It has been a long time since I actually logged into my blogger account and wrote a blog entry. Lately I have been catching a moment or two between school things, and sending an email which then is automatically posted on my blog. Blogs are forbidden at school. I can read blogs, but anything which has blogger in its address (blogger, not blogspot) will NOT be retrieved for me. So comments cannot be made (some of you are probably glad of that) and the thoughts which so readily fall out of my head and onto paper are kept to a minimum.

I went to a conference last week in Dallas where we learned the difference between language acquisition and language learning. It was really interesting. It has really made me realize that 99% of what I teach falls into this learning category. This method I was learning about says that is why so many kids leave our classes, and are hardly able to spit out a phrase, or a year later recall anything other than "how are you?"....It makes some sense. This method is based on a kid hearing and reading so much of the language that they learn what "sounds" right, and then are able to have language "fall" out of their mouth because it sounds right. They acquired it instead of learning it. It seems that a balance between these two ideas would be what is called for. These "people" say that kids love language, but they want to know what something means...not a rule. And it is true that the hesitancy created by someone trying to get a "rule" right does impede fluency. That is why uninhibited kids who don't care about the rules are often better at language than someone like me who is "miss priss" and wants to get everything right. Anyway, it was something to think about. I got a million great little one page stories out of it too. Stuff about crazy monkeys and penguin families. My kids eat that kind of stuff up.

The fleeting-ness of life has really been hit upon me this week. I woke up this morning to red, and white lights blinking on my walls. I got up to see what is going on and there was an ambulance and fire truck out in my street.
Last week I saw a head on collision happen right in front of me.
A teacher died at my school unexpectedly from a heart attack.
Another student passed away too after being sick most of his life.

well....merry christmas, huh?