The Power of Public Art Check out this chalk drawing by David Zinn, a world-renowned street artist who happens to live in my neighborhood. Think of all the ways you and your students could talk about it in the target language! At all levels, public art can be a superb source of learning and interaction, […]
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 […]
Having heard from lots of people with both thanks and follow-up questions on various presentations I’ve done about using Zoom as a teacher, I decided to make a little course in 10 bite-sized modules—under 10 minutes each—to share my experience and tips for getting a ton out of Zoom without needing to learn any other […]
In this post: 1. You Can’t Out-Candice Candice (reflection+video) 2. Sane Saturday (May 9), a perfect mix of relaxation, camaraderie, and PD 3. Low Prep | High Success online workshop (Saturday, May 16) You Can’t Out-Candice Candice The summer between when I was hired to create a Latin program at a school in Los […]
In this post: 1. New guided relaxation video+audio in simple French with Cécile Lainé 2. By popular demand, Saturday section opened for Spanish for Latin Teachers La Flamme: guided relaxation in simple French I’m thrilled that Cécile Lainé has helped create a French adaptation of free guided relaxation video+audio already published in Spanish and […]
In this post: 1. Spanish for Latin Teachers, a new online course by JSB 2. Deep discount on just-launched virtual Summer Institutes with Tina Hargaden of the World Language Proficiency Project Spanish for Latin Teachers For years I have wanted to create this course to take advantage of the boost in comprehension and community […]
My sleep and general well-being have benefited from guided meditation and other calming audio in several languages for quite some time. I quickly came to find it also incredibly useful for language learning and teaching, for a whole lot of reasons. This week I released samples of calming audio in simple Spanish (recorded with Abigail […]
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 […]
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 […]