#language teaching

[synticity]

linguistics study: genderqueer / nonbinary Arabic speakers wanted!

Do you speak Arabic? Are you trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender fluid, or otherwise gender non-conforming?

Please consider taking this 9-question survey to help us create free materials for teaching Arabic.

Please share widely 💜 (Note from synticity: I'm sharing this survey from Kris Knisely on bsky!)

[haxyr3]

Teacher's Dilemma

I find myself at a crossroads with two sets of short stories for my Russian language students.

Set 1: Native Speakers' Stories

These stories, penned by native Russians, paint a vivid, authentic picture of life in Russia. However, they come with a catch:

The content is often bizarre and uncomfortable for students to engage with.

The language use is a mixed bag: colloquial yet with an overly simplified and somewhat unnatural syntax.

Set 2: British Instructors' Stories

This collection offers:

Consistent language tailored perfectly to the learners' level, with a commendable style.

Engaging and fun stories that students love.

However, the depiction of Russian life is inaccurate:

Russian hosts not offering dinner to first-time foreign guests?

Soldiers serving 25-year terms without family contact?

Rainy winters in the Siberian mountains?

While these stories are enjoyable, they don't reflect the real Russia.

This situation has sparked an urge in me to write my own story book for language learners.

What do you think? Should I embark on this literary journey? Have you faced similar issues with teaching materials in other languages?

[salvadorbonaparte]

academia and imposter syndrome summarised: my methods of teaching prof kept talking about Meaningful Input and I kept thinking oh shit I'm super behind on the terminology and finally dared to ask where the difference between Meaningful Input and Comprehensible Input is. Turns out she meant Comprehensible Input, forgot the word, and made something up that sounded right.

[readingloveswounds]

French (teaching) resources

Hi everyone! I've taught beginning and intermediate french at the college level for the past two years and have accumulated a lot of PDFs that may be helpful + made some reading/listening activities that I wanted to share.

if you self-study, this may be helpful as well, especially when it comes to grammar practice.

Here is the link to the google drive folder

I am happy to answer questions as I am able.

Some notes:

grammar:

largely from: Grammaire progressive du français, (niveau avancé) | Contrastes : Grammaire du Français Courant | some (rather old) McGraw Hill French 2 and 3 texts | and various places online

SOME of these have answers. some do not. unfortunately, I don't have access to Contrastes right now to scan the answers. When I do, I'll try to upload them.

Sorted generally by what they are (adv/adj, articles, pronouns etc) however, the file names are NOT the clearest. i'll try to go through and fix those when I have time.

You'll notice that the two named texts are advanced grammar books - I adapted these when I used them in class if I needed to, or just used some of the activities on the page.

I also highly suggest UT Austin's resources here

activities:

WARNING: I created these myself so there may be the occasional error or weird phrasing in questions etc. Phrasing may also be strange due to the level it was created for.

The formatting may be a bit funky because I copied from word so my full name wouldn't be on them.

song activities are fill in the blank or comprehension question exercises. they have the lyrics and some vocabulary translations with them.

song activities - I often showed the music video but you could just play the music if that works better for you

song activities - these are typically excerpts and not the whole song. most do not have the time stamps, but the lyrics should help you figure that out.

video or reading activities are typically comprehension questions. some have my instructions for using them in class, others are just the text/video and questions.

Some of these are harder than others (songs go faster/grammar involved is more difficult) so check before you use.

[igorlevchenko-blog]

How to: play games.

You can emulate the low-intelligence dialogue of isometric Fallouts and Arcanum by playing ANY game in a foreign language you have only a surface understanding of. Not only does it make bad writing most games have much more palatable—allowing you to supplant disagreeable impressions with novel memories— language-learning aspect becomes itself a game mechanic, one that readily injects itself into the game's own (oftentimes critically limited) pool of game mechanics. Low-intelligence dialogue also doesn't necessarily indicate a stupid PC, but a foreigner or a rustic with a tenuous grasp of local language. I've managed to squeeze one more playthrough from otherwise well-trodden Arcanum by playing in French as half-ogre idiot-savant. And Gothic's limited portfolio of game mechanics was GREATLY improved by playing The Chronicles Of Myrtana: Archolos in its native Polish. Archolos, in case you don't know, is a total conversion mod for Gothic 2 that follows up on its overarching theme of orcish invasion (the exact same problem I have in real life, actually).

[an-feidir-liom-pleascadh-anois]

Dia duit! Andy is ainm dom! Tá sé socraithe agam Gaeilge Tumblr a mhúineadh mar tá an córas scolaíochta Gaeilge uafásach faoi, agus ba mhaith liom a chruthú gur teanga iontach í an Ghaeilge! Is mionaoiseach mé, le do thoil a bheith gnáth.

Is é mo phríomhchuntas ná @can-i-explode-now. Sea, is é ainm an chuntais seo i nGaeilge. Tá sé i ndáiríre an-féidir-liom-pléascadh-anois ach ní cheadaíonn Tumblr carachtair speisialta in ainmneacha úsáideoirí. Sílim go bhfuil sé ceaptha i ndáiríre a bheith is féidir liom ach níl aon bhac orm é a athrú.

Béarla faoin ngearrtha (English under the cut) (nó cad a bhí ceaptha a bheith. tarraing aistritheoirí.) (or what it was supposed to be. translators suck.)

