Do you even need a dictionary for revision?
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salve Reader! Students often look for quick fixes at this time of the year, and one of them is the dictionary. Surely the problem is that they do not know the words in the text? Surely it is because they do not have a dictionary? Wrong. There is a moment and a place for a dictionary, and the dictionary you choose (if indeed you need one) is key to success. In my latest blogpost I share my thoughts on when, how and why choose a dictionary, covering all the needs from Year 5 to Year 13. Let me tell you: the right access to vocabulary is a game changer. Too little and you are lost, two much and you are not reading texts but engaging in a research project.
Please remember that I will be in sunny Southern Spain (and not teaching) from the 3rd to the 12th, but lessons and workshops are running otherwise during the break. There will be a workshop for A-Level students this Sunday 29 at 7pm (you are still in time to sign up!) and one for GCSE students on Thursday 2nd at 10am (also open for registration). Have a lovely weekend!
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salve Reader! I hope you open this email while enjoying a well-deserved break over the summer. I am writing from my hometown myself, just hours before I head off to France, then back to the northern coast of Catalonia for my yearly holiday. Yes, there will be diving and ancient ruins, so here is a heads-up that I may take a bit longer to reply to emails. This has been quite the week for me. One of the highlights was observing an almost total eclipse with my children and experimenting with the...
salve Reader! If you have been following me for a while, I am sure you have noticed that I discourage my students from learning vocabulary through apps like Quizlet. I promote keeping a written record, reading extensively and using the words in new contexts. Still, I am aware that some students just love the app format. So, after much insistence from students on having a vocabulary list or suggesting an app that works, I have opted for a middle path: an app that has words unlikely to not be...
salve Reader! Do you know the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí? He is the genius behind the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. He believed that love came before any technical considerations, and looking at his ground-breaking architecture, I think we can all agree that his approach worked. This love-first approach is key to language learning. If there is no interest in reading a text to enjoy a story, it is very difficult to find the motivation to look at the grammar holding it together. The...