Listening to Professor Bill Van Patten’s weekly podcast on L2 (2nd language acquisition) really helps me think correctly about how I plan and conduct my middle school French classes. Van Patten explains that through comprehensible input a mental representation of the target language begins to form in the mind. What qualifies as ‘comprehensible input’? It is language (in my… Read More Kids’ L2 speaking and how it emerges
One of the benefits of acquiring a language naturally, that is by constant repetition of comprehensible language, is that phrasing and language chunks start to FEEL right. TPRS (teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling) is the best methodology I have found for teaching a foreign language. I don’t teach much explicit grammar. Instead we use… Read More Teachers as learners
Since the methodology I employ is about creating stories with student input, each story is completely personal to the class. As a result, interest remains high because of their ownership. I’m in a project-based school, so anytime I can add a hands-on, crafty classroom activity to the story mix, the students like it. Last week I… Read More Projects combine well with language use
