Learning how to learn: "Foreign Languages for Everyone"

Lately I've been reading the book, "Foreign Languages for Everyone" (2011) by Irene Konyndyk, which is a great book about how to teach foreign languages to students with learning disabilities. This is an extremely important topic to me because I feel like students with learning disabilities are often discouraged from taking foreign language classes because they're deemed to be too difficult for certain types of students. Now, I certainly won't say that learning a language is always easy; it's definitely one of the most challenging things that I've ever done. But, that's one of the reasons I really love it. Because I've challenged myself I truly have something to be proud of. Likewise, students with learning disabilities may find certain aspects of foreign language learning more difficult than others, but there are ways for them to overcome these challenges, and for teachers to help them to do so in a more effective manner. That's what this book is all about. It starts with the premise that foreign languages are truly for everyone- not just for the "gifted and/or talented" students. It's easy to teach to the students that are probably going to get it no matter how bad of a teacher you are, but it's another thing entirely to effectively teach to the students that are often ignored (unless they're acting out, that is...). "Foreign Languages for Everyone" gives some solid techniques and pedagogy from a teacher who has focused on doing exactly that.
I have to admit that I'm certainly still figuring things out myself, but I've found some great ideas in this book. One of the things that I'm going to start doing in my classes is a short weekly journal that helps students to reflect upon how they're learning so that they become more aware of what works for them and what doesn't. I think that this is brilliant because not only does it give me feedback on how students are doing and what they think of the class, but more importantly it helps the students themselves to realize how they think and learn. In education circles this is known as metacognition- being aware of how you think. When students become more aware of their own thinking then they are able to be more active in their own learning instead of simply going with the flow. This brings to mind the growth mindset of Carol Dweck's book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, which I also happen to love. When students focus on their own growth and what they can do to improve they are active instead of passive learners. They are also much more likely to be successful because they see mistakes as something to learn from, not just a sign that they're stupid.
So, I've begun working on an outline of topics to focus on next year so that each week we will look at a tool for becoming a successful student as well as using questions to reflect upon the learning process. To give my students a general set of tools I created a simply acronym to help give some structure to what I'll be teaching them about the learning process. This is what I came up with: