Ben Slavic

Transportation Scenes

  Whenever an actor needs to go to another location in a story, there is potential for a humorous mode of travel and a brief comical interlude in class that takes place in the target language. The means of conveyance can be described in words, or in certain classes where the focus is strong enough, […]

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Administrative Power

How odd that the power of the old guard and their influence on administrators, in the face of the actual research, is enough to keep teachers down, in a defensive posture, on their toes. The teachers are only trying their best in a failed system to employ comprehensible input in their classes. In the movie

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Wise Words

Suzanne TenBroek said here recently: …it just seems like people are arguing over how to cook the turkey, when in reality we all know that the turkey needs to be cooked before it’s eaten. It’s just a matter of whether or not we want to brine it, then roast it, or deep fry, or whatever…..

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Something is Happening

Over recent weeks on the iFLT FB page, some of the people who write in support of nontargeted  CI are having their comments deleted. The latest deletion there was of a comment from PLC member Jeanette Borich , who has published articles on comprehensible input (see the Primers section above) and who last week wrote the

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A Car Wreck

Blaine’s brilliant idea to create the storytelling method out of the clay of Krashen’s research was met head on by school policy, esp. by the targeting of lists of words, in the way textbooks are designed. This was a high speed collision between his new car and the old traditional car. Which car won?  Judging

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A Flood of Output

A repost from last May: Today my sixth graders took over for about 3 to 5 minutes in French. I couldn’t believe it. I just sat down and watched. Half of the class was trying to decide on a story and the other half was really involved in listening. It was important to them where

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