Will Slade's Language Teaching Blog

You know how a lot of times students need more examples in context for a new word or phrase?  And a lot of times there are weird collocations that you just need to see in different contexts to understand?  Corpora can give you tons of real in-context examples for any given word or phrase.  They can do a lot of other stuff too, but I'm still learning to work with them. One that I've started using are Brigham Young University's Corpus of Contemporary American English , also known as COCA. It's great!  Just click the link above, click "Enter," and search something that might trip a student up, like "wont to" or "despite."  Then click on the blue link that pops up, and you've got hundreds of in-context examples!  You can see what words go with them, how they're punctuated, and students can come up with their own rules to use those words. Maybe more exciting is this translation corpus: Linguee .  You can translate tricky words an...

Several people have asked me for recommendations for studying Spanish in other countries.  I tell them that my first recommendation comes from my own personal experience; CPI or Centro Panamericano de Idiomas did an amazing job teaching conversational Spanish with well-organized units based around grammatical topics and interesting content.  The locations are spectacular, the teachers competent, interested, and friendly, and the host families became my second and third families! Another school that I would love to visit is Cetlalic or Centro Tlahuica de Lengua e Intercambio Culutural in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  They teach with a focus on social justice and Mexican cultures that is unique among the programs that I have heard of.  My friend and professor, Deborah Palmer, studied there and has taken students and her family there; she recommends it very highly! Another program that friends have recommended is in Antigua, Guatemala. Ixchel Spanish School  receive...

I was searching for ideas for interviews that students could do with random people in the community, but I stumbled on some pretty cool resources that might help with job interviews as well. Talk English. com has a bunch of sample questions and advice on how to answer them.  It's pretty advanced, but it could be really helpful even for a native speaker. I may have posted this before, but the University of Iowa's English Phonetics page is a really powerful tool for the mechanics of producing sounds in English!  They have other languages' phonetics too, such as German and Spanish!

I have been fairly impressed with two apps for language learning.  These are by no means a magic solution that replace attending class and practicing with real people (nothing is, despite the claims of Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone).  But they do as good a job as much more expensive software for providing basic vocabulary, spelling, listening, and functional grammar practice. Duolingo has options to study French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German for English speakers.  I just now noticed (maybe it's a new addition) that they are offering English for Spanish speakers, French speakers, Italian speakers, and Portuguese speakers.  Good for them!  Complaints: sometimes I have noticed that the stress on the syllables in the Spanish version are incorrect, leading to some strange pronunciations that a Spanish speaker would not understand.  Also, I find the typing on the phone a little bit cumbersome, so I actually prefer the computer version.  But th...

Well, I am a huge advocate of traveling to reinforce your language learning, and to establish and maintain the relationships that help sustain a love for your target culture and language.  This week I am practicing what I preach, visiting Mexico City and Puebla.  I can report that I arrived today at the zócalo down town and am in my hostel.  It seems like a really good place to base a trip out of, but I´ll just be here tonight and tomorrow I'll meet up with my friend Leti and we'll head down to Puebla. The trip from the airport to the hostel on the metro and then walking along busy streets was exciting, and I've already passed several churches and monuments that I want to go back and look at more carefully.  Underground in the metro tunnels they have some ancient remnants of temples and altars from the Aztecs, and many buildings have a plaque that tells you what pre-colombian palace was on that spot. I'll post more soon, and try to be more descriptive...

Many thanks to Vera Dugardsyrenova, a fellow language teacher and education researcher, for introducing me to  Mi Vida Loca, a cool, interactive BBC Spanish series .  I am really impressed with it!  The scenes of Spain are beautiful and interesting; the plot of the series seems engaging, and they manage to expose you to really useful vocabulary in meaningful contexts.  As you watch the episodes, there are opportunities for you to participate as a character and practice some of the phrases they have introduced.  Mi VidaLoca is designed for beginners, but I think someone who is a little more advanced could still get a lot out of listening to the native speakers in the videos.  I came across some vocabulary that was new to me in episode 19, la inmobiliaria (the real estate office), either because a different word is used in Latin America, or just because I have never bought real estate, furniture, or even appliances in Spanish. Check it out and let me know ...

My new position teaching fifth grade bilingual education has introduced me to tons of resources that would be really great for other language learning contexts as well.  I had done Reader's Theater before, but I didn't realize how many awesome, free on-line resources there were for Reader's Theater.  Aaron Shep comes highly recommended, and has a huge variety of texts. This school district from Spokane also has a bunch of cool Reader's Theater. There are some fun Cinderella adaptations, like Cinderella Bigfoot and Cinderella's Step-family's press conference which is probably aimed at a teenage or young adult crowd. Anyway, lots of fun stuff!  And all of this is after a few recommendations and some quick google searches.  You can probably find a bunch of other materials without much effort!