My reflection on ACTFL Convention, 2025: favorite ACTFL Convention yet. The big theme for me was "making connections" to: people I got to meet in person for the 1st time, teaching & research in areas that deeply interest me, & old friends. Renewed purpose & motivation: precious. #ACTFL

Yay! This is the season for it when I lived in Iowa! You may already know that vegetable is a metaphor in the theoretical perspective of my dissertation research: iro.uiowa.edu/view/pdfCove...

Thanks, Ben! I'm glad to hear that a reflective, thoughtful teacher (and podcaster!) such as yourself got food for thought from this episode.

Thanks, Shiawassee! I will be teaching Mandarin Chinese online again this fall -- starting with beginner classes once every other week some time in September, to be determined. Kyne Dove, feel free to get in touch if you'd like more info about those.

Day 3 (Wednesday) included first experiences reading Chinese character texts together. Slow, supported, and followed up by some student-led noticing about the character forms. We learned more about what makes different dragons special, too.

I'm having fun with class! From today (day 2, second hour of class time) we were noticing which dragons have or do not have wings. Then we concluded something about Chinese & Western dragons & which have wings. And finished by making up our own dragon. Our dragon has 4 wings 😀

I just saw your take-away posts today, Stacy! It's always helpful to see how things are received & I'm encouraged by your reflections here. I had a great time at Mitten CI too - came away refreshed for university classes & next steps.

Justin's @justinslocumbailey.bsky.social session on Brain Unbreaks was fun & thought-provoking. He is insightful about working w/ people's actual psychology & interests to find plenty of small ways to extend target language use just a few seconds more through small tweaks to 'regular' brain breaks.