John Piazza (CA) and John Bracey (MA) not only share the same first name. They also are at the forefront of change in the Latin world in the U.S. We all know Bracey’s riveting story of being an oak in a storm in his building (understatement) over recent years, but Piazza’s is pretty much the same. […]
Just a caution from Brigitte about the number of words we choose for OWATS. It’s well timed and thank you Brigitte because tomorrow I was going to hand out 20 words to read a chapter of Le Petit Prince and what you wrote here makes me realize that it is too many: …I just did
In my experience, the biggest value of novels is not in the reading of the novel itself but in the awesome spinouts possible at any given unplanned moment. Today I was working with the chapter in Brandon Brown (Quebec) where he didn’t want to get up. His mom walks into the room and says, “Brandon
Two big roadblocks to success in our CI classrooms are: There are severe time limits. So much time is needed to show real gains – far more time than we have. We teach students who for the most part can only think in terms of what is on a test. I won’t even mention administrators and
I just started free writes in my beginning classes, after months of stories. The kids love to write them. They love to count their words. One student, over the past three free writes (over a 2 week period) improved from 44 to 55 to 66 words. That will make a nice bar graph to show
A short report from India: I was walking to work today past the British School and overheard some Hindi language – a guy was asking directions. I noticed that he packed about fifteen syllabus into about one second. It is the fastest and most packed language I have ever heard. He must have studied hard
The energy which is expended in mere thinking, talking or writing is like the steam which escapes through the whistle of the railway engine. The whistle makes a noise, and is even interesting, but it cannot drive the engine. No amount of whistling can move the engine forward. The steam has to be harnessed and
This question from Brian Peck merits vigorous discussion: Hey all, Ben, thanks for this post…it definitely grounds me. My struggle is on a long term basis, how can I create a structure in which the type of TPRS you describe in its must pure form can happen? I have bought in to the backwards planning
If anyone wants to watch Krashen and Carol Gaab’s session at ACTFL, they will find them here: http://fluencymatters.com/video/krashen-gaab-actfl2015-part-1 http://fluencymatters.com/video/krashen-gaab-actfl2015-part-2 http://fluencymatters.com/video/krashen-gaab-actfl2015-part-3
I was just talking to Linda Li and we both strongly agree in terms of Scope and Sequence that we must target high frequency verbs and function (connecting) words, but in terms of nouns (Zach said this today) it doesn’t matter if they acquire the word “bed” now or later – there is no need
Does anyone have any ideas about what the best format for drawing is? I used to use that rolling whiteboard with front and back and it was fantastic. Now I use the iPad to project the work when the story is done. Unfortunately, I find that the artists get lost in drawing details and colors
I just sent what is below to my administration as well as my vertical alignment team. I wanted to share it with the group. Whenever one clicks on the “send” button with stuff like this one always has a kind of nervous feeling, but I sent it anyway. I’ve got to fly my freak flag:
