Here is another way to formulate my question: Given the amount of time it takes for gains to show up, does CI work? (This means that if we have 400 hours in a four year program, which is a top realistic quantity of actual hours of CI available to us, and we need somewhere between 10,000 and 24,000 […]
Ruth asked a question about Sabrina’s greetings questions to start class, and it made me wonder if we are possibly overrating how much our students learn. My question has to do with how many hours we have for CI vs. how many hours are necessary. This is one of those devil’s advocate types of questions: In the
Joe Dziedzic does something in his new video (I’ll post the link tomorrow) that some of us might want to do. He has a L1 story writer as most of us do (for the all important reason that we can use it to write the reading of the story), but he also has a superstar
Along with the Eric-inspired thread this year on putting communication over targets, John Piazza, in a comment this morning, sums up another important thread that has appeared here this year: Not sure if I would have changed anything, but my life would have been far less stressful last year, if I had been ok with
This letter from a former student to Eric is, in my view, where the rubber meets the road in this work: Hi Mr. Herman! It’s Heather from last year. I just wanted to tell you where I am right now with Spanish. I’m currently taking Spanish 2 at Ridgeland High School in Mississippi. I thank you
There is a term out there among the new batches of ways of thinking coming out of the current national think tanks (because it’s all about thinking and if we just figure it all out we can become a happy nation again, right?) – but this one actually has some practical merit. What is it?
What matters is not whether our students are learning or not. What matters is that they feel as if they are learning. Therefore, in buildings where students in levels 2, 3 or 4 are used to doing grammar and learning from a textbook, those students should not have stories and other CI activities pushed on them. The
This one is from Diane: Hi Ben, While we’re passing around screenshot PPTs, here is another one. It’s for “Runaway” (about a boy & his refrigerator). It’s very sweet. – 3 min., 41 sec. – a little longer than some Video & Discuss videos. Also, there is some English esp. at the beginning and end
I’ll categorize this post as a bail out move, but it’s more than that. It’s an attempt to describe the free and loose spirit of what we do and how we can go anywhere at anytime with anything and have a great time doing it. It’s an attempt to point out that this work with CI
Like the other Simon’s Cat clips supported by screen shots, this can be used with the Box story posted last week, if you’re using this idea of using screen shots to introduce the video clip. Thank you Steve Ordiano for this: CatTheBox
Melissa Foltz has been working in and around TPRS since practically the beginning. This report is from Oman. It’s lengthy but fun to read because it conveys a feeling that we might all recognize – a feeling of hope and possibilities: Hi Ben, Thanks for your energy, time, sharing, and devotion. I wanted to
Here’s a line from Sabrina’s email signature. Might be useful at times to remind the kids what the deal is: “Nature gave us two ears and only one tongue so we can listen more and talk less.” French version: “La nature nous a donné deux oreilles et seulement une langue afin de pouvoir écouter d’avantage
