This information is for those teachers who have done the Ultimate CI Book 2 training. The instructions on the Word Chunk Team Game have been changed in the book to: 1. Teacher says a single word, a group of words, or even a sentence. Groups of 3 or 4 students put their heads together to […]
I got this nice message and drawing – click on link below – from a teacher who took the Ultimate CI Book I training this summer: Hello Ben. I hope you are well. I just wanted to share that the tableaux have been coming out nicely in my classes. As expected the kids love it.
How could all of us so badly miss the point about why we teach languages? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCmdhQLtwag
I got a question: Q. I have a third year student who is a great student. She reads on an upper intermediate level. Listening comprehension is a mid-intermediate level. She is an EXCELLENT reader in English and LOVES to read. She tackles her favorite English book in Spanish and is not afraid to work at
I am compiling a set of documents that, when finished, will become a book entitled In Defense of CI. Taken almost exclusively from posts from my blog over the past 15 years, it will be designed to offer CI teachers educated responses to those annoying and uninformed attacks about how we teach from helicopter parents,
As language programs in American schools continue to crumble, more and more private language schools – actual businesses – will appear in American society. These language schools will exist for one reason – they will help American companies grow profits from a better fit into the global economy. Random education of children in languages will
I always felt that something was wrong with me because I didn’t plan. They told me to plan but I didn’t. They made me feel like I was doing something wrong and so I must be a bad teacher. Now I see the truth – for me. Planning a language class is so far out
My favorite online quiz tool for those doing UCI is from Kat Sharnoff, who made a nice and simple document that allows you to make a copy of the quiz into your own Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sxOoipocC609I207sCfPpfzRkAiqxGlhbK6UX2tU9lM/copy
Students who come from privilege – in language classrooms and in all American classrooms – continue to be trained in schools for their roles as leaders. Via our instruction, via our assessment, via almost every aspect of the way we teach, we silently indoctrinate the underprivileged into their roles as “less than” in our society,
With stories, teaching a language successfully is very difficult, but it reaches most students. Without stories, success is virtually impossible, and reaches only a few bright kids. You have to pick one of these. If you pick the first, you align with 21st century standards. If you pick the second, you align with nothing. You
When children come to us to learn the languages that we teach them, they come to us in trust. But we do not always honor that trust. We do that unintentionally of course – but the result is the same. Why is this? It is because of the way we think about curriculum. We think
