Listen to understand, not to respond. When I heard those words two years ago, they really resonated with me. The context was teaching toward proficiency, but really, I think they’re good advice for life in general. Listen to understand, not to respond. Since 2014, in teaching toward the goal of student proficiency, I have become …
Yearly Archives: 2017
Creating Order Out of Chaos: Crafting Appropriate Lessons Within a Thematic Unit
What can the biblical creation story teach us about unit and lesson planning? A lot! The Book of Genesis explains that God began with “tohu va’vohu” (sometimes translated from the Hebrew as “unformed and void”) and then differentiated the world into heaven and earth. From there, the Divine went on to separate light from darkness, …
Continue reading “Creating Order Out of Chaos: Crafting Appropriate Lessons Within a Thematic Unit”
Proficiency and Parents
We’re all about the proficiency path at our school. I’ve got the levels posted in my classroom: the ice cream cone graphic in elementary and signs with level descriptors in middle school. We’re using can-do statements in every unit, assessing with IPAs, learning language in context. My alumni students leave with a language immersion trip …
Let your students lead the way
At this point of the year, I am able to let students take even more control in level 2. They are starting to become more confident in their abilities, and they know what I expect of them when we complete activities. Now, it is time for them to take the reins! Some of my favorite …
The Power of Pause
Three seconds. Research has shown that giving students at least three seconds of think time after asking a question increases results in a number of ways. Yet, with time constraints and our students’ waning attention spans, we are continually pressured to crank out questions and answers, call on a variety of students, make sure everyone feels good, …
Peer editing writing stations
One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is to relinquish the floor. I am not proud of it, but being aware of it has helped me find ways to cope with the allure of being the sage on stage. As I work with language learners who are increasingly proficient, I’ve realized they need more …
Stepping Stones to Interpretive Reading
When I started to teach towards proficiency, I knew what the end product was, but I was not always clear how to get there. What would I do each day in class? However, once I started asking students more and more proficiency questions on my assessments, I would start to notice the gaps in their …
My Path to Proficiency: A Travel Journal
The thing about embarking down the Path to Proficiency is that there isn’t just one single path you have to take. When I first began my journey towards proficiency, I found myself often looking to others further along the trek than me and asking them for directions. I knew that I couldn’t implement everything I …
Enough is as good as a feast.
Yes. I’ll admit it. I’m a nerd. A big one. I’ll own it. Grammar really gets me going. Word origin, homophones, rhetorical devices and literary analysis excite me. Old AP fill-ins were a challenging game I played against myself. The Académie Française has nothing on me! (You French teachers know what I mean!) I won’t ask …
Get in the Game: Let’s Talk About Stations
Hello, and Happy Spring! I just got back from the SCOLT conference for the 2nd time ever, and this time I got to present! So this post, fair warning, is going to be partly about my process of submitting and doing a presentation, and the other part about the actual stations presentation as it happened. …
Continue reading “Get in the Game: Let’s Talk About Stations”