Tag: teaching

Complexity theory (CT) deals with complex, dynamic, and nonlinear systems. When I first encountered CT some 20 years ago, it was not in the context of language. However, I couldn’t think of many things that were more complex, dynamic, and nonlinear than language (Larsen-Freeman, 1997). And it soon...

Danny Brassell gets over himself to make learning fun for all agesWhen I first began teaching elementary school, my principal asked me if I knew any Spanish. After I replied, “Un poquito (a little),” he said, “Good. You’re our new bilingual coordinator!”

Joanna Duggan and Teddi Predaris examine the ten key components of an English learner master planImagine being the parent of a third grader new to a school in a large, urban district. Your child was designated as an English learner (EL) at her...

The U.S. House and Senate have both introduced bills that encourage the replacement of math, science, and foreign language courses with computer coding in high schools.In June, U.S. senators Bill Cassidy, MD (R-Louisiana), and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) introduced the Coding Opportunities and Development for Equitable Students (CODES) Act, a new competitive grant program for local education agencies (LEAs) that...

Mary Thrond explores trends in world language development for teachers (Teaching Works, University of Michigan, www.teachingworks.org) Commissioned by a bipartisan group of members of Congress “to examine the nation’s current capacity in languages and recommend actions to ensure excellence in all languages as well as international education and research” (vii), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on Language...

Rene Gadelha believes that only careful implementation will realize the promise of virtual reality in education Revolutionizing Education Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to revolutionize education as we know it. Specifically, it immerses students in their learning more than any other available medium. It blocks out both visual and...

Keith Oelrich argues that teacher preparation and curriculum design are the keys to closing the digital technological opportunity gap A Gap Emerges In the mid-’90s, as personal computer and internet access was becoming more available to many in the U.S., a correlation could be observed between access to technology and socioeconomic status. Scholars, policy makers, and advocacy groups referred to this...

Chita Espino-Bravo explains how to use film to introduce diversity into advanced conversation classesTeaching an advanced Spanish conversation course at the university level can be challenging for many reasons, but for me, the biggest challenge was trying to find a...

Ann Abbott sees tensions in Spanish programs that cannot holdIn one of my roles as a director of Undergraduate Studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), I work closely with our advisor, I speak directly with potential students and their parents, and I am on our department’s...

M. Elhess, E. Elturki, and J. Egbert offer strategies to support creativity in the language classroom“Our students aren’t creative,” claimed one of the language teachers in the professional development workshop. The other participating teachers nodded in agreement.“How do you know?” asked the workshop facilitator.The teacher hesitated. “Well,” she said, “I guess I don’t. We don’t ask them to do anything creative, mostly...