The lion’s breath or how to refocus

Last year when I was teaching Spanish, I became a fan of brain breaks. According to Dr. Lori Desautels: “They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur.

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How can a children’s book be for everyone?

I am always on the look for interesting funny stories and at the same time stories which are comprehensible to my learners. A few months ago when I was busy breastfeeding, I was reading the TPRS bible “Fluency through TPR storytelling” by Blaine Ray and Contee Steel and one chapter entitled “Kindergarten Day”

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Total Physical Response in online teaching

It is amazing how time is flying and I have realized that it has been way over a month that I have written a new post! As it happened, I have been busy teaching students online face to face. It is a truly exciting time for me because I am experiencing teaching in another way than in a set classroom and because I help learners acquire different languages (French,

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French story and poem: un amour qui finit mal !

My French students are now learning the passé composé in class and I am looking for ways to help them acquire this new tense without doing the traditional grammar approach.

The first text which came to my mind was Le déjeuner du matin which is actually a poem widely taught in French classes because the language is quite simple and repetitive.

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acquire50 acquisition65 breakfast13 comprehensible100 cultural10 culture246 déjeuner du matin1 Education20 food154 French41 guidelines2 literature92 love81 Martina Bex11 meal10 miming1 MovieTalk14 passé-composé227 perfect tense4 poem71 poet16 Prévert4 questions74 reading252 repetition42 script201 story46 storytelling39 target language12 target structure20 teacherspayteachers11 TPRS71 youtube67

Personalized questions in French: l’étoile du jour.

This morning, I was reading the Active learner blog post about “Café y conversación” and it inspired me to share about an authentic conversation I had last week with my French students. As mentioned in the post: “When we have authentic conversation about topics that students want to talk about,

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acquire50 acquisition65 answers24 authentic168 beginner318 Blogging1 compelling39 comprehensible100 conditional13 Education20 French41 if clauses1 IGCSE12 oral12 output44 personalized16 PQA8 practice33 questions74 repetition42 repetitive22 speaking73 story46

Reading activity for French learners (beginner level).

Yeah!!! I am back to blogging! I had a very good excuse though for not posting for such a while: I had my fourth boy on the 24th of September. His name is Antoine and he is a lovely baby boy doing well 🙂

Whilst recovering from the birth and taking care of my precious little boy,

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Resources for English learners: shopping and the issue of being a shopaholic.

Last week, I was writing about my new “job” which is to teach online private lessons to Spanish students who want to improve their English. (via Google hangout or Skype). For now, it is going very well and I am receiving positive feedback from my students which is always good!

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