Changing times...

I watched a show on PBS tonight about teaching foreign languages in today's world. I started thinking, "Do I miss it?" Most days, the answer is "no" because it's the teaching that I love and not just the subject. Other days, I miss the "skimming off the top" that teaching a foreign language often allows. I sometimes miss being surrounded by bright kids and knowing that I could push them and push them until they started to fly on their own. To continue on with that analogy, some days now I just feel like I am force-feeding them their worms for survival.

Then I started thinking, as I usually do, "How does this apply to what I AM doing?" The focus in a foreign language truly is the culture. Perhaps I need to focus a little more on that when I am teaching. Without a context, even literature means very little. I do a one to two minute focus each time I start something new, but is that enough? (And the voices in my head, and in the board office, ask, "Is THAT in the standards?") I then ask myself if I give my students no perspective, no relation to their lives, no reason to learn... does that give them any motivation to live as life-long learners? I would argue no. I simply can't justify that in my head as a teacher.

In short, motivation is key. So, what is the catch going to be for my students in this upcoming year?

I'll find out in a few short months! :-)