Today’s activity started with a think-pair-share with respect to negative and positive emotions related to language learning and teaching.

The activity allowed us to see how different students who have learned a language can have similar positive and negative emotions associated with language learning. Even though we had all studied different languages at different times (and even in vastly different countries), we were able to come up with five over-arching categories. This allowed us to think about teaching techniques and approaches that could reduce negative associations with language learning and augment positives feelings.

Our motivation to complete this task was due, in part, to our extrinsic desire to make Peter laugh, as well as our competitive nature. Our intrinsic motivation came from our genuine desire to become better, more aware, and more accommodating language teachers.

The broad freedom we were allowed while making the poster decreased pressure and enabled us to be more engaged and creative. This falls within one of the categories we used in our poster regarding comfort, and how we were all able to succeed in the language classroom when we were in a safe environment.

PS: Thank you Peter, for indulging our obsession with the color purple and Harry Potter.

– Gerri, Kelly, Aaron, and Josiah