Nope. Not when you’re trying to stay in the target language. Instead, #TL90plus foreign language teachers try something like this to help students find meaning in a piece of incomprehensible L2: Instead of *PAIRING incomprehensible L2 with comprehensible L1, teachers try to *PAIR it with … Continue reading
It happens to all of us: The kids don’t try. Students are always saying, “Teacher, I don’t get it. I don’t know what that means!” The kids don’t pay attention. We work so hard to prepare a high-quality lesson and it … Continue reading
Q- “How do you make input comprehensible?” A- “Hmmm. I’m not sure what you mean? Do you mean something like Question #1 or do you mean Question #2? Question #1: How do you help a novice student know that you want … Continue reading
“Language Acquisition Magic” …I don’t really like the phrase anymore. It makes it sound like acquiring a language is easy; and I DON’T think that’s true. It also makes it sound like there is a perfect formula for how to teach … Continue reading
I took a break. During the past 2-3 months I haven’t continued the series on CI with Todd. However, I NEED TO GET BACK TO IT because at the end of each of those posts I listed some questions/discussion topics that … Continue reading
In class, have you ever: changed the tone/inflection of your voice to indicate that the L2 word you’re using is a question word? made the tone of your voice sound angry in order to help students know that your L2 … Continue reading
I do speak L1, sometimes. “When?” you might ask. Well…I rarely use L1 to help students find meaning in L2. (There’s plenty of other fun and effective ways to help them find meaning! See here and here and here) I … Continue reading
This week I showed students some music videos of Ecuadorian pan flutist, Leo Rojas. Since they had never seen or heard anything like it, they were intrigued! After playing the video for 90 seconds (or so): I paused the video. … Continue reading
These posts are probably helping me more than they’re helping you. Writing them is allowing me to articulate, for the first times, exactly how I’m helping my novice students acquire their first bits of L2. (Disclaimer: My writing is not research … Continue reading
A KID SNEEZES and you say, “Bless you,” in the target language. THE PHONE RINGS and you say, “Telephone!” in the target language. IT STARTS TO SNOW OUTSIDE and you point and say, “Look class! It’s snowing!” in the target language. TWO FRIENDS START … Continue reading
