Every August, world language teachers begin the year with the same challenge: discerning where their students are today, including what they’ve learned last year, what they’ve inevitably forgotten over the summer, and how to help them make meaningful progress over the months ahead. The goal of Back-to-School planning isn’t to prove that students have already […]
Continue readingWhy understanding your language proficiency may be one of the smartest investments you make in your career Growing up, my heritage language was simply part of everyday life. As a first-generation Puerto Rican, Spanish was the language of family gatherings, traditions, stories, and connection. Like many heritage speakers, I never questioned whether speaking another language […]
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One of the quiet pitfalls in education is that students often begin sorting themselves into categories long before we do. “I’m good at languages.” “I’m bad at languages.” And their parents, I find, sometimes affirm one of the two positions with statements such as: “She’s one of the smart kids.” “He’ll never sound fluent anyway.”
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