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The taco/sushi talk – visualized!
If you’ve enjoyed using – or considered using – the taco talk to help novices and intermediates (and their parents) understand what it means to learn for proficiency, you’ll love this resource. Many...
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How about an elementary rubric?
It’s possible a good rubric for communicating performance-towards-proficiency for early language learners exists, but if it does, I haven’t seen it. (If you have, please share in a comment!) See this...
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Semester 1 assessment: Elementary edition
December found us doing our first formal assessment of the semester. That is my reality this year, and I love it. We go at our own pace and make our own rules and I don’t see my students enough to...
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Best of 2015 #3: How important is task completion?
The third and fourth most popular posts of 2015 were very close, but with the benefit of a few extra months the post on task completion on rubrics barely edged out the #4 post to take the bronze medal....
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Top post of the year: The 2015 updated rubric
My old rubric served me well for four years, but it was time for a change. A clean slate, a lot of websites, a lot of feedback, and a lot of collaborative brainstorming later, I finally had something...
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Where are the points of agreement in language teaching?
When I graduated from my master’s program in Linguistics with an emphasis on Second Language Acquisition, I suffered from a fundamental misunderstanding. I thought that there was a consensus on the...
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Best of 2016, #4: Where’s the agreement?
The fourth-most popular post of 2016 on Musicuentos was a post in which I detailed where I felt the agreement was among people with very different opinions in our field (and there are as many opinions...
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Why it’s I Can, not I Need or even I Want
Subtitle: The sheer, incomparable power of making meaning. Other subtitle: Anecdotes from my Russian journey. The curse of knowledge of this: When we forget the breathtaking power of the sudden “I...
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How proficient language speakers get there, and how it changed my goals
Think about yourself and the bilingual people you know. How did you all become proficient in a new language? A while ago, Marc’s post on 5 things to tell kids on the first day of class reminded me...
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Everything works (or nothing does).
In the language teaching field, we have a long, treasured history of arguing and drama. We may agree or disagree on classroom setup, teacher recruitment efforts, and the best ways to encourage learners...
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