by Terry Waltz | Sep 7, 2015 | General, Methods
On a language teaching group, a comment was recently posted: My end conclusion: The success of a method depends a lot on the personality of the teacher and how well it fits the method of choice and allows the teacher to reach the most students. In other words,...
by Terry Waltz | Dec 30, 2014 | General, Methods
There was some discussion of “the most important phrases to learn” in a new language (as there always is) recently on some “how to learn languages” blog, and the list — no need to link to it, it was quite ordinary and predictable...
by Terry Waltz | Nov 22, 2014 | General, Methods
(You say that like it’s a bad thing…) More people (including other language teachers!) trying to stuff the acquisition of new languages into the same mold that fits fact-based disciplines, like — well, like everything else. I can understand clueless...
by Terry Waltz | Nov 3, 2011 | Curriculum, General
We can’t see exactly how the brain works its magic in generalizing from many examples to just knowing what structure to automatically use to express a meaning it has never tried to express before — which is what fluent speakers can do. What if we think of...
by Terry Waltz | Nov 1, 2011 | General, Speaking/Listening
On a language teachers’ group, a comment was recently posted to the effect that maybe language didn’t have to be 100% comprehensible, because a young native speaker could go for a long time before asking what a key word meant. Maybe, the poster offered,...