Pedagogía alternativa: bebiendo de otras fuentes Cualquiera que se ha parado frente a un salón de clase, de cualquier edad o etapa educativa, sabe que no hay fórmulas para enseñar. Para ponerlo de otra forma, no hay ninguna técnica, ni actividad, ni estructura de clase que garantice e
Vancouver: tres semanas después Hace poco más de tres semanas regresé a mi ciudad después de dos años y dos meses de vivir y estudiar en un lugar diferente. No voy a hablar directamente de grandes choques culturales ni diferencias de ciudades o idiosincrasias. No quiero hablar de eso
There is a myth out there that adults make language errors forever, while kids just effortlessly absorb whatever they hear. Now, I’m no specialist in childhood learning, but I am here, backed up with recently acquired anecdotal evidence, to tell you that kids do not just pick up
It has been a while since I profiled a multilingual person. You might remember Maria “going home” to English instead of Spanish, Jeremy describing the challenges of learning Kyrgyz, and Jordi reflecting on “foreignerisms” arising among non-native speakers. Here
A World for Loud People In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (2012), Susan Cain states that western culture promotes extroversion as a universal ideal while negating the worth of introversion. The author defines introversion as a preferen
“Descend” in the water The first time I really noticed this fact – that it’s easy to recognize and guess Spanish words if you speak English, but not so much the other way around – I was teaching a Colombian woman how to swim. She spoke only a little English. When I said “Go down in th
Easy steps for a successful language exchange experience In my last post I explained how a language exchange works. Maybe you have found a partner, or you plan to find one. Congratulations! Here are some tips for making your language exchange as productive as possible. 1. Prepare for
Learning a language? Keep going. Hello from the frontier of what I think they call ‘intermediate’ in language learning. Maybe prompted by the change in geography–last week I moved from the dry yellow plains of Mesopotamia to the green mountains of Eastern Anatolia–I recogn
Podcasts are Great… Especially for Language Learners A guest post by fellow language educator, Adam Samuel. Podcasts are audio files, mainly consisting of spoken word content on numerous topics that can be downloaded directly onto a computer or transportable media device, such as an i
Three steps I use to learn a lot of Turkish vocabulary 1. Old-fashioned pen and paper Every time I hear or see a new word that seems interesting or important, I copy it onto a folded piece of paper that I keep in my pocket dictionary. If I run into a language-interested friend, I wil
