Our group member Julie is in Canada:
Hi Ben,
Just wanted you to know that I attended a French meeting this morning about how to increase literacy in the fsl classroom.
Well, you could imagine that I was bursting at the seams to share my success with the Invisibles!
Once I mentioned that we create stories as a class together and the kids are showing so much engagement – kids who wanted to shrink into the wallpaper last year are leaders in readers theatre groups – everyone wanted the meeting to focus on CI.
I was very happy to oblige. I shared stories we’ve made so far, told them about the process, and really focused on student buy-in. It reminded me of something you said in your Natural Approach book: who is going to care about some kid named Pierre who lives in Paris?
Everybody wants to do this method. Some of them are AIM teachers, by the way. They focus on pre-scripted plays like the Three Little Pigs. I was going to go the AIM route until I saw a teacher’s guide and realized how prescriptive and NOT ME it all was.
I have a feeling I will be leading a lot more meetings! My French consultant is on board.
Thanks for all you and others have taught me so far. This morning’s meeting fuelled my fire to continue stories all year. (Our focus is action oriented tasks in Ontario…I kept wondering that I was gonna get “caught” doing some strange method and would be told uh-uh!)
Julie