Ts don't get to decide what language speaks to whom & when. Inclusion is NOT exclusion & there aren't limits; it isn't dessert.

Simply put: when language is a buffet w/ choices & opps to experiment, ss win. When it's a set menu w/o modifications, ss lose. #LangChat

I am a Spanish teacher BECAUSE of my Spanish teacher (love you always, @mpadillspan!) in an environment w/ primarily Mexican influence. I learned "me choca" before "odiar", "chancla" before "sandalia" & honestly never bothered w/ the vosotros (even after living in Spain).

And, 20 years into Spanish'ing, I can trace every single great thing in my life that I'm lucky to live back to learning w/ that amazing woman. When I started acquiring & loving the language, my life came alive in all new ways. I have been

incredibly lucky as a learner to never have been shamed in any major ways for not knowing how to say X, using Y term or phrase, or anything else, UNTIL becoming a teacher. We (we!) as Ts are too guilty of deciding it's our way or the highway, & judging

colleagues & THEIR STUDENTS for what they don't know over what they CAN DO. They're the @actfl/ @NCSSFL Can-Do Statements, not the Did-Memorize Statements. I'm lucky to have had teachers who valued function before form & then encouraged me with form as it developed naturally.

I felt like @mpadillspan was my grammar dealer, tbh, bc I was hooked. She'd look around like, "Pssst. You want conditional? It's like, 'would'..." & I'd be like, "Are you kidding? Yes!" because she valued teaching me WHAT I was saying SO THAT she could show me HOW to say it.

I say this to say, I love being part of groups like my dept & course team that share & focus on where they *do* align & not where they don't. The latter is pretty much inconsequential once the cards for the former are laid on the table.

If our goals are similar, does it really matter how ss get there or not? Me in Paris last year buying blister band-aids phonetically: "Bonjour! Um, jay problemme avec mon peeay, *points at foot*, y jay nay say pah qwah fare!" Man: laughs, hands me band-aids. NAILED IT.

The etymology for curate says it all: "to care" - are we lesson planning FOR them or AT them? Are we centering what WE want or what THEY want?

Dime qué enseñas y te diré quién te importa.

If we shopped like we teach language sometimes, we'd be BROKE. "But I need to buy these pants because SOME DAY I MIGHT BE THIS SIZE IN THIS PLACE W/ THIS CLIMATE." Orrrr I'll just wait & see? All we know for SURE is the current circumstance, in the moment.

When I heard "Te odio" for the first time and asked @mpadillspan about odiar, she said, "Oh, yes! That's another way to say hate! Super common." End of story. I hadn't been wrong using "Me choca ____" because for where I was, south TX, that. was. fine.

& she knew that. 7 years later, living in Spain, I wrote about how great it was to be immersed, not, "Hey, there are a bunch of new words I never knew before!" because *of course* there were. So I just learned them in the moment, nbd. Just like these pesky 15 lbs. I've gained;

just had to buy new pants, donate the old ones, & move on. We don't know what we need until we need it -- are we equipping ss to be able to handle THAT or are we trying to teach them that there are 'right' words, 'wrong' words, these types of 'errors', & that's it? Ss ≠ .