From Craig: I’ve been in two days of PD learning about how to ¨teach¨ Spanish. It’s not really teaching Spanish though is it? It’s really about how to present information from the book. It requires absolutely no creativity from me and none from any students. All of the time has been about implementing exercises to teach specific […]
This is an update from our Jen Sparano in NJ. Some may recall that discussion in early spring. Here is a recent link: https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-jennifer-sparano-2/ Hey Ben – You may recall that the year before last, I came to you requesting help from the PLC members because I was going to be meeting with my new
I just got back from a workshop in Peotone IL which is just south of Chicago and the teachers there were fantastic. We had a good time, got good work done, and it is exciting to think that with Shaun and Alisa and that strong group north of Peotone (David Sceggel is also in that
Robert’s materials for German and other languages are now available! He Ben – My website is now live. There’s still a lot to be done, and I will be expanding descriptions as well as uploading more items, but at least it’s now accessible. I even take PayPal and credit cards. If you want to see
Yesterday I was walking down the street here in this charming Mediterranean city of Agen, France and ran into Stephen Krashen and Beniko Mason. I immediately thanked them on behalf of all of us for being here. I told them that their long journeys to get here, their presence here, is in my view of immense
Stories are best when they are “cartoon-sized”. Like a cartoon episode, they start, have a plot, and wrap up within 25-35 minutes. Using the Story Driver job should help us keep our stories short, but what if class ends and the story is still not wrapped up? The best way to wrap up a story
Tina Hargaden said: Using emergent targets, for me at least, has invited much more creativity into my work. I am looking forward to starting the year next year with no targets, because I foresee much more engagement and trust from the kids. The trust comes from the facts that a) using emergent targets honors their
With emergent targets, the story will be different in every class, so different vocabulary and structures are used. Therefore, a traditional scope and sequence based on lists of vocabulary or grammar points is not needed or even practical. Such guides matter not to me, as the research shows that humans do not acquire language based on
It may well be that allowing new structures into a story during the story at the very moment when they are needed to drive the story forward will frequently, through the mere inclusion of those student-generated structures, lift the story up to a level that we could call compelling.
Here is a link to the PLC vPQA folder: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7fIft4pMHUTfjIzUmZuc1hDcDJmQlA0NlAtVEZCcUxobGU3UkswVXpIXzFXR0Zwb1BBUEU&usp=sharing
We finally have resolution to the tough year that jen had and it is all great news. Those who have been following along since the gnarly early part of last year – gnarly isn’t even the word, it was brutal and jen had zero support with mean kids and an oblivious admin team and then ended the
A repost from 2013: Intuitive teaching is about trusting the heart/intuition to bring more to the class than just mere intellectual discussion. Mere intellectual discussion does not bring fun, nor does it bring the heart quality, which in turn brings more learning and much bigger enrollments with happier kids in them. In fact, teaching from a merely intellectual stance, where
