Hi Ben, I want to say that I have gotten so much from your TPRS IN A YEAR. It is such a great resource. I think one of the most important things I took from it was the idea of a barometer student. It is such an obvious idea, but somehow I had never approached […]
The cultures of the language we teach are so rich! When by teaching in the old way we convey to our students the message that they can’t learn the culture’s language, we effectively distance the culture from the child for life. The relationship of the child with the culture is no longer even neutral after sitting
There never was a Step 1 in TPRS. There was just a story and a reading. Therefore, I do not advocate getting rid of establishing meaning, gesturing and PQA, just changing where we put it. In my previous article on this topic I wasn’t clear about that – I wasn’t saying to dump it, just
At iFLT in Chattanooga and hopefully in Agen as well, there will be a teacher of Cherokee language from Oklahoma. His name is Wade Blevins. I bring him up so that people know that they can learn some Cherokee this summer, but that’s not the only reason I bring his name up. Wade is a
From Angie – Hi Ben, I want to put out a plea for collaboration, and wonder if you would make it a blog post: I have a time-sensitive need to gain proficiency in using Textivate. I’m going to set aside some time in the next two weekends to work on this, and wonder if anyone
From Diana Noonan: Denver Public Schools has posted 15 Spanish positions for the 2016-17 school year. They range from elementary to high school. We are a TCI district with lots of training, collaboration and an exceptional learning community of teachers. Please send me a message at diana_noonan@dpsk12.org if you are interested. Thus far, there are
My TPRS world is like a house. The foundation/basement is the research. Once we know how solid it is, there is no need to build more. It does the job and I don’t want to go down there and rummage around, going through dusty old boxes, because I don’t have the time. The main floor
This site is about bettering our mental health and protecting children. The language piece is incidental.
Whenever we feel like giving up, like the battle is just too intense, then we need to remember what has become for me a rallying cry from Paul Kirschling in the Denver Public Schools: ..we know what we know to be true. And we know that if we don’t do what we know to be
A parent of one of my best students, although she would not be in a grammar class, was told by a previous teacher that her daughter “has neither the discipline nor the patience to learn a second language. Sophie at that time was five years old. That’s an extreme form of what we’re up against.
My department chair here at our school in New Delhi is Zach Al Moreno. We were just hanging out talking about teaching this morning and Zach said something that made me realize that staying in shape professionally (my theme for today) cannot be done without constant remembrance of one particular fact about how we acquire
