This is the time when things are reversed. Teachers teach falsified history, views of science are constantly overturned, false versions of language are presented as language but only explore its mechanical aspects. Children have grown weary of such false things in schools and cease to engage. Classrooms have become tombs. The heart quality in things […]
Our reaction to the COVID crisis has so far been to frantically search the internet for band-aid solutions, activities that do little for us or for our students. Our reasoning seems to be that if we can just find the right activity to keep our students at least minimally involved in our online instruction –
Group 4 just finished its six-week training and I would like to share this report from Lori: Hi Ben. I just started school today after the break and I used the Star! We had a 90-minute class. I used about half of the time to get to know the kids and then maybe 20 minutes
Last week, we mentioned a good, research-aligned objective for our whiteboards when we are teaching a tableau or story: S/W understand and read Spanish I also found a 2019 post on this topic on the PLC with comments, for anyone interested in going a bit deeper on the topic of posting objectives: OCTOBER 24, 2019
In this repost, John Piazza describes a largely ignored aspect of our job, but one we make a priority here on the PLC. Here is John’s article on mental health: Recently, I was speaking with a friend, who described a marathon job interview she just went through. She sat before 4 panels of critical professionals
The discussion about targeting certain expressions so that our students “can do” certain things (order a meal, etc.) in the TL raises questions about the nature of language. What is the nature of language and what is its purpose? To be able to order a meal AT A POINT IN YOUR STUDY WHEN YOU ARE
I’ve always been discomfited about how simple the research is and how complex we make our jobs. I mean, the research says basically that we only need to talk to our students in the TL and then do lots of reading after that. But WE seem to have decided otherwise – for some reason we
I’m on a roll with the prayers: Dear God – Please help us understand that teaching is not a competition, and that whether or not our students achieve high test scores does not reflect on our value and our worth as teachers. Help us keep in mind that, seen through Your eyes (the only eyes
Prayer That We Might Remember Our Real Purpose in the Language Classroom Read More »
It’s that time of year when some of us are interviewing. John Piazza wrote here on the PLC on the topic, posted first back in 2014: Hi Ben, I wanted to let everyone know officially that I have emerged from my unemployment woes, having been offered a job at my first choice, a large public
Angie addressed tbe topic of Can Do statements in 2015 here. What she wrote could apply to almost any aspect of traditional language education. I felt a deep connection to every word. If someone asked me why I am so opposed to the old ways, and why I condemn advocating output too early, I would
In the first chapter of Le Petit Prince, there are these lines: J’ai ainsi eu, au cours de ma vie, des tas de contacts avec des tas de gens sérieux. J’ai beaucoup vécu chez les grandes personnes. Je les ai vues de très près. Ça n’a pas trop amélioré mon opinion./So I had, over the
In an article in The Language Educator, Nicole Sherf (Salem State University) and Tiesa Graf (South Hadley High School, Massachusetts) gnash their teeth at the number of times cocktail-party acquaintances have said they took multiple years of a foreign language in high school and can’t remember a thing. What happened? Is there anything teachers can
