When doing one word images, as we walk to the word on the board, we put our hand on it, then we say it. We don’t say it while we are walking toward the board, which can confuse the kids*. Thus, in the sentence: …the apple has a hat on its head…. we first walk […]
Here is a possible plan for getting our students to easily do what I consider to be the real work at the upper levels – reading and discussing authentic texts with no effort. Because they have heard so much comprehensible input in the first two levels – massive amounts of it – the kids can
The ten finger comprehension checks and required fist signaling moves provide false reads of student comprehension. Many of the students simply lie on the hand comprehension checks, fearful of being perceived as stupid. Moreover, most don’t know, haven’t yet learned in their difficult young lives, how to self advocate. How, then, can they make the
Tina and I are (slowly) working on adding more Bite Size Books to the teachable.com pages. The travel this summer has slowed that process down quite a bit, but by later next year we intend to have a lot more of them. The one on One Word Images (Class Created Images) is very good and
Phil Smith teaches French in Ireland and Tina and I were lucky enough to meet and work with him in Agen last summer in our evening coaching sessions. After this year of creating stories with images created by his kids he sent us a few of them with some valuable insights. I particularly like the Bob et
The Invisibles Star has five points, like a real star. It’s just a metaphor to help us remember the order of our Invisibles strategies from the beginning (the top of the star) around to the part of the star that is at 9:00 p.m. on the schema below if it were a clock. Explaining it
This is just to mention a detail about setting up dictee, one of the spokes of our Invisibles Star. It’s another great idea from Tina: When we start dictée (a few months into the year usually) it’s hard to teach punctuation marks and the dictée process at the same time – the kids can’t absorb
Bryan Whitney shares: Hey Ben – Here are some French 1 resources that I am in the process of putting together (some are more complete than others…), but mainly consist of MovieTalk Powerpoints that can be used as is or you could always use the stories for Story Listening / Storytelling. http://www.thehorizonsthelimit.com/?page_id=230 I’m very excited
1. Teacher says a group of words, or a single word, from the story, in L2. 2. Groups of 3 or 4 put heads together to translate what they heard, as a group. 3. When they have their group answer, one person raise their hand. 4. One of the judges points to the first group
Word Chunk Team Game – Explanation of the Process Read More »
Ryan reported in June at the end of the year from Washington State: So, I am sitting here in 1st Period looking at my students’ final exams for Honors Spanish 1, and just started crying. All year, I have been second guessing myself, wondering if I am doing enough, and feeling like a slacker as
Hi Ben, I’m completely immersed in your new book! I have a question. I am not completely fluent in French – more just proficient. I am working on it and improving, but frankly, I mostly feel fearful of jumping into this full force because of this fact. Has this come up before? Any advice you
Tina and I start our two day summer workshops in Philadelphia on July 10th. See the schedule here: https://benslavic.com/blog/updated-summer-workshop-schedule/ While we are gone, those wishing to read posts from over the past ten years of the PLC here are best advised to use the search bar – it is the fastest and easiest way to find
