Become a more confident language teacher.
Is your head swimming with the different terms that are used to describe language teaching? CI, ADI, TPRS, POLI… what do they all mean, and how do they work together? Most importantly, what does talking about teaching actually have to do with teaching? Listen to CI Diaries #2 I recently listened to Episode 2 of…
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Many of us learned language through an explicit instructional model, in which words and concepts were taught, practiced, and memorized. When I began teaching, I started out with that same explicit model of instruction: working from a textbook curriculum that laid out thematic vocabulary to memorize and grammar concepts to practice and master in each chapter.…
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If you are ready to move away from Explicit Language Instruction toward a more Implicit, Acquisition-Driven model, you’ve come to the right place. Making this change is a complete paradigm shift, but it can be done in pieces. If you are ready to focus on helping your students to acquire language, as opposed to helping…
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Most of our readers are now on summer vacation, and we hope that you are taking your vacation seriously– whatever that looks like to you. Splash in rivers, get your hands dirty in your garden, sip icy cold beverages, play with your pets and your kids, veg out on the couch, clean out your closets……
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If you have decided to teach for proficiency with an emphasis on comprehension, you are probably asking the question, “Where do I start?” When you ask this question to colleagues, they will probably suggest some resources for you. “Get SOMOS!“, they might say, or “Start with Special Person interviews!”. You’ll probably hear, “The MovieTalk database…
Read MoreWhether you call them Stations or Centers, you probably love them—and so do your students. Stations give you a laissez-faire teaching day and provide lots of movement and small group interaction for students. Stations do not, however, come without challenges. Stations often take quite a bit of prep work. For the proficiency oriented, comprehension based…
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As language teachers, our goal for our students is to be more proficient in the target language when they complete our course than when they began. We probably have other goals for our students (being more kind, more empathetic, more responsible, more culturally aware), but all of these objectives fit into the overarching mission of…
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If we want language to come OUT of our students’ mouths, we must get language IN to their heads. They need INput so that they can produce OUTput. » Input is reading and listening » Output is speaking and writing This is common sense. A learner cannot utter an expression in a new language if…
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When I first ditched the textbook, Weekend Chats was one of the very first routines that I learned about and started using in class. I was introduced to it by Michele Whaley, and I remember reading about it on Ben Slavic’s blog soon thereafter. I used Ben’s idea of having students illustrate posters of places…
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Something that changed when I switched to Comprehension-based teaching was a change in my mindset. Instead of teaching language so that students could eventually connect with people that speak the target language, I started using language for connection now: Language connects students to each other. Language connects students to me. Language connects students to their…
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