A few days ago I received an email from a teacher in Australia, Michelle Fisher. Some months back I had sent her the “Self-Study” Ultimate CI Training materials – here is that link:
https://benslavic.com/product/self-study-course/
Below is the email. In a subsequent post, I give feedback on what Michelle sent me:
Hi Ben,
Just touching base again to gush and rave about you and all your training materials. Thank you so much for the work you are doing and the generosity with which you do it. I am having the most fun I’ve ever had teaching French thanks to your help.
Your step by step instructions, reference charts and videos have made learning this method very accessible to me and my colleagues. The other teacher I am working with is an English teacher who has just stepped in to teach French for this one term and has been able to use your methods. She says the same classes that were tough to teach in English class are engaged and well-behaved in her French classes. Another colleague, who is teaching English but is also a Japanese teacher, asked if he could observe one of my classes that he teaches English to. He couldn’t believe how every kid was engaged and attentive for the entire 45 minute class. These kids normally struggle to focus for even 5 to 10 minutes in their other classes.
I love your attitude to helping kids have fun and experience success instead of shame and failure. I love your attitude towards useless administrators who are far removed from the classroom. I really love the way you encourage the teachers you are training in the videos. For example, you directly encouraged the Canadian teacher who was worried about not having enough students for the program to continue in the future. You said you’ve seen her ability and you are confident she will do great and grow her program with these methods (my paraphrase).
By the way, I’m a Canadian who moved to Australia ten years ago. 😊
I have been working at learning your methods with my four Grade 7 classes. All of this has just happened in the past few months and it is the very end of the school year here in Australia.This is their first year ever taking French and yet they are producing these wonderful stories they can read and understand. I thought I would share a few with you. I’ve also attached a PowerPoint I created from your instructions on ICI prompts to show the students as models of what is expected. I summarized and paraphrased your work to fit the PowerPoint.