I had just wrapped up tonight’s chat, and I checked my email… and found that I’ve been invited to facilitate a session on Proficiency-Based Instruction & Assessment at the MiWLA Unconference in Ann Arbor on Oct 3. Looking forward to continuing the discussion there! @miwla.bsky.social

Stacy Witkowski@stacywitkowski.bsky.social · 2d ago

Join me and the @slayyypod.com team tonight on Substack to discuss chapters 1 and 2 of Learner Feedback for Language Growth. 8pm EST for live chat, or join us later asynchronously.

Find us on Substack (accounts are free) at slayyypod.com/chat to chat with us tonight! I'm super stoked to dive into this book!!

Stacy Witkowski@stacywitkowski.bsky.social · 2d ago

Join me and the @slayyypod.com team tonight on Substack to discuss chapters 1 and 2 of Learner Feedback for Language Growth. 8pm EST for live chat, or join us later asynchronously.

Find us here: slayyypod.com

SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone! | Bill Langley-Bostick | Substack

Bill (he/him), Ben (he/him), and Stacy (she/her) discuss how we've been Gaslighted by "best practices", they never Gatekeep what Second Language Acquisition research says, and share how they Girlboss ...

slayyypod.com

Stacy Witkowski@stacywitkowski.bsky.social · 2d ago

Join me and the @slayyypod.com team tonight on Substack to discuss chapters 1 and 2 of Learner Feedback for Language Growth. 8pm EST for live chat, or join us later asynchronously.

Join me and the @slayyypod.com team tonight on Substack to discuss chapters 1 and 2 of Learner Feedback for Language Growth. 8pm EST for live chat, or join us later asynchronously.

What he did was piracy, but the next project won’t be. The era of human translation is going the way of horse drawn carriages.

Sixth Tone@sixthtone.bsky.social · 6d ago

A literature undergrad’s AI tool made a near-perfect Mandarin version of Haruki Murakami’s new novel in just four hours. What might this mean for translators and copyright holders?

Me (loves Mexican music): Hey, check it out, there’s a Mexican metal band featured in this podcast. My wife (loves metal music): Ladrones? They’re amazing. Oh look, they’re coming to Detroit! (buys two tickets) You guys, I’m going to see this Mexican metal band. 😅

Guadalajara loves metal?

Podcast Episode · Alt.Latino · September 2 · 30m

podcasts.apple.com

Wow! @miwla.bsky.social just made their fall Unconference free! October 3 in Ann Arbor.

Happy Cat Clapping and Eating

Alt: Happy Cat animation Clapping

static.klipy.com

This is set up for laughs, but it’s actually one of the best demonstrations I’ve seen of how being capable of producing convincing sounding language and understanding meaning are two completely different things. A chatbot does not understand you, it just has automated responses based on your words.

Ashley@ashleysays.bsky.social · 2w ago

Chefs kiss

After teaching history for 25 years, I’ve finally figured out my “why”…

Authentic Resource for French teachers. Photographed in metro Detroit, March 2025.

Busco amigos de correspondencia (email o videollamada) para mis estudiantes de 11-14 años. Envíame un mensaje para mas detailles. Favor de compartir. 😊

Ahhh August. The Sunday night of summer vacation. Today is the first day I had to set an alarm clock and go in to work for those beginning-of-the-school-year meetings.

Good Morning Alarm Clock Struggle

Alt: Good Morning Alarm Clock Struggle donald duck

static.klipy.com

All this is to say: more attention and conversation about this topic please. Everybody has an accent. If you think you don't, lucky you: your particular accent happens to the one others consider neutral and hence prestigious and door-opening. So spare a thought for those not as lucky as you.

I enjoyed discussing AI in the classroom with @slayyybill.bsky.social and @mmewagstaff.bsky.social on Substack last night. Join the convo asynchronously for a #SlowChat if you’d like.

SLAyyy Pod@slayyypod.com · last mo.

We’re back! Welcome to our 5th season/semester of SLAyyy, where we break down language acquisition research for classroom use. Our 1st episode of this season asks: what is the role of AI in language learning? Ben & Bill discuss an article and share their perspectives: slayyypod.com/p/ep-41-slay...

In some languages & cultures, AI is proniunced as /ay/. In East Asia, AI /ay/ is love. "wo ai ni", "aishiteru". (In modern Korean, the diphthong ae /ay/ changed pronunciation but it was originally /ay/ as well.) So, AI is love? Nooooeeees! 😱 #AI #Love #languages

When you want to share the song of the summer with your middle achool Spanish students but she clearly says f*ck in English in the middle of the song. 🤦‍♀️😮‍💨🥺 There’s no kids on bluesky, right? They’re all over on Instagram or Snapchat or something. So for all of you who are old enough to swear:

AITANA canta SUPERESTRELLA en la celebración del MUNDIAL en CIBELES

YouTube video by Diario ABC

youtu.be

It's gotten so much easier to start learning so many more languages, you used to be limited to the 3-5 major languages that a local bookstore or educational institution had decided it was worth making available, and now you can just like, look things up in hundreds of them

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · last mo.

Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

Latin teachers how many of you need this t-shirt?

Ahhhhrrrrggghhhhh Okay, got it, no writing tests, no reading tests. All grades based on speaking quizzes and whether the parent got me a nice gift on Teacher Appreciation Day.

The Hankyoreh@hankyoreh.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“We’ve reached a stage where, technically speaking, it’s no longer difficult to create apps specialized for specific exams for use in cheating.” english.hani.co.kr/arti/english...

I’m excited to be chatting with my friends at SLAyyy and I hope many of you language teachers and learners will join us. 🫶

SLAyyy Pod@slayyypod.com · 2mo ago

Big welcome to @stacywitkowski.bsky.social who will be joining the SLAyyy team to help us build community and help facilitate live chats! Swing by and say hello! Https://slayyypod.com/chat #langchat

dude annoyed me so much I forgot to note a recent study showing language & culture investments produce a net economic BENEFIT in British Columbia so even if you want to be a bloodless quant about it, funding language revitalization is good for GDP fpcc.ca/stories/fpcc...

FPCC Announces Economic Impact - First Peoples Cultural Council

FPCC announces the Conference Board of Canada's report on the significant economic impact its projects have on GDP and job creation.

fpcc.ca

Anna Belew@nabelew.bsky.social · 2mo ago

But this article NEEDS to return to shoring up its core dichotomies: Preservation vs. community agency Sentimentality vs. rationality Primitivism vs. modernity Frivolity (language) vs. pragmatism (money) The messy fluidity and nuance of power, knowledge, sovereignty, and history can't fit there.

The arguments against language reclamation haven't changed much in the nearly 20 years I've been working in this field: "It costs too much." "People are choosing to abandon their languages, so let them." "They have no practical use." "It's just sentimental nostalgia." Fuck All That, a thread:

Sometimes It’s O.K. to Let a Language Die

When cultural preservation comes at the expense of speakers’ decisions, sometimes it's O.K. to let a language die.

newyorker.com

Teachers in July:

THIS IS YOUR MONDAY KYUNGSOO@mondaykyungsoo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

YESTERDAY I THOUGHT IT WAS MONDAY, TODAY I THOUGHT IT WAS WEDNESDAY. LAST THURSDAY, I WAS CONVINCED IT WAS TUESDAY. AT SOME POINT, I HAVE TO BE CORRECT ABOUT THE DAY OF THE WEEK, SOMEHOW, SO I TRIPLE-CHECKED MY CALENDAR (AND IT WAS THE RIGHT YEAR, TOO). HAPPY MONDAY EVERYBODY!!

The more I read about students using AI to cheat because the grade is valuable to them but the learning is not, the more I think we need to rethink grading. I’m reading Learner Feedback for Language Growth this summer and getting ready to discuss it with my friends at @slayyypod.com

Dr. Casey Fiesler@cfiesler.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Been thinking a lot about the students in this class (presumably, but not certainly) using AI on a take-home midterm and then bombing the in-class final. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... But I think the real story here is not *that* students use AI, it's (part of) *why* students use AI. 🧵

La manía de que todas las compañías usen la IA para traducir automáticamente. Tenerife es TFN, bien y Madrid es MAD. Pues ya no es MAD, es ENOJADO. Una puta locura esto.

it's not always easy to follow this advice but he's right! i have a hard time with this re: people who ask me how I learned Japanese because the answer is that I read books, studied grammar and did kanji practice for years. it's not physically difficult it just takes a long time

✨Kirm✨@antonballdeluxe.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Given all of the recent genAI discussion, I wish to repost this.

What was the last book that made you cry? Me: crying right now as I listen to this audiobook about the Korean war

🏳️‍🌈 Mr. French 🏳️‍🌈@monsieurmiamiowl11.bsky.social · 3mo ago

What was the last book that made you cry? Me: “Devout” by David Archuleta

Bluey translated into an Indigenous language for the first time

Bluey speaks Yolŋu Matha for the first time

The animated award-winning cartoon series Bluey has been translated into Yolŋu Matha, from north-east Arnhem Land, for NAIDOC Week.

abc.net.au

Un gif d’un film que j’ai vu plus de six fois Easy. I saw this one six times in May… while my students signed yearbooks and I entered final grades.

Vivo: Lin Manuel Miranda's Character Surprise

Alt: Vivo: Lin Manuel Miranda's Character Surprise

static.klipy.com

WongKarWaifu@wongkarwaifu.com · 3mo ago

Un GIF d'un film que j'ai vu plus de six fois !