Foreign language teachers, we need to talk—literally. You know that moment when students freeze like deer in headlights when asked to engage in real conversation? They’ve mastered the textbook dialogues and aced the grammar drills, but panic sets in the second they have to actually speak with someone outside the classroom. It kills me because […]
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Hello, fellow linguists! You know that, as language educators, our mission extends beyond vapid vocabulary lists and gummed up grammar rules; ideally, we want to open the doors to global citizenship and cultural competence for our students. We want them to catch whatever bug we caught, so long ago, that got us hooked onto travel, […]
Continue readingStarting at the beginning of the twentieth century, researchers in the field of linguistic anthropology, notably Franz Boas and Edward Sapir, conducted experiments to try and determine what effect, if any, language has on a person’s perception. Though those initial studies have been hotly contested, the groundwork was laid, and we have made great strides […]
Continue readingThe decision to learn a second language is no easy undertaking. It is in our human nature to want to rely on what is most comfortable to us as we embark on a task that seems daunting. However, studies show that humans learn new skills much faster when we remove all the comforts of the […]
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