (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) says on their website that “the ability to communicate with respect and cultural understanding in more than one language is an essential element of global
Building Community – 8
It is the very lack of ACTFL’s providing teachers with ways to implement a curriculum that leads to the building of community - real human communication - in my classroom that caused me, over many years of teaching, to feel
Building Community – 7
Our national parent organization, ACTFL (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) says on their website that “the ability to communicate with respect and cultural understanding in more than one language is an essential element of global competence.” It
Building Community – 6
If a child feels that they are a valued member of a classroom community, they will acquire the language. But many kids haven't the slightest idea what being in a classroom community even means. It is due to the fallout from