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 […]
This post is a personal reflection and a challenge on the topic of my teacher mantra video #3, which you can watch here or at the bottom of this page. During the last two weeks, I have had two physical and mental crashes—times when, due to poor self-care the previous several days, I spent an […]
This is part 4 of my self-evaluations of my “Four Things to Be Relentless about in 2019,” which were Inclusion, Reality, Collaboration, and Positivity. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. This is how I summarized Thing 4: Positivity I’ve long had a mantra by which I remind myself […]
This is part 2 of my self-evaluations of my “Four Things to Be Relentless about in 2019,” which were Inclusion, Reality, Collaboration, and Positivity. You can read part 1 here. This is how I summarized Thing 2: Reality Practically no one’s actual situation is remotely close to ideal: curricular requirements issued from on high, tests […]
I’ve begun reflecting on the year a bit earlier than usual. Starting today, I’ll publish a self-evaluation each week for one of my “Four Things to Be Relentless about in 2019.” My four things were Inclusion, Reality, Collaboration, and Positivity. This is how I summarized Thing 1: Inclusion Many areas that my work touches—pedagogy at […]
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 […]
Here’s a goals-related question I occasionally ask myself: Now, the fact that I would consider something annoying or a waste of time in my own language learning doesn’t automatically mean it’s not worth my students’ while. We shouldn’t assume that our students are versions of ourselves, whether it comes to interests, temperament, neurology, or motivation, though […]
This post is the first in a series about language learning goals. Stay tuned for a Learner Edition, a Latin Edition, and maybe a Super-Practical Edition. My goals as a language teacher are simple–at least to state: Help each student grow in proficiency as much as is reasonable, given total time and frequency of interaction. Inspire […]
I was sitting at the Detroit Tigers’ second August home game and had just taken this picture when I did something I’m learning not to do in the evening or at baseball games: I checked my email. In it I found the anonymous evaluations from a recent set of presentations. Among these was a first for me: a […]
What is the role of students’ first language (L1) in a language classroom? This question is probably more controversial than the one about the use of the target language (TL), which I addressed in the last post. I’ve been asked several times in the last year to publicize my thoughts on L1 use in the classroom, and I finally have […]