Proficiency in the Classroom

Differentiating Instruction with Questions    This will launch your teaching to a higher level. It explains how different types of questions correspond to different levels of thinking according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, and how to use them to differentiate your teaching to bring out the best in all levels of students.

Checklist for Observing a WL Classroom (PDF)
This latest version has more specific guidance built into the form to point out what good foreign language teaching should look like. This can be a big help to administrators and guests by giving them specifics to focus on. I give a copy to every observer in my classes to get some guided feedback and help me to get better. I also give this form to the students in my classes from time to time to see how they perceive my teaching. You only get better when you get feedback.

Rachel Seay from North Carolina modified an earlier version of the observation form with spaces for notes from the BSCS 5 E’s Instructional Model. Get it here.

Sample Schedule  This sample weekly schedule, incorporating comprehensible input techniques, also allows for your own favorite or required lessons. Page 1 is the bare bones version, page 2 is expanded and more descriptive.

Mnemonics for Key Elements of Theory and Practice

MANIAC: Krashen’s 6 Hypotheses. This is an acronym that will help you to remember the WHY of teaching:  Six of Dr. Stephen Krashen’s hypotheses about language acquisition, and how they can be applied in the classroom. This document is based on,

SCRIMP: Best Teaching Practices.   Here’s another acronym to remind you of some important HOW’s of teaching. Are you scrimping on essential practices that can make your teaching more effective, memorable, and long-lasting? If you want to engage students and get them to acquire language, you cannot afford to SCRIMP on any of these elements in your teaching. Quality comprehension-based teaching uses input that is: Sustainable, Comprehensible, Repeated, Interesting and personalized. Do not SCRIMP on the kind of input that keeps students engaged and keeps teachers enthused.

The elements in SCRIMP access both the fast and the slow thinking systems in the brain, the emotional and the intellectual, the subconscious and the conscious. Getting students to use both of these thinking systems makes learning stick. These are practical and tactical ways to teach.

Good Questions!

I am regularly a guest lecturer in university methods of teaching languages classes. Recently, I visited students in Dr. Frédérique Grim’s EDUC-462-001: Methods and Assessment in Teaching Languages course. I asked students for their follow-up questions. They had some insightful questions that show they are connecting the dots. Check out their questions and my responses: CSU Student Questions.  They asked me to come back for another session and I am excited to discuss these ideas with them further.

Putting It All Together

UNDERSTANDING TPRS
Updated and Expanded –Formerly “The Basics of TPRS”

Language Performance Scale for Telling a Story