Hello! My name is Andy! I've decided to teach Tumblr Irish because the Irish school system is awful at it, and I'd like to prove that Irish is a great language! I'm a minor, please be normal.

My main account is @can-i-explode-now. Yes, this account's name is that in Irish. It's actually an-féidir-liom-pléascadh-anois but Tumblr doesn't allow special characters in usernames. I think it's actually supposed to be is féidir liom but I'm not bothered to change it.

[littlemizzlinguistics]

As an English-as-a-second language teacher, I would never ever ever tell my students that TikTok English isn’t a valid and legitimate use of the language. I tell them that it’s a register of English that has appropriate contexts and inappropriate context, and “here’s how you say ‘no wait, let him cook’” in formal, standard English, or “this phrase that you’re asking me about means this but it should only be used with friends in informal context, there’s a time and a place for TikTok English”, but I’d never tell them not to use it or that it’s not valid.

Today’s internet idioms might be next decade’s “perfectly fine in a business email” idioms and I’m not going to stop my students from learning and embracing all aspects of the language. My job is to teach them the appropriate contexts for different things, and to ready them to use English in different contexts and to be able to use it to their benefits. It’s not to be the arbiter of what parts of the language are “real” or “not real” or to say that they MUST only use certain dialects. That would be doing them a disservice and not fully preparing them for the increasingly English-speaking, rapidly-changing world they’re about to face.

Shakespeare was once written for the unwashed masses who spared a little coin to go see a play in a register of their language that made sense to them. Now it’s the height of sophistication. I’m not here to make those decisions. I’m just here to teach my students to move through the world and to know how to use the language in different situations. I’m not so arrogant as to say “that’s not REAL English” because obviously that’s not true. People are using it, so it’s real English.

I’m here to say stuff like “it’s rizz with your friends, that’s fine. But let’s stick to “style” in your essays for now”

[lenectarine]

How do you manage to say the shittiest AND the most idiotic fucking thing at once? Do you think this man realizes how patronizing he sounds?

[classical-linguist]

consider: i am a linguistics and ancient history major who plans on staying in academia and working on old languages — point for middle english

also consider: what if all that fails and I need a real practical job in the real world (shudder)? — point for language teaching

but also consider: the language teaching course seems to have a lot to do with teaching strategies/classroom management and like. I was a language student myself for five years and i worked as a tutor for more than two so i feel like I know how to do that and I'd rather not write essays about it — point for middle english

yet consider: middle english is another linguistics course and im already required to do eight other ones for my degree. so maybe it would be better to branch out? — point for language teaching

consider, however: i literally did astronomy (and aced it) which i feel like is branching out quite a bit so been there done that — point for middle english

consider as well: middle english is a stage three course, while the language teaching is stage one, so *should be* significantly easier — point for language teaching

although consider: i have found in my experience stage three courses aren't necessarily harder than stage one, they just require greater foundational knowledge (and tend to be marked only a little tougher because they expect more nuance), and some stage one courses I've done are a bit painful in terms of sitting through tutors explaining the basic things you learn at the start of university to all the freshers in the tutorial, meanwhile the lecture/tutor for middle english pretty much knows every single student who might take that course and always skips past the admin — point for middle english

(I could continue... currently I think I'm more inclined towards MidE but maybe someone sensible just needs to tell me to do otherwise)

[summergoodwife]

Reminder to all the other language learning mfs that you have already learned a language. You did not have magical powers when you were a child. None that you don't still have, at least. Yes, babies are good at learning things like accents. No, they do not learn fundamentally differently how older humans do. You've got this!!!! Take two!!!!!!!

[hebrewbyinbal]

I know all too well how intimidating it is to dive into a project that seems completely out of your depth.

Trust me, as a one-woman show and entrepreneur, I face these fears and the challenge of learning new skills from scratch every single day.

The real breakthrough comes when you find someone who excels not only in their expertise but also in their ability to teach it.

They simplify everything, highlight what's crucial (and what’s not), and deliver the practical steps so all you have to do is follow their lead.

I’ve been fortunate to learn from some incredible teachers who have turned areas I once dreaded into subjects I now handle with clarity and confidence.

And I've also encountered others who couldn't bridge that gap for me.

That’s why I firmly believe that the right method and teacher are the real game changers — they make all the difference, provided you’re ready to show up and do the work.

Everything I create, from my books and online programs to my free daily bite-sized posts, free guides, and weekly emails, is crafted from the perspective of how I’d want to be taught each Hebrew topic.

I truly believe this approach is a huge part of my success, which reflects directly from my students' success.

If you're eager to learn from a teacher who operates with this mindset, leave a comment, and I'll send you a message on how to get started based on what you want and need.

[lonelylittledot]

the worst thing about teaching online is that my students will never know how cute I dress

[inescapableraven]

Started teaching my Serbian best friend Polish language.

I must say it's going quite well for now.

Wish her luck!

[salvadorbonaparte]

When teaching, I will try to give clear, slow instructions in German, model an example or two, then ask if they understand what they're to do. They always nod/give thumbs up. But I regularly hear someone go "hey so what are we supposed to do????" to their partner. And during feedback people told me my instructions are sometimes unclear. It's not like I don't know this from school and uni myself but now I'm on the other side of the classroom and I'm like oh god students (me included) are so stupid please just ask meeeeeee.

[speaknahuatl]

Last day of 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵𝘄𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲 (𝗡𝗜𝗟𝗜) 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲 - Experienced Track Teachers at the University of Oregon!