It makes my head spin sometimes how easy it is to just slip into old habits and all of a sudden you’ve spent a whole week losing the kids and allowing relationships to grow cold. Not intentionally. of course. You think you’re doing good work but at the end of the week I realize I’ve […]
We had a discussion about summative testing last week, but I don’t think it went very far in answering Dana’s original question about what to do when one is required to test at 80% of the grade summatively, against all reason. Below are some points that may spur a richer discussion for Dana. Maybe not.
Our work isn’t mechanical and cannot be taught to new teachers in a mechanical way. Once we accept how truly subjective the nature of this work is, we can begin to move towards an instructional approach that is more feeling toned, less predictable and less based on high frequency word lists or words that have
Tina wrote this for us: It is so good to switch places and the teacher to be a student. Two common weekend activities where I can lay down my teacher personality and just relish the student experience are church and yoga. In church, when it is really cooking, you are brought out of yourself into
Since many of us are just starting up stories right now, I thought I would share this. At NTPRS in St. Louis a few years ago I went to Linda Li’s sessions all week. Below is the story she did each day and how she did it. Characteristically, Linda went very slowly (SLOW-LI to use
Judy Dubois wrote: I think of [language acquisition as] a plant growing with roots deep in the soil. All we can do is water it. A lot of the water drains off, but some gets absorbed by the roots, carried up the trunk, becomes sap and through a mysterious process the plant grows and produces
Dear Ben! I came across your video on YouTube on “Circling with Balls” and I instantly wanted to know more about this technique. Yesterday I ordered “PQA in a Wink” and dove straight into the “PQA and the Oppositional Student” section. I am absolutely fascinated with your ideas and grateful for your sharing experience and
Today I heard yet again a common refrain in this work: non-targeted CI instruction works for some but it isn’t for everybody. The problem in that statement lies in the fact that it refers to teachers and not students. If non-targeted instruction is best for kids, if that seems to be the gorilla in the
This is a fairly significant report from Steven and fits in nicely with Dana’s question asked just a few hours ago. My thinking is that we don’t need to be doing ANY kind of summative assessment in our field, given the nature of how languages work. Steve’s report: Hi Ben, Today I initiated a chat
Hello Ben! My name is Dana Schillerstrom. I am currently in my 10th year teaching French, and my FIRST year teaching using the CI method! I attended the IFLT conference in Chattanooga this summer with some colleagues and we were all so excited and inspired. We all purchased a copy of your book and we
Last week Diana wrote in a comment here: …assessments are given for only ONE reason…to inform the teacher how to BETTER teach their students…. That just doesn’t ring true to me. I don’t think teachers look upon testing as a way to get information to help them change their instructional practices. I never did that.
Hey Ben and Tina, I wanted to check in with you both about the first two weeks of school. Feel free to share on the blog or not! A lot of this came out of a conversation I had with Tina last week about using the Invisibles with kids in poverty. First of all, I
