This page is dedicated to the best practices of language acquisition. Memes and quotes about language learning.
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21. Once you do, you will become a much happier teacher and will learn to celebrate the successes of your students rather than regret their non-nativeness.
22. Bill VanPatten (of Tea with BVP) makes the claim that there are no errors in language. What a student may produce may be a “non-native-like utterance”.
23. CI teachers will recognize the faces of these two experts, Dr. Bill Van Patten and Dr. Stephen Krashen who can actually explain how language acquisition “really works”
24. SpanishToMind understands that to acquire a language you need compelling input. Worksheets? No thanks!
25. With a license you can drive a car and get from Point A from Point B and you don’t need to know the mechanics of the engine to do it. We want our students to be “drivers” of the language, not mechanics.
26. Mme Torres (@alt719) can attest that CI teachers will do anything to find a compelling and fun strategy to deliver comprehensible input to help their students.
27. We must make sure we have appropriate expectations of our students.
28. Remember that comprehension comes first and students will be able to understand a lot more than they are able to produce. Just because they understand it doesn’t mean they “own” that structure yet and can produce it spontaneously.
29. Don’t let things stress you out. When students make mistakes with the language, realize that this is NORMAL, and they are on the long road to fluency. Encourage them and always make sure they have comprehensible input of language in context.
30. Notebooks are nice and all, but you know what is really interactive? Talking and engaging the students in real language. Having students act out a story that you narrate with actual language, used in real context, is super engaging!
31. Some teachers might argue that some students aren’t capable of learning languages. It’s true, most students have difficultly memorizing and applying rules of grammar. But all people are capable of acquiring languages; just look at them speaking their first language.
32. Trying to memorize the rules of when to use a specific word and then remembering to apply that rule spontaneously in conversation is a recipe for disaster. Instead, use these words naturally in context and your students will remember the phrases.
33. Don’t try and plan units based on the grammar. Instead choose an essential question to explore like “How was my childhood affected by the place or generation that I grew up?” that will naturally invoke the use of said gramatical structure.
34. Proficiency can not be obtained from studying vocabulary lists. Let’s put those words in context!
34. It would be nuts if we tried to teach our children to learn vocabulary the way the textbook companies expect you to do it with your middle and high school language students.