Category Archives: teaching grammar
Lomb Kató
One of the greatest DVD’s I ever saw on second language acquisition was the Krashen Seminar. It was produced by Blaine Ray in the late 90′s and on the DVD Krashen, in a very light and informative manner, outlines how … Continue reading
How Well Do They Really Know It?
When I first started using tprs I had the idea that if we used a phrase or structure in class, it was acquired. I have since learned that this may not necessarily be the case. As I work with students … Continue reading
Filed under Storytelling tips, Teaching Discoveries, teaching grammar
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the basics of teaching
Take a look at this Bobby McFerrin clip. Then if you have time watch it again and think about how he teaches and what makes him a good teacher. We as language teachers have a lot in common with music … Continue reading
Great comment from Norm Veilleux
Here is a great comment from Ben Slavic’s Blog Don’t remember where I read this, but it was by a biggie in the SLA world (VanPatten I think) who believed that learning styles do not apply to language acquisition. There … Continue reading
Filed under Teaching Discoveries, teaching grammar
To correct or not?
Corrections have been something I have thought about lately. There is this part of me that wonders how much good it really does in terms of language acquisition. In my experience so far, I think that mostly it does little … Continue reading
Filed under Teaching Discoveries, teaching grammar
Teaching multiple tenses
Today I started the road to teaching multiple tenses. It is freeing to me to present the language as a whole and not in segments. The wonderful thing was that the student completely understood the difference. It seems terrible to … Continue reading
Filed under Storytelling tips, Teaching Discoveries, teaching grammar
Keeping it Personalized
I have discovered that it is essential that a language is personalized. As soon as I start talking about something that they are not interested in I begin to loose them. When I add a new detail, it sparks the … Continue reading
Following the rules
I realized today that rules are brilliant when you enforce them. It can be easy for teachers to just let it slide, but today in class I really enforced the rules. When I did this, it wasn’t in a harsh … Continue reading
False Beginners
When teaching a language like Spanish I am bound to run into the idea of false beginners. There will be so many different levels of Spanish with my students when they enter the classroom. A false beginner is a student … Continue reading
Teaching like Chet
There was a while where I really listened to a lot of Chet Baker, a jazz trumpeter who was most popular in the 50s. There was something about his music that I really liked. It had soul to it. Most … Continue reading
Filed under Teaching Discoveries, teaching grammar
