Ben Slavic

When Attacked – 1

Anyone under pressure in their buildings to focus on output (“show what they know”) may want to visit the arsenal of articles collected here over the years and offer some of them to those fool-hearted administrators who have nothing else to do but challenge their teachers when they don’t fall into line with other teachers […]

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A Blast from the Past

In 2011 I got an email from a person I don’t know. I read it from time to time to remind me of how far we’ve come, because there was a day when people like this ruled the world, back in the Jurassic period of language instruction. Here is is: From: steve leggiero <sleggierous@yahoo.com> To: benslavic@yahoo.com Sent: Wednesday,

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Sample Lesson Plan

For those who must still hand in lesson plans (an insult to us as professional educators), Tina offers this that can be modified for anyone’s use: 10-20-2016 Tina Hargaden French One Novice Mid level of proficiency Lesson:  Creating a story:  Boo… le fantôme Objectives: SWBAT comprehend spoken French used to narrate a story that the

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NYC Group

Beth Smith is new to our group and up in Westchester County. Is the NYC group still meeting periodically? Carly or Brigitte or anyone email me and I will put you guys in contact with her.  

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Laughter is a Best Practice

Robert Harrell:  Kathrin, your comments above, as well as similar comments from colleagues throughout the world, indicate just how far from reality some people can be. Your supposed “helper” reveals how little she understands students, psychology, learning, group dynamics, and a myriad of other facets that are essential parts of “The Invisible Classroom”. (Check out

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An Insight of Great Value

Claire Ensor has written: TPRS is mostly plagued with a feeling of accountability for individual words.  TPRS has innocuous ways of holding children accountable for targets or words via easy questions, gestures, TPR, and choral translating. But going painfully slow is the most subtle.  Going too slow sets up the expectation that children will understand each

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