Mindset shifts for a happier and more sustainable school year
Teaching is a hard job, and there are so many ways in which our mindset can negatively impact our sense of fulfillment and enjoyment in our careers. In this blog post, I talk about some of the mindset shifts I’ve made over the years which have led me to feeling happier and less stressed in my job. These are not meant to be a panacea for all of your teaching woes, of course, but they can certainly be helpful tools in reframing your teaching experience in a more positive way.
Reflecting On Your Year: World Language Teaching End of Year Reflection Prompts
Another school year has just wrapped up, and it’s the perfect opportunity to spend some time reflecting on how your year went in your World Language classes. In this blog post, I’m going to share a handful of helpful reflection prompts to help you think about your successes, challenges, and everything in between so that you can show up next year with a sense of clarity and purpose: you’ll know where you excelled, you’ll know where you struggled, and you’ll have a clearer sense of what you’d like to focus on in order to improve your teaching and your students’ learning experiences in your class.
Managing and Combatting End of Year Teacher Burnout
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and it’s also the last or second-to-last month of the school year for most of us. How are you feeling? Are you a bit more stressed than usual? Ready for summer break? Exhausted? Completely burnt out? In this post, I’m going to share some ways to help you better manage the burnout you might be feeling as we enter the final weeks of the school year.
World Language Teaching Tools, Gadgets, and Gizmos!
Being a World Language teacher is a tough job! Fortunately, there are tools, gadgets, and gizmos that help make our lives as French, Spanish, and Italian teachers a bit easier. In this post, I share 7 teaching items that have helped reduce some of the nuisances and micro-stressors of my day-to-day teaching experience. Compounded over time, these gadgets have actually made a HUGE impact to my teaching satisfaction and overall quality of life.
Simplifying World Language Sub Plans: A Guide to Streamlining for Emergencies and Illnesses
You or a family member are feeling under the weather, and you’re stressing because you have no idea what to leave your French, Spanish, Italian, or German students to keep them productive and engaged during class. Sound familiar? In this post, you’ll learn how to simplify and streamline your process for leaving sub plans and activities for your classes.
How to Ace your Teacher Observation
Many teachers dread being observed, and for good reason. We tend to be very territorial of our teaching practices, and having an administrator enter our classrooms and evaluate our performance based on a 20-40 minute lesson can be overwhelming even for the most veteran teachers. In this blog post, I’m sharing a handful of practical, actionable tips that will help you to perform better, feel more confident, reduce anxiety during your next teacher observation.
Avoid These Five Common Mistakes Made by Novice World Language Teachers
Last year I had the privilege of mentoring the new French teacher in my school, and serving as mentor was an illuminating and rewarding experience that allowed me to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of novice World Language Teachers. In this blog post, I discuss five common mistakes that I see new teachers making, and offer practical solutions to help them refine their teaching practices and improve work-life balance.