10 Comments
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Anna M. Middleton's avatar

What a fantastic day today! Day 1 of your Lost Words conference has been so inspiring and… it’s only just begun! Thank you so much Kurt, Marimar and everyone at Habla.

Kurt Wootton's avatar

Love that you were able to make it this year. And thanks for reading the posts paralleling the event. Hope you have an amazing week.

Adrian Neibauer's avatar

I love both this activity and the one-word bios! I’m going to try each of them with my students during our first week together in the fall.

Kurt Wootton's avatar

Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing how the one word works myself. Piloting it Monday.

Matt Karlsen's avatar

Thanks for so generously sharing this, Kurt! I can imagine adapting this for a gathering we have coming up. One of the many things I appreciate is the way you're avoiding nostalgia: The importance of asking folks to focus on something they want to work to preserve rather than asking about something that is gone that they miss.

Kurt Wootton's avatar

Hi Matt! Thanks for mentioning that. We really do try to avoid bringing sensitive topics up for the sake of an emotional response. Although participants can bring what they want to the table, thanks for noticing how we purposely try to shape experiences that don't reach for the nostalgic or sentimental. Best of luck in your work and I'm glad you found it useful!

Jenna Vandenberg's avatar

This sounds amazing!!! I'll have to keep this on my radar for next year (hopefully you'll be running this next year)

Kurt Wootton's avatar

We've run it every year for 18 years so I hope we will be too! We'd love to have you join us. Stay in touch.

Marimar Patron's avatar

I love this as a way to open space for our students stories! Also, check the "El día E - tu palabra favorita videos in Spanish. They were made to celebrate the Spanish language and you see different Spanish world cultural celebrities talking about their favorite word.

Kurt Wootton's avatar

Loved starting with those videos this morning at the Institute. I'll add them to the resources in the post. Thanks for sharing them!