In a post today, June 22, to flteach, a New York teacher cited a documentary film on the Cuban healthcare system in response to posts (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
Warm Fuzzies
07/21/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentKristy Placido put a message out on moretprs thanking everyone and acknowledging the honor of receiving an award at NTPRS. She made it very clear (Continue Reading)
Please look at the dates
07/21/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentLook at the dates of the “assignments” listed here (this is from a List I am on that deals with slavery): The court records of (Continue Reading)
Old South/New South
07/21/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentToday there was a piece on npr about the Jackson (Mississippi) Advocate, a newspaper renowned for its strong civil rights stand. What is germane to (Continue Reading)
Sicko
07/20/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentSome of the posts on flteach are addressing the movie Sicko because it deals with the health care system in countries like Canada, France and (Continue Reading)
Response to What’s Interesting About Grammar
07/02/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentAfter the initial responses on this thread, I stopped responding to individual posts and printed out all the subsequent posts up to the point where (Continue Reading)
Well, here then, take it!!!
07/02/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs we received news of the Supreme Court’s decision in school integration cases, there was something about the term ’color blind’ that tickled my memory. (Continue Reading)
Signs of the times – linguistically
07/01/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentDespite being a modest sort, I am forced to admit that I live in a tony, up-scale neighborhood. I found it interesting that one of (Continue Reading)
Against the grain…
07/01/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentJust to encourage those of you who are trying to hold on to some values and standards in a new America where both have been (Continue Reading)
Strange & monitory dictionary experience
06/28/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs I was wandering through the house talking to myself, I found myself using the word ’instantiate’. “That’s a rare word,” I thought, “I wonder (Continue Reading)
Gratitude
06/27/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentI just want to than Wes Groleau for making this blog possible. He works very hard and displays great patience with me. I am truly (Continue Reading)
Teachers should tremble…..
06/27/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhy should teachers tremble? Listen to several things my 5 year old granddaughter has said recently. She starts kindergarten July 23. When I asked her (Continue Reading)
Old Ship of Zion
06/26/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentNo, I haven’t turned religious; it’s just the title of a great book I just finished. It’s by William F. Pitts, deceased, who did field (Continue Reading)
Extrapolating from rules… does it work?
06/26/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis to me is at the heart of the controversies in foreign language teaching. Teachers believe that teaching the intricate grammatical, phonological and syntactic rules (Continue Reading)
The relation between writing and language
06/19/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentRecently in a post on a listserv a member showed a great deal of concern about a statement that an American had gone to France, (Continue Reading)
Unions
06/15/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe following post to a listserv speaks to the whole issue of why have any sort of professional organization. Here ’tis: I never thought I’d (Continue Reading)
Teaching Spanish-Speaking Children in the 50s
06/14/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs I was reconfiguring my library I came across a book titled Teaching Spanish-Speaking Children by L.S. Tireman, published in 1951. I was 10 and (Continue Reading)
certification, reasons for
06/09/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn response to a job-seeker highly qualified to teach Chinese EXCEPT for not having a h.s. certificate, I responded on a List thus: Having seen (Continue Reading)
My Eternal Gripe
06/01/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentOver and over again, good-hearted people join the bandwagon of grammar mavens. Grammar maven is a term coined by William Safire as ’language maven’, as (Continue Reading)
Virginia Tech
04/21/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentOn one of the foreign language teacher listservs the incident at Virginia Tech was discussed in a few posts. One in particular was poignant: a (Continue Reading)
key clubs
03/04/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhenever teachers get to talking about the good old days, I get a sneaking suspicion that either they are not old enough to remember those (Continue Reading)
Response to mw
01/07/2007 Pat Barrett Add CommentM.W. posted the following to a listserv: *Pat, I teach Spanish. *I want the grammar for communication. *I also would like to know how much (Continue Reading)
Reaction to Bill VanPatten thread 2
12/31/2006 Pat Barrett Add CommentI finally read all 200 posts on the thread started by the SLA (Second Language Acquistion) researcher and author, Bill VanPatten (bvp). He asked fl (Continue Reading)