Last Updated on 2021-01-12Ever want to hear your students’ thoughts on a lesson or unit without their classmates viewing it? Try using Extempore for student reflection and unit previews / reviews. For a reflection, give students a simple prompt, reminding them of what was taught and learned in the unit as well as its main[…]
Last Updated on 2021-01-04If your students were dropped into the target language environment by themselves right at this second, what could they do? Could they survive with more than just primitive hand signals? “Freewrite” and “freetalk” assignments give you those answers. These tasks allow students to show what they can do in the target language[…]
Last Updated on 2020-12-22I know, I know. Dictation? Yes, dictation. Sure, our students will likely never have to write out what they are hearing in real time outside of a school setting (are there careers as bilingual courtroom stenographers?), but that doesn’t mean there’s no use for dictation in the language classroom. Among its numerous[…]
So simple yet often overlooked, reading out loud (‘oral reading’ in academic parlance) carries countless benefits for learners of second languages.
Last Updated on 2021-01-15Part I – Overview Extempore, The Speaking Practice App, that’s us. On Extempore, flexible features can help you craft immaculate assessments and extra speaking opportunities for your students. It’s also a solution for a plethora of needs in the language class, including real-world tasks, simple end of class exit tickets, as well[…]
Last Updated on 2020-11-03Not too long ago I finished up a rather robust project for Extempore: reworking the importable tasks page. The driving force behind this endeavor was my newfound appreciation for task-based learning combined with a realization that Extempore would be the perfect host for such a project. After weeks of creating tasks, writing[…]
Last Updated on 2020-10-05Student engagement. Formative and summative assessment. Content delivery (i.e. actual teaching) in a hybrid learning setting. These were all predominant concerns of mine before school officially began for me in early September. After all, this was terra incognita: how in the world am I supposed to teach language online? My students need[…]
Last Updated on 2020-08-25Back to school season brings back all the feelings for students: excitement, nervousness, and the chance to get back into a familiar routine after summer break. Wait, don’t teachers experience this too? Indeed we do! It’s not just teachers and students, though: parents, school officials and many others are greatly affected by[…]
As we do every year, we use the summer break to push updates to the platform. Some of these updates are major new features; but many others are small tweaks, performance and usability improvements that are reported to us during the year. That being said, we’re excited to announce the first one of the summer![...]
Posted on 2020-06-26 by Thomas Murr
Guest Post by Susana Perez-Castillejo, PhD, Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of St. Thomas. Beyond the Zoom breakout rooms for speaking activities and shared Google docs for collaborative writing practice, there are other tools we can leverage to make our synchronous class meetings a bit more interactive. These are ideas I have been learning these past few[...]
Posted on 2020-04-16 by Thomas Murr
Nowadays technological developments have affected our lives, how we communicate, how we learn and, of course, our way of teaching. Indeed, it is almost impossible to find a language class that does not use some technological support. Computer assisted language learning has changed the practice of teaching (Chapelle & Voss, 2016). Technology in Language[...]
Posted on 2020-02-10 by Thomas Murr
