I promised to post all of Krashen’s responses to my ROA article. Those 20 posts are what got me seriously rethinking CI in schools. Here is the second: Me: “The fourth step of ROA is doing choral translation using the laser pointer.” Dr. Krashen: I really like that you bring up the issue of ESL/EFL. This is […]
With stories, teaching a language successfully is very difficult, but it reaches any conscious student. Without stories, success is virtually impossible, and reaches only a few bright kids. You have to pick one of these. If you pick the first, you align with 21st century standards. If you pick the second, you align with nothing. You do,
General caution for new people. The reason we do stories is to set up reading. Reading is our big gun. We do lots of fun CI but it is all to set up we a text. You can follow a precise and detailed reading sequence that can last up to three weeks (in which not
Steven has a question: Hi Ben, I am writing for some help regarding how I can adapt my CI teaching for BTSA, a mandatory beginning teacher’s program in California. In essence it is a program where a supervisor evaluates teaching according to CSTP or the California Standards of the Teaching Profession. It includes quick and
Dr. Krashen states: There is nothing wrong with talking about grammar occasionally. Eric Herman stated my position about grammar and output very well on your blog. Even a dictation once in a while (especially as it relates to French culture!). In fact, doing a little grammar, etc. is a good chance to discuss language acquisition
From Tim Geerlings: Ben, Can you post the following question to the group? I have two students in my Spanish 2A class who will not, period, do freewrites. They are otherwise GREAT students, who pay attention, volunteer phrases in Spanish, and seem to understand every single of the hundreds of questions/ statements I make every
Jim Tripp: The public individual dictado. Ask a student to stand up and take dictation on the board for a single word or sentence. Chances are you’ll have to correct them on spelling which allows you to talk to them about letters and directing them to the correct word/letter that needs corrected, in TL. This
Hi Ben, I hope you are well. I thought you might enjoy this excerpt that one of my students sent me below. I talked to my students a few weeks ago about how learning a language can feel like going down a hill on your bike very fast in order to get up a hill
I don’t know if anyone is doing the Jump into the Space! activity, the eighth of the eighteen step Reading Option A sequence (one way to approach Step 3 of TPRS). I just started using it in a real way lately myself, but it’s a sleeper – it’s really good. Here it is described and it
In the next series of posts I would like to share with permission what Dr. Krashen wrote about the “Lowering the Affective Filter in ESL Classes” article posted here last week: https://benslavic.com/blog/lowering-the-affective-filter-in-eal-classes/ The text in italics is what I wrote. The text below is his response. PQA/Story – Steps 1 and 2 of TPRS I think
Dr. Krashen comments on the problem of skill building vs. CI: I understand the problem, and it will remain until we educate people about language acquisition, at least to the point where people understand that the comprehension hypothesis EXISTS. How to do this in another conversation. A true dilemma until this happens: If we close
This is a repost from nine years ago: Jody Noble sent this superb article by Garon Wheeler. It is the best article I’ve ever read on Krashen. It makes me realize how similar Krashen’s story is to that of Carl Jung, who was unrecognized by the robots around him because he was able to stretch science by pushing
