I have been having the midyear blues lately; I become stressed and doubtful when I think of my students’ speed, competency, and skills. I suffer quandaries of pedagogy as I try to wrestle the balance between memorization of details and application of knowledge; induction, deduction, and production; comprehensible input and the analytic morass of charts. I tend in most things to be a moderate, a scavenger of bits of all sides of an argument or philosophy. In my experience, too much of any one principle or idea can narrow one’s vision. On the other hand, the chaos of an open tent approach can be exhausting.
Sometimes we need to get out of the theoretical clouds and get back to the simple earth. Concrete activities work way better than abstraction. Here are some OTHER people’s ideas for things that work in their classes. I hope they will inject some fresh ideas into my room and yours.
1-3-10 Write (Via @MartinaBex)
This offers a scaffolded approach to writing. Students successively write for 1, 3, and 10 minutes, improving each time.
Word Chunk Game (Via @silvius_toda)
A game in which students listen to comprehensible input, collaboratively decide on meaning, and combine basketball-like elements. Sounds fun!
“The Art of Reading Latin: How to Teach It” (Via @calpunzel)
There were proponents of natural order listening and reading back in the 19th century.
Untextbooking: What Does the Fox Say? (Via @rachelcinis)
A whole series of lessons based on comprehensible input, that uses the now famous song as its impetus.