Ben Slavic

Here is a wonderful new idea from Sean involving chants: I have the most good-natured set of students than I think I have ever had in my 13 years of teaching. That said, I do have some kids that blurt in English or engage in side conversations, especially my Pd. 8 class is, like 30 […]

Last summer I invited teachers who work in Coalition of Essential Schools buildings to dialogue about how, in foreign languages, they don’t in fact align at all with the set of ten Common Principles that Ted Sizer originally set out thirty years ago. The Coalition of Essential Schools has become, over the decades, the Coalition

In human speech, words emerge in a stream of unpredictability. This is the natural  way. We start with a word, then another one emerges, and all the time we are thinking of what idea we want to express, and we are not thinking about the words we need to express our idea. Meaning drives which words are

We have four major ways of neutralizing defiant kids: Circling with Balls – by engaging the child first in discussion about him or her, the child cannot act out because they are the focus of the discussion. Whenever the child acts out, blurts, disengages, etc. we return to the discussion about him or her. Adding the

[This stressed girl] in high school was part of a legendary group a few years ago where I earned my reputation as a crier because I [am so easily moved] by student kindness and vulnerability. This very girl was the one who, one day when we were doing our check-in and someone said “Estoy triste” said in English

[ed. note: this post picks up on the previous post, part 1 of jen’s report from the field here, where she was talking about the question “But how are you preparing them for college?”] Jen: …by creating a space where students can relax and be themselves, a space where a very wound up hard driving valedictorian

Jen shares: This Facebook message showed up last night when I got home. Out of the blue! I just wanted to let you know that I took a test to be placed into a Spanish college class. I tested out of the curriculum which means I am the only freshman in a high senior class for

Actually it was a text. But it sure made me happy! It was from someone in the LA workshop from a few weeks ago: …Ben, I am reading A Natural Approach to Stories [ed. note: this is the new name we have chosen for the new book about the Invisibles] for the third time and I

Here is another idea, a repost from 2013, that maybe someone can use this year: …we can work also with images when doing dictée. It helps the kids because they have a picture to look at while the instructor spins out stuff about what is going on the picture. This builds auditory comprehension, writing/grammar, and

From Russ: Hey guys, Just wanted to let you know how things were going over here in Silverton. I just did my first one word image with students in 4th period today (level 1 class). We have been in school since last Wednesday, but because of weird schedules and procedural stuff, they only really had

In using One Word Images, Elena Overvold in Portland has found that imagination and reality – harsh, real reality – intersect. It only reinforces my belief that is growing ever-stronger that in using images that are generated by the imaginations of the people in the room, we open our classes up to more reality. Think