pandoralanguages

Before the school year begins, we usually spend a lot of time carefully planning our goals, thinking about what we want to accomplish and the mistakes from previous years that we want to avoid. Are your goals for the year still intact? Very often, once the honeymoon period at the beginning of the school year is over, I realize that the picture I had in my mind of how the year would go is simply not working. I’ve only been teaching for two weeks, and I’m already behind! The first thing I ask...

At the beginning of every school year, I find myself asking the same question: “What goals do I want to accomplish this year?” The more I teach, however, the more I realize that they are not only my goals. As teachers, we teach in the middle of at least four different sets of goals: · Our students’ goals · Our school’s goals · Parents’ goals · Our own goals as teachers I have intentionally placed the teacher’s goals last—not because they are the least important, but...

Have you ever asked yourself this question? Who is to blame? Is it the student who is not trying hard enough? Is it the teacher who is not explaining the concept clearly? This behavior is common in many language classrooms and can be just as frustrating for teachers as it is for students. On the one hand, teachers wonder why students do not use a concept correctly after it has already been explained. On the other hand, students may begin to feel that they are not capable of learning the...