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 […]
Author Archives: Justin Slocum Bailey
How Will You Get There? Quirky Q&A with Google Maps
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? (Activity + Add-On)
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 […]
Introducing: Tuned-In Teacher Mantras
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 […]
Marianne’s Takeaways from Agen Language Lab with JSB
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 […]
1 Like 1 Answer – ‘We Teach Languages’ Edition
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 […]
Four Things to be Relentless about in 2019
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 […]
My Outfits Are Ready for ACTFL
Are you? Tomorrow I head to New Orleans to join old and new friends in the CI Posse, a growing group of twenty-odd teachers and content creators working together to boost joy and success at ACTFL 2018 and beyond. If you haven’t discovered it yet, check out the CI Posse blog, which includes my “Why […]
Your Teaching Body, pt 3: Gestures & Facial Expressions
This post narrows the focus of the previous posts on Your Teaching Body (Location & Variation, Movement & Posture) right down to our hands and faces. The uses of gestures as meta-conversation, especially, are easy to learn and much more powerful than I realized when I first began to explore them. This post is the […]
Cut Yourself Some Slack. Actually, Tons of Slack.
Feeling guilty watching screaming goat videos instead of working? Cut yourself some tons of slack. Haven’t exercised since summer? Cut yourself some tons of slack. No time to write “good enough” replies to the emails stacking up in your inbox? Cut yourself some tons of slack. Did something for no good reason? Cut yourself some […]