Preaching to Acquire

I've been home from Mitten CI for about 3 hours, and I'm so thankful for an incredible conference this year.  Here are some of my reflections and takeaways from the fantastic language conference in Michigan! 1. Thank you to all of the organizers for their work in organizing the conference.  Your efforts are SO APPRECIATED.  Thank you for caring so much about language teachers. 2.  Thank you to every single presenter who was willing to be vulnerable to stand up in front of their peers and share their passion.  I am so thankful to belong to a community of wonderful human beings. 3.  Thank you to every single person who encouraged and supported me as I prepared for my first presentation.  I especially want to thank every person who came to my presentation about developing proficiency while using a textbook.  Your applause, participation, kind words, and presence was SO encouraging. Here are some of my top takeaways from the sessions I was able ...

I posted this in the CI Liftoff Facebook group, but I didn't want to lose the memory, so I figured I would document it here as well. Stick with me through my rambling, exhausted, emotional post. Today I had the rare experience to witness the fruits of my vulnerability in class. After a student walking in and telling me that my hair looked "interesting" 🙄 (7th grade boys...) and what felt like the longest afternoon of my life... one of my 6th grade students bopped into my room to talk. Some background information... this student has suffered severe trauma and has gone through more in her 11 years than I have in my life. Although she is not without her struggles, she is the sweetest kid. So, the bell rang, (in my head I was singing hallelujah!) and she pops into my room to tell me about a frustration with her report card. A grade she received in a class (not mine) would cause her to be grounded for this last quarter. We proceeded to discuss ways to improve that gra...

One of the things we stress in our CI classrooms is the need for community.  It's something that I've put more focus and effort into building this year, and I think I figured out one (pretty obvious - duh!) place to start... being vulnerable. If we want our students to share about themselves in class and grow closer together, we must model that for them.  Many of them may come from situations where being open, honest and real isn't what is expected.  Some of us may come from backgrounds where that is just not what our families expected from us.  Sometimes this is an adjustment for both teacher and students. Here are some ways that I've tried to model vulnerability in front of my students:  1) I ask them how they are and actually care about their responses.  It might be before school or during lunch duty when I see a student who looks tired or doesn't have their usual bubbly smile.  I always try to ask them how they are doing.  If they respo...