Linda and I both have big posters just outside our rooms that are the same. They are kind of our manifesto for when people walk down our hallway: When acquiring another language, we learn to LISTEN. We learn to READ what we have heard. We learn to WRITE what we have read and heard. Finally, we […]
I’m just reposting this because it is so astounding. It’s from Lance: Ben, I consider this post from the ACL jobs website a huge win in the TCI world, and frankly, haven’t seen one like it: “Ability to speak Latin is not required but highly desirable. Current Latin teachers use Comprehensible Input methods in the
In many schools there are all sorts of vertical and horizontal and sideways articulation meetings. Standards are being packed and unpacked and sent to Norway. Scope and Sequence discussions are taking place without any clear definition of what the term means. Confused discussion about assessments of the common, formative and summative kind are added into
Laura specifically addresses one way to keep the class engaged during the Star of the Day/Week activity: I make it into a guessing game. How well do you know X? So for each question they have to guess asking the Star using 2nd person singular. While the Star answers in 1st person singular. If I
Here is a good question: How do you keep the rest of the class engaged while focusing on one student for the whole period?
An exchange in the comment fields between Jim and Ruth yesterday was very rich. In it, they addressed the need to let things develop within the narration of the story. How to do that? They also address the idea of possibly using images to stabilize the story creation process. Ruth addressed the need to correctly manage actors
I love the teaching in this video clip. It’s Adriana Ramirez (Vancouver) working from her new book Learning Spanish with Comprehensible Input Through Storytelling. Related: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Spanish-Comprehensible-Storytelling-Students/dp/1770844120
I am two weeks into my new job in Portland (OR) Public Schools and I have never, ever been a happier teacher. I am teaching three classes of seventh-grade Spanish (first time in Spanish for them, and it is such a treat to teach the “uncut block”), one class of first-year, seventh-grade French, and one
I am currently starting the year with the Persona Especial questions. Last week, each class, I talked to only one student per period per day. I saw some issues that I bring to your attention and ask for help: 1. In Spanish I asked a kid, “When do you play basketball?.” That kid launched
I struggle with staying in bounds. As you reference in your books, at the end of a lesson there are far too many other words on the board. How do you get suggestions from students to build details without having that happen?
Question from Australia: Hi Ben – I will be doing some work with Ian Perry here in Brisbane to further develop my TPRS skills. Is there a school teaching Japanese which uses TPRS? Our school also teaches Japanese and the Japanese teacher is coming to do some PD work with me. I just thought I
A repost from 2011: This is just a standard rant. I’m due for one and here it is: We are already there. What we did, how we did our jobs today, and how it adds to our stature is not what determines whether we will be successful or not as teachers. We are successful because we
