Well it looks like the blurting discussion is about over. People read carefully, reflected on their own practice, and made decisions about what to do about L1/L2 use in their own classrooms. No one was right, there is no one correct way to do it. We’re just here to share ideas.
Eric wrote me an email describing the process and it is spot on:
…it probably takes people a while of reading your blog before they realize we are writing comments in order to think things through and that we are passionate, but not above self-reflection and not above admitting fault. Some weeks we’re sharing this great new thing and then a couple weeks later we’re finding problems with it….
Since we seem to be done with that discussion, I will now start to release many of the posts that have been waiting in the queue. One is very important to me. It is a reprise of the discussion about Julie Soldner’s work that Ruth has made an internet space for in a Google folder. There, we can share the Power Point slide shows that we make to teach certain target vocabulary using what Ruth called Visual PQA.
I’m off to observe Julie again right now. (Mary Beth will be there and she returns to Maine tomorrow.) More on this in the next few days. The idea of our having a huge lesson plan database here for Visual PQA is very exciting, IF we are lucky enough to be working from a Scope and Sequence like the one we use here in Denver.