Oh, the tension of end of the school year. Can you feel it already? Teacher nerves are shot. Students have checked out. Just about everyone including the janitors are counting the days until everyone is gone for the summer. But the year isn’t quite over yet and how you close a school year might be almost as important as you start one, so I’m thankful for those teachers who continue to push themselves and the learners in their classes. Even more thankful when they continue to share their reflections that cause me to think. Hope some of these posts from the past couple of weeks will do the same for you.

  • “Why We Are Doing This?” – Intentions Set Expectations For the Interpersonal

    This just might be the most frequently asked question by learners in classrooms today and if you can’t answer that question for each and every one of your activities, you may want to rethink your plans for the day. Japanese teacher, Colleen Hayes, reminds us that it isn’t enough to share learning targets or agendas with students, but to help students see connection between the activities and the potential learning outcomes. Give our lesson a purpose and the students the motivation to actively participate in what is about to happen (or even what just happened).  Read Colleen’s post –>

  • Lost Pets

    A short fun post from Spanish elementary school teacher, Jennifer Kennedy, that provides a great example of how you can move from just teaching vocabulary to teaching for a communicative purpose.  Animals … a favorite topic of most elementary school teachers. And why not, kids LOVE animals and they do provide a great opportunity for input. However, far too often it is treated like a topic and students output is limited to novice low utterances (identifications) of animals. In her post, Jennifer shares how she has students create lost pet posters helping kids to produce language beyond the single word level and even providing the option to perhaps create with the language.  Read Jennifer’s post –>

  • Love is 

    I don’t even know how to summarize this post from Spanish teacher, Laura Sexton. I’ve read it so many times over the past couple of weeks. It has shaken me. It has made me pause. It has made me reflect. It has made me think. It has made me wonder.  Read Laura’s post –>

  • Join me on Kifi

    While this post may not be focused on language teaching, the teacher nerd me got all excited with Spanish teacher and blogger, Sara-Elizabeth, posted about her experience with a new link saving and link sharing service. Much like her, I have never found Pinterest to be an effective tool to save all of my work bookmarks, although I love it to get inspiration and find new resources. Can’t wait to play with this new toy this summer.  Read Sara-Elizabeth’ post  to discover Kifi–>

  • From the Path 2 Proficiency: Surviving EPIC Failure

    “Sometimes things happen and we have EPIC failures in our classrooms, but we don’t need to buy stock in Kleenex or Ben & Jerry’s. It’s going to be ok.” This is a must read from Spanish teacher, Rose Rhodes, for any teacher, because we have all been there. Read Rose’ post –>

  • From the Path 2 Proficiency: The countdown has begun!

    Go ahead and admit it. You are counting the days until the end of the school year. That’s ok. It’s only natural. World language educator, Alyssa Villarreal, has some tips to make the most of the end of the school year and.  Read Alyssa’s post –>

Published by Thomas Sauer

Thomas Sauer is the Director of Design and Communication for AdvanceLearning and an independent consultant. He previously held positions as world language specialist in the Fayette County Public Schools and Jefferson County Public Schools for almost ten years and taught German at the University of Kentucky, Georgetown College and Kentucky Educational Television. He has directed a variety of state and federal grants, most recently as program director and consultant for several successful STARTALK programs. Thomas has served as President of the Kentucky World Language Association as well as on the Board of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the National Association of District Supervisors of Foreign Languages and the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Named the 2011 Pearson/NADSFL Supervisor of the Year and a 2010 Global Visionary by the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana, Thomas is passionate about helping educators making the shift from teaching to learning.