It’s my honor this week to have written a guest post commissioned by Jason Slanga, an expert language learner and teacher and one of the most thoughtful people I know when it comes to personal habits and disciplines. Jason recently organized the Latin Reading Challenge (#LatinReadingChallenge) to support people trying to boost their Latin reading ability. […]
Tag Archives: learning
The Inescapable Case For Extensive Reading (Video)
Here at Indwelling Language, I’m always talking about the power of reading and rereading for teaching and learning languages. So I’m especially excited to share my second contribution to the Musicuentos Black Box Podcast, the sixth episode in the series, which considers the role of what is called Extensive Reading and Listening through the lens of an article by Rob […]
6 Questions to Start, Sustain, and Elevate Conversation About a Text
NOTE: In my last post, I shared material from a presentation I gave at the National TPRS® conference in July. This post is based on another presentation that I gave fifteen minutes later. This post addresses a trifecta of questions teachers often ask: 1. How do I get my students to talk more? 2. How can I […]
Justin’s Lesson Plans from NTPRS 2015, Buy-In Guaranteed
NOTE: This post is a feature-fest based on a jam-packed conference presentation. Please feel free to skip around! To me, the perfect lesson plan is one that guarantees buy-in by students, requires little to no preparation, is enjoyable for students and teacher, is flexible and repeatable with the same group of students and across levels, […]
What Is Your Favorite Thing To Do?
If you could spend your time doing whatever you wanted, how would you spend it? What if doing that activity somehow also helped you learn a language? Many of our favorite activities can be adjusted or can be incorporated into our schedules in such a way as to enhance language learning. This doesn’t mean they always […]
Balancing Research and Experience
If you’ve ever tried to compile a bibliography of sources on issues in language teaching and learning—issues such as the roles of input and output, error correction, age of onset (when someone starts learning a language), explicit instruction, social and emotional factors, etc.—then you’ve noticed at least one thing: You can find an article or […]
You can’t learn when you’re distracted–a note from London
It’s the middle of the night in London, where I’m spending the week in a cute little flat in Soho. Today my wife and I, with a group of friends, enjoyed an outing to Stratford and, though I never tire of driving through the English countryside, I decided–perhaps inspired by glimpsing Cicero and Caffe Nero side by […]
Grammar Is Not a Skill, or, What Does It Really Mean to Know a Language?
I’m thrilled to share my first contribution to the reinvented Musicuentos Black Box Podcast, a collection of resources created to form a bridge between Second Language Acquisition research and everyday practice. We hope that, whether you are a teacher or a learner, this new video series will provide you with both information and inspiration! This episode, […]
An Old Friend and a New
Like you, I have many gurus, mentors, and models to whom I look up in my language teaching and learning, and I’m always excited to discover a new one. Today I want to share with you one person whose common-sense approach I have long found refreshing and worth imitating, and another of whose expertise I recently learned. […]
Looking backward and forward
It’s usually in January that we talk about that month’s namesake Janus, the Roman god who peers simultaneously into the past and into the future. Myself, I’m most drawn to that split gaze around the end of the academic year, when the events of this one are still fresh and the possibilities of the next burn bright. Whether you’re […]