Macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra.

It's sobering to realize how much children internalize from spending time with someone (in this case, with me). Sammy said today, "Ms. B—, I have a 'glow' and a 'grow' for you. The 'glow' is that your Spanish is getting better every day. The 'grow' is that you sound funny." Nice. [During Workshop, we give 'glows' and 'grows' when we give feedback.]

Then, a parent came to me after school with this anecdote: "Antonio was misbehaving, and I told him that he was being a bad boy. He responded that 'bad' was too absolute, and said that he was simply making some poor choices." She wanted to know where he'd heard that. I teach five- and six-year-olds, by the way.

Wow. There must be dozens of little parrots-through-a-glass-darkly by now. On the plus side, when our Instructional Coach came in to observe, she asked Jimi why the indefinite article 'a' was listed under the /eɪ/ sound on our Word Wall, when it's sometimes pronounced /ə/. He looked at her oddly and said "But, see, it has the diacritical mark that shows it turns into a schwa when you speak with fluency." Score.

From sylvan: ( Image Meme )