Here is a repost that might be useful to someone right about now. Robert Harrell shares a response to a student who had learned up to that point in his academic career that school meant memorizing things and who preferred the textbook. The student had sent Robert an email asking him to raise his grade […]
Our discussion about authentic texts and the goofy stance taken by ACTFL’s Director of Education, Paul Sandrock, continues. Alisa sent these further ruminations by Sandrock from the ACTFL pages for us to reflect on and enjoy. I’m not exactly sure what Sandrock means. It is, however, an excellent example of using eduspeak to keep the
The repetition of chants can burn new language into the kids’ minds and bodies better than practically anything else. If the instructor can just get the words into the kids’ bodies via a good gut-based chant, it will, via the repetition, work wonders for retention. In my view, chants are better than songs because they
Carmen wrote on FB: …surviving on a diet of “main ideas” rather than understanding every single word does lead to excellent acquisition….. This is very important for me to read. Thank you. It help me further understand a lot of the confusing ideas that have been banging around in my head for the past few
Krista Kovalchick wrote on FB: I’ve found that the pressure to have cute comments cuts the pleasure in the story. Shy students who are brave enough to volunteer a suggestion but then don’t have their suggestion chosen, are, in my experience, quite reluctant to ever volunteer again. The stories then revolve around the 5-7 most talkative
One of the things that causes images drawn by kids to be so attractive to them might be similar to the pull on them of comic books. Would we rather read a comic with images or without? Something about images heightens the interest. This idea has been around for a long time and it’s still
I spent many years working hard at trying to make sure that things got funny in stories. I would think to myself of ways to bring in a certain celebrity, or some fact about a kid, so that, if it weren’t a home run story, it would at least be at least a single or
This is one to read carefully and then re-read a few more times: I haven’t dropped the iFLT page, and I don’t plan to, but not because I am learning that much, but because I am not going to stop pushing for best practices. I agree with Dr. Krashen we need to come together to
Many in our PLC are presenting workshops these days. Here is a template we can work with from Alisa: Proposal For [name of school] Reimagining and Re-implementing [name of language] Instruction: Teacher Training by I commit to helping [name of school] realize its goal of improving [name of language] proficiency outcomes for all its students. I hope
Whenever an actor needs to go to another location in a story, there is potential for a humorous mode of travel and a brief comical interlude in class that takes place in the target language. The means of conveyance can be described in words, or in certain classes where the focus is strong enough,
I was struck by something Alisa wrote here about a month ago, that the entire reading thing that we do at the middle and high school level can’t be done that way at the elementary level. That right there is a big thing to say and may account in part for the lack of valid
