When I first started learning my second language, vocabulary was its own exercise and not strongly connected to the unit content. Learning vocabulary often meant studying large banks of words and trying to memorize them for a quiz. And shortly after the quiz, many of those words would be forgotten because I wasn't using them … Continue reading
As I've been documenting on this blog, I spent 7 weeks of my summer completing the first two of 10 courses towards earning an MEd degree from Queen's University. One of those courses, PME 800 or Self-Regulated Inquiry and Learning, required me to complete an inquiry project and to learn how self-regulated learning facilitates and … Continue reading
This post is about a resource I developed in about 2017, and it allowed me to align the way that I teach reading in my second language classes with a series of beliefs that I've held for a long time: Reading is NOT translation. For years, every time I asked students to read something in … Continue reading
I vividly remember what it was like to participate in my first university level French class. It seemed like everyone else was talking easily, having conversations and responding to the professor's questions in French. I, on the other hand, felt totally inadequate. Nothing in my high school French experience had prepared me for this. We … Continue reading
I'm in the middle of reading "Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters," by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst. This is a book that I've been looking forward to, and I'm excited to adapt the ideas for second language reading with my students. Here's the problem I'm working on solving: second language reading … Continue reading
Full confession - while there is no actual holiday during which everyone gets together and celebrates cheese and chocolate (although... wouldn't that be amazing?), planning a classroom experience like this is an opportunity to showcase certain aspects of French culture that are fun, interesting, easy to compare to others, and very popular with my high … Continue reading
My two teaching areas are English and French. I haven't taught English for some time, but there are some pretty reliable tools available now to catch incidents of plagiarism. Translator use is considered plagiarism in second language classes, and it's no exaggeration to say that plagiarism is rampant in high schools. Simply put, work completed … Continue reading
La fête des mères, or Mother's Day, may not immediately jump to mind as a cultural celebration. I have treated it as such for a couple of years now, and this has become an event that I and my students look forward to every year. I've seen a lot of discussion around students who have … Continue reading
Last summer, I read a book that was a game changer for me. The book was called Writing Circles, written by James Vopat. Mr. Vopat has developed a system similar to literature circles, using peer-led small groups and micro lessons focused on skills and strategies to do the following: lead students from practice to progress as … Continue reading
My collaboration partner and I have been using stations (sometimes also called centers) in our secondary level French as a second language classes over the past year. When we tell our colleagues what we're doing, reactions vary. If we're talking to secondary teachers, the reaction is somewhere between asking us what we're talking about to … Continue reading
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