(Note: This post is updated every year with modifications or lessons learned, by Dave and others, in using this activity. Scroll to the end of the post for those updates.) The curriculum is completed, the last tests are taken, and, for one reason or another, you’ve got your students for 30 or 60 more minutes. […]
Teaching Speaking
A Simple, Powerful Tweak on the First Day of School Index Card Activity
If you’ve been around for a bit, you know I’m pretty old school in a lot of ways. When it comes to deciding which instructional strategies to use, my thinking goes like this: If multiple strategies do what I want them to do, then the simplest, quickest strategy is the best one. This is why I use index […]
Three Great Points in Erik Palmer’s “Effective Communication” Video
I’ve written about Erik Palmer’s work before (remember PVLEGS?), and I’m working through his latest book Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking. But recently, I found something else of his that’s totally free and pretty powerful. It’s a video called “Effective Communication,” and while I’d encourage you to click here to watch it yourself, I […]