I’ve begun reflecting on the year a bit earlier than usual. Starting today, I’ll publish a self-evaluation each week for one of my “Four Things to Be Relentless about in 2019.” My four things were Inclusion, Reality, Collaboration, and Positivity. This is how I summarized Thing 1: Inclusion Many areas that my work touches—pedagogy at […]
How students perceive our presence in the classroom has a huge impact on everything from their trust in us to their ability to learn efficiently. This is partly due to mirror neurons and partly because how we feel (or act like we feel) affects our communication, our enthusiasm, our attention to students’ needs, and even […]
It’s great when students are curious. It’s exciting when students aim high. It’s rewarding when students make connections. It’s thrilling when students take risks. But what about those times when one of these can get the class too far off track, or when satisfying one student’s curiosity would lose the rest, or when a student […]
Nothing is as important as human beings. Not ideas, not subjects, not institutions, not goals, not lessons, not information, nothing. This hit me harder than usual in the past week during some fraught threads on social media. I realized that I was drawn to some views more than others not just because of the overall […]
What is a place you would love to visit? It may be a place you’ve been and can’t wait to get back to. It may be a place you’ve never been before. The fact that we all have such places makes this one of my favorite classroom conversation starters. I ask almost every group I […]
How Did This Get Here? is a simple, no-prep interaction that can be a standalone activity or a recurring routine. Inspired by “Thank the Farmer,” an activity in Susan Kaiser Greenland’s Mindful Games (p. 47), it invites students to ponder the provenance of an item they take for granted. Channeled through my language-teacher-brain, it also fosters […]
Both during my summer travels and in online teacher communities a recent pattern has stood out: anxiety for the new school year, often in spite of—or perhaps because of—extensive prior experience. Others experiencing anxiety are new to the profession or, like you, are boldly trying new ways of teaching. I identify so strongly with this […]
Note: Marianne shared the following write-up with me after Day 4 (of 5) of my Latin language lab at the Agen Workshop that concluded yesterday. I found her observations to be both encouraging and practical. I have added several links to help you find more information about the things she mentions. Enjoy! Justin ~~~ In […]
Dr. Stacey Margarita Johnson of the We Teach Languages podcast recently kickstarted this fun, instructive, community-building game, “1 Like 1 Answer.” For this post, I thought I would simply share my responses without comment (but with links added!). Feel free to join the discussion in the comments section below or on Twitter, and to let […]
A year is a bit like a class session: You plan some things before it starts, but only in the thick of it do you see what you really need to do. So, yes, I do have a classic resolution: to visit the dentist in 2019. (Don’t chortle through your splendent teeth—this is a serious […]