In fact, some of the greatest obstacles to world-language education are parents who recall their own miserable experiences. Many Americans were introduced to foreign languages in middle school or high school classes that emphasized conjugation of verbs and other dull grammatical tasks rather than relevant communication skills. "Language teaching in the U.S. has been ineffective," Stewart says. "We start it at the wrong age. Teacher skills are not great. There's a focus on grammar and translation." The result: "Adults who took three years of French don't speak a word," she states.\nBut the trend toward competency and away from conjugation is helping create a new generation of language learners, one that gains real-world skills with many practical applications.

the key here lies in the paragraph I clipped: the focus should be on competency rather than on conjugation.

A must read for anyone that teaches world languages, or cares about those that do.

You can create your own quizzes or use those of others. It let's you register your classes online and provides them with a key to access the tests you create.

I still think Skype is an under-utilized resource in our classrooms.

For World Language Teachers?

Why are English-speakers the worst linguists?

What is Fluency, anyway?

Links between studying second languages and cognitive benefits.

NJ World Language Association

Repository of Spanish Powerpoints

Marcy Webb's blog chronicling her teaching of Spanish. I wonder why it took me so long to find this?

Gaming in World Languages sponsored by the EU. Should be interesting.

A teacher in my district uses this with his students to help them practice their basic grammar, but the study modules look promising.