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“Home Screen Investigation” for TL Interaction, + Major Zoom Additions!

In this post: “Home Screen Investigation,” using a cell phone screen to generate focused and fun communication—oral and written—in the interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational modes. Major additions to my ultimate course on teaching with Zoom! Home Screen Investigation Home Screen Investigation is a new favorite source of interaction for me and my students. Basically, you […]

That Thing You Used to Do (#EdMarchSanity 3)

March is over, but, like March Madness, #EdMarchSanity continues into April! A simple way to refresh your classes without needing to learn or do a bunch of new stuff is to dust off a task or routine that you haven’t done in a while. This may seem obvious, but I’m amazed when I think of […]

ZERO PREP Smorgasbord (#EdMarchSanity 1)

Could you use some ZERO PREP routines and activities during this long month? Following French teacher Rebecca Blouwolff’s inspiring lead, I’m putting out several posts in March and beyond with simple ideas for peace, balance, joy, and success. After brainstorming four or five #EdMarchSanity topics, I remembered that this whole blog is basically about learning and […]

3 New Quirky Scripts

Quirky Scripts is a lesson requiring almost no prep that can be used repeatedly all year, at every level. It’s also a way for students to acquire “advanced” language really early on with minimal effort. Skim the how-to or scroll down for three scripts and a dozen reasons these Quirky Scripts are so useful. Read this post’s predecessor, Quirky […]

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 […]