Language is more than mere vocabulary and grammar. Authentic cultural stories like this one can help students to communicate. Students need to know the background information that these kinds of stories provide to understand the metaphor-laden speech and imagery that every native speaker uses all the time—up to six [...]
Multilevel Classes? Reading "Junk" May Be the Answer! Every class is a multilevel class. The schedule may say students are all at the same level and have been placed in the appropriate class, but reading levels are all over the place... or soon will be. When the spread becomes [...]
Laura, a beginning teacher, writes: "I would love to use some of your books and start some FVR! How do I do that if the school doesn't have extra money to buy books?" Good question, and one that I get asked a lot. There is more than one way [...]
One of the shortest but most useful sayings by legendary French teacher Susan Gross, is, “Shelter vocabulary, not grammar.” It is important to teach and use verbs as vocabulary, rather than as drilled formulas. When the sound/meaning pair is different, verbs may need to be presented explicitly—but this is [...]
Start your students off right by teaching them effective reading strategies with these bookmarks. Download the bookmarks here to hand out to your students. They will remind kids how to read in another language: Just keep reading. Too many language learners stop to look up every unknown word. Terrible [...]
Multilevel Classes? Reading "Junk" May Be the Answer! Every class is a multilevel class. The schedule may say students are all in level 1 and have been placed in the appropriate class, but reading levels are all over the place, or soon will be. When the spread becomes wide, [...]