Ben's Blog

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Word Chunk Team Game Change

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

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Sample Tableau

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

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Song of All Nations

How could all of us so badly miss the point about why we teach languages? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCmdhQLtwag

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The Bulb in the Ground

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

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Eight Traps

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

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Language Teaching in the 21st Century

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

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Planning

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

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UCI Online Quiz Tool

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:

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An Insidious System

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

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Don’t Do That Anymore

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

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Students Trust Us

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

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