I am a lucky person. I have won a trip to the Philippines, a TV, hundreds in free groceries, free paint and sip classes, novels, and much more. This week I won a hand-painted wine class from a wine event, an autographed poster from Señorwooly, and $100.00 off registration for me and another teacher to the iFLT conference in Denver.
So I am hoping to spread the luck. I would like to offer $100 off registration to the International Forum on Language Teaching (iFLT) conference to a teacher who has not been to an iFLT conference before. I also have a companion ticket for Alaska Airlines that we could use to reduce the cost of airfare, and of course split the cost of a hotel room in Denver.
As a conference junkie, I have attended hundreds of conferences and think the iFLT conferences by Fluency Matters are awesome. Carol Gaab and her team are among the best in the business. I attended the iFLT conference in Breckenridge, Colorado and learned a lot. This years conference is July 11-14 with Fluency Fast classes available before the conference July 7-10. For more information on the conference go to the Fluency Matters website. If you are interested contact me at JohnstonL@edmonds.wednet.edu.
Here is my submission to the contest as to What Fluency Matters means to me.
Congratulations To Our Runners-Up:
Runners-up will receive $100 off iFLT registration for themselves and $100 off iFLT registration for a colleague!**
| Lynn Johnston |
| I feel like I am learning how to teach in the target language 90% of the time with novices from day one because of the Fluency Matters team. Every time I am lucky enough to secure a spot in a Carol Gaab presentation I leave with new ideas and inspiration. The class sets of novels and teachers guides have made teaching easier for me and reading more enjoyable for my students. However, my light bulb moment was at an ACTFL session when Carol Gaab demonstrated higher order thinking using compelling comprehensible input. Probable or possible or its variations logical and illogical are now standard in my teaching. Students are hearing vocabulary in context and are thinking at a higher level, but are able to respond with very little forced language. Who might say is another higher order thinking activity I learned from Fluency Matters. Students must infer who might say something based on context, content and/or verb form. Another activity I learned from the fluency matters team is the action chain. Students love to act and I get lots of repetitions of the language structures while having students determine a logical order for the events. This summer I discovered the webinars and the CI peek blog. I plan to use these a lot more in the future. I would really love to attend the IFLT conference and bring a new teacher I am mentoring in my district. |