In the past few weeks, I have been flooded with emails from readers that have just read about TPRS® and TCI for the first time on my blog. I am THRILLED. I have always written this blog for teachers that already use TPRS® and other Comprehensible Input strategies in their classes, and it never occured…
Read MoreMy husband’s real estate business is completely paperless (you can check it out here–it’s awesome), and he is constantly harassing–I mean encouraging–me to become a paperless teacher. Ha! I mean, seriously. I was just down in our “dungeon” (most people would call it a crawlspace), where all of my teacher materials are stored, and I think…
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Thanks to Samantha Uebel, who sent me French translations for my QAR materials, all of you French teachers out there can rest easy knowing that you can pop into class tomorrow and try out QAR without having to do the grunt work of translating everything for yourselves!! Yippee! Click here to download the materials in French,…
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If you attended my workshop on QAR Strategies for Differentiating Questions at iFLT this past summer or its condensed counterpart at AFLA just a few weekends ago, you will be happy to see this post! If you didn’t, I hope that you will be happy to have found it once you’ve read through it. QAR (Question-Answer Relationships)…
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About two months ago, I wrote a post explaining how second language teachers can use the Common Core Anchor Standards for Reading to give depth to their reading assessments and challenge students to think critically in the target language. Read it here. Understandably, some readers were left wondering what an assessment composed of CCSS Aligned questions…
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It is important for all teachers to informally assess students’ comprehension throughout any lesson in any content area. When we ask a comprehension question, we use students’ response to determine whether it’s time to move on to the next topic, or if we must spend more time on whatever we are studying at the moment.…
Read MoreSpecial Person Interviews build community. When done well, students find connections with all of their classmates. Teachers learn more about each one of their students, and everyone’s voice and presence is valued. And oh yeah–all the while, students are acquiring language. What’s not to love? HISTORY OF SPECIAL PERSON INTERVIEWS As far as I am…
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I think that authentic resources are overrated. This is coming from the lady that just presented at ACTFL on the importance of authentic resources, or ‘ #authres ‘, and how to use them in novice language classes… kind of a contradiction? How important are authentic resources in a language curriculum? #authres are important, but they…
Read MoreWith billions of images and other resources available with just a few clicks of your finger, it can be very difficult to use only those images that are licensed in such a way that allows you to use them in class and, for some my readers, for commercial use. It is difficult in two respects:…
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