February finds many of us in a long, gapless stretch of work that ranges from humdrum to harrowing. New Year’s resolutions to work smarter or spend more time with family or hone a hobby are buried by snowpack, and we retreat into ourselves or suffer panic or just put our heads down to make it to […]
The Importance of the Next Thing
No, this isn’t about tech trends or teaching fads. It’s a confession and a simple solution. Confession: My reading-and-listening habit in one of my target languages almost disappeared this winter. Why? Because I hadn’t lined up the Next Thing. The Next Thing The Next Thing is the resource you plan to use just as […]
Announcing Mitten Latin!
I’m excited to announce Mitten Latin, a workshop for Latin teachers in or near Michigan! Mitten Latin will feature low-prep, high-payoff activities and techniques like those in the LIMEN collection. Even if you’re not a Latin teacher, would you consider spreading the word or referring a colleague?Mitten Latin will be held on April 22–the day after Mitten CI–and […]
Top Five Posts of 2017
It’s the time of year for Top Somenumber Posts! I’ve enjoyed seeing other bloggers share their top posts of the year. Here are the five posts on indwellinglanguage.com that generated the most interaction. As you can see, three of them were reflections on / descriptions of things that happened at Express Fluency 2017. I hope […]
Winter Bonus Sessions Announced!
Having heard from several people who want to use some of their winter break to pursue a learning or teaching goal, I’m excited to announce that, for the first time in about fifteen years, I’ll be home during winter break and have opened a bunch of time slots for online coaching, tutoring, or conversation sessions […]
Guided Meditation in the TL
Sometimes I use guided meditation to relax or to help me fall asleep. Because I enjoy it and in order to get a bit more out of life, I usually listen in a language other than English. (My partner recently said to me that the fact that I use even sleep meditation to get more input […]
An uplifting, versatile, low prep review task
Lots of teachers are looking for review activities this time of year. Here is one I recently thought of that doubles as a mood enhancer and can also be used throughout the year to prompt conversation or writing. I rarely do explicit review of language as content, but I do look for interesting and efficient […]
Choral Translation – VIDEO breakdown (Express Fluency reflection 5)
This is the fifth in a series of reflections and elaborations on Express Fluency 2017. If you haven’t yet, check out installment 1, on the skills of slowness and silence, installment 2, on making lemonade, i.e., capitalizing on would-be problems in class, installment 3, on brain UNbreaks, and installment 4, on getting something from nothing. […]
Letter from Tim on ‘Something from Nothing’
The following is a letter I received from Tim, a teacher in Colorado, in response to my recent video and commentary on getting Something from Nothing in our classes. It was encouraging to me and I thought it might be encouraging for you to hear about the repeatability of the filmed interaction and about the […]
Something from Nothing – VIDEO breakdown (Express Fluency reflection 4)
This is the fourth in a series of reflections and elaborations on Express Fluency 2017. If you haven’t yet, check out installment 1, on the skills of slowness and silence, installment 2, on making lemonade, i.e., capitalizing on would-be problems in class, and installment 3, on brain UNbreaks. I hesitated to share the video below. It’s as […]