Sube Blog

Last week, I shared with you the first in a series of international posts from my time traveling and teaching elementary foreign language in southeast Asia. Here in Thailand, the average class size is about 25-40 students with either one or sometimes no assistant. You know what that means: crowded classrooms and limited time (both for prep and execution). I’m sure you can relate. The challenges teachers face with language instruction are universal. Because of that, this week, I’m focusing on another simple yet incredibly effective solution that I demonstrated in one Bangkok classroom: learning stations! Let’s start with the...

  The room is packed… and virtually pulsing.   You feel the temperature slowly tick upwards as the volume—first a low, ominous grumble—builds to something closer to life inside a beehive. Something flies by your head and off in the back you’re pretty sure some just started crying. “What is happening?” you ask yourself. But you know. Your once promising class so full of bright-eyed, fresh-faced, attentive minds is sinking like gravity into disarray, distraction, and disorder. Okay, so that might be a little dramatic, but we’ve all been there before: Crowed classroom. Distracted students. And of course, you: over-heated,...

  mastery the comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment (Oxford Dictionaries)   I want to start with a bold question... Is “mastery” an illusion? Sure, it’s everywhere: in standards, assessments, webinars, training literature, and especially student proficiency. But is mastery (traditionally defined) something we “acquire,” “get,” “achieve,” or “arrive at”? In a recent article for ASCD’s Educational Leadership, “Five Musts for Mastery,” Catlin Tucker, a 9th and 10th grade English language arts teacher and author of Blended Learning in Grades 4–12: Leveraging the Power of Technology to Create Student-Centered Classrooms, answers all those questions with a resounding, “No.”...

Students will: Illustrate and color a life-size outfit using a list of clothing vocabulary and then match up each element by drawing labels from a basket. Create one or two collages of their favorite outfits from various magazine and then identify each item of clothing. Form complete sentences using the provided vocabulary, near and far pronouns, and contractions. Ask and answer questions based on their life-size outfits and collages. Create a Pinterest Board of favorite clothes and write the descriptive captions in target language (ages 12 and up). Skills: Vocabulary acquisition, grammar and communication, comprehension, fine motor skills, and color...

The world is shrinking. Or “flattening,” as Thomas Friedman put it. The explosion of digital communication and emergence of a worldwide job market has placed a premium on what experts in the educational world refer to as “21st Century Skills.” The need to develop strategic communication and interpersonal skills in our students in preparation for an increasingly technological and multicultural landscape is paramount. Nowhere is this “21st Century” need more apparent than in the world of language, or should I say, in the area of “world languages.” Trouble is, like any good buzzword, whetting the appetite is a lot easier...