When I was a child growing up in the 70s and 80s on a farm in California, the arrival of the bookmobile was an event that made me jump up and down with excitement. We had no television, radio and needless to say, no computer at that time. The bookmobile Read more…
Inferring is something we do naturally. We pick up clues from what people say and do and we make educated guesses all the time. It is an important skill because rarely are we given every single piece of information we need directly, some things we just need to understand without being Read more…
A couple of years ago my husband and I took our daughter skiing for the second time. The first time had been so many years before she couldn’t remember so she was starting from scratch. She spent most of the morning standing up and falling down. Little by little the Read more…
I can remember struggling through texts in my high school Spanish class, especially when I was asked to read out loud. It took a lot of my energy and concentration to get the pronunciation of those unfamiliar sound combinations to come out right; so much energy in fact that while I Read more…
This post is a part of a series on teaching reading, part 1 explained how to use word clouds to introduce texts. Everyday I took the bus from the northern part of Bogota to the center to work at a little office of Jesuit priests who were trying to help Read more…
When I was a student I excelled at taking notes on lectures. I would listen to what the professor said and scribble down important words and phrases. Then I would go home and organize my scribblings into something I could follow and study later. I was less good at taking notes Read more…
When I was learning Spanish, I remember having to practice and sing a song as a whole class. It seemed like a waste of time while I was doing it because I hate singing (actually, I don’t hate singing but I don’t feel like I am good at it so Read more…
One of my favorite professional development activities every year is to attend and sometimes present at conferences. This year I had the opportunity to attend the TESOL Convention in Seattle Washington, where more than 6,000 teachers from around the world came to share ideas. Conferences provide teachers with an opportunity to get Read more…
A few years back, after years of living abroad and mainly teaching students who shared a culture and educational background, I found myself living in Tucson, Arizona, teaching for an fantastic program called Family Literacy. At this point I had been teaching for a few years and felt confident in my Read more…
There are few things as thrilling as flying down a ski slope or scoring a winning point. Athletes routinely make complicated moves look effortless as they run, kick, leap and roll across their playing fields but to succeed it takes practice and a wide variety of strengths and skills. Read more…