Get Excited!

Teaching and studying language is all about cultural immersion. This immersion doesn't have to be in the traditional sense...as in you don't have to fly to to Paris to be completely surrounded by French culture, you could just as easily have a French film marathon in your living room; complete with a wide variety of traditional cuisine, easily purchased at Wegmans.  To truly learn or teach a language, there needs to be a passion for the culture. I think a blog can be a tool used to do just that.

We all know that it is much easier to teach people that really want to learn. There are always a few students who just sit and soak up your every word. The challenge, of course is that learning a second language is tough,like really tough. Even for those few overachievers, knowing how to learn language is a new experience. Our native language was always just there, we knew it before we knew we knew it. So how do we keep our overwhelmed majority interested? I think the answer is: incite passion for the culture.

Adding an online component to the classroom is way to connect with students in a way they are generally more accustomed to. There is so much information swirling around that we need to tap into that stream and teach while they don't know they're being taught. Adding pop culture videos, interesting articles customized to a particular student's interest, or just getting them to check by posting a funny picture. A blog can be like a teacher-student networking site. 
And who knows...maybe they will really get into a song posted and will be studying language without even knowing it.