The Socratic seminar is often discussed in the context of English language arts classes. Among its benefits, practitioners mention drawing on the value of open conversations to foster deep thinking and analysis, developing a group culture for learning, and enhancing communication skills.

All of these benefits are equally valuable in the world language classroom, and Socratic seminars deserve more attention in this context. I’ve been working to bring Socratic seminars to Spanish classes, and these are my classroom-tested suggestions to incorporate them in a way that allows students to become more robust, independent, and critical thinkers. (more…)

What are your fundamentals of teaching? I asked myself this daunting question when I took over a college course on the foundations of education. The syllabus required that I address…

Incorporating new technologies into our teaching practice does not mean we need to reinvent the pedagogic wheel. The learning principles that underpin many of the tasks, activities and approaches we commonly use today can be improved, extended or even transformed through the considered and informed use of new tools such as virtual reality. In this post, we’ll look at two ways in which VR might be used to achieve this.

Role play

You’re a taxi driver, go! You’re checking in at the airport, go! You’re in a restaurant and you’re not happy with your meal, go! (more…)