Ben Slavic

“In every single class when you are giving CI instruction, interacting in fun and unforced ways with the kids, the output is inevitable.” Linda Li  

The End of Motivation Stephen Krashen New Routes, vol 55: 34-35. 2015 www.disal.com.br/newr/ I announce in this paper the end of motivation as a relevant factor in language education. I announce in this paper the end of concerns that “our students just aren’t motivated,” and claims that we need to convince our students that language

In my ongoing work at AES with Steven Cook, we have been exploring Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis as it may apply to ELA instruction. A summary of that work, a result of about six weeks of inquiry into the nature of language acquisition with Steven, is attached below (“Affective Filter Lowering” attachment). I sent the

These are from Angie: Hi Ben! I wanted to share some materials I made this week in case anyone is in need of a quick filler lesson…. It’s for a MovieTalk of this trailer from the movie Frozen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WdC4DaYIeQ And here’s an 18-sentence retell followed by some comprehension/extension questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LACpTVcLFBjxTbwJwVPQnFI9cW12BmQaOwe4v7N_eGk/edit And here’s a presentation of

From John Piazza: There has been a lot of discussion on the list about dealing with 4%ers, but I would like to take the conversation in perhaps a different direction, which may help me in my exceptional and unfortunate situation. Many of my students (and many 4%ers I think) are gifted, technically, clinically, which puts

Hi Ben, Thanks to the feedback from the PLC, I have revised the Eight Traps document, adding some additional information, names, and sources. Here it is. Robert Opponents of Teaching with Comprehensible Input in general and TPRS in particular will often raise a number of issues. Since one of the premises of the method is

Of course this is much more than can be done in two blocks. More like 10. But it gives the sequence, a very valuable one in my opinion that has been cooking for at least four years and is now ready to serve as each individual CI chef wishes: Block 1: FVR Grammar Translation Word

I like lesson plans that are rugged and tough and yet that have lots of flex in them so that if something is working we can stay with it as long as we like. It’s a big order to get a lesson plan like that, one that gets and keeps the kids’ attention during an

I am and will always remain of the firm and studied opinion that grammar teachers secretly hate their jobs and yearn for something exciting but are afraid to leave the shores of book safety that have kept them wallowing in their jobs, but which shores are now eroding fast. But what’s wrong with teaching a

As mentioned here a week ago, there is a new arrangement with the story artist. Perhaps it’s the iPad with so many bells and whistles  that causes the artist to disappear into the iPad and thus miss valuable input. So I changed that job so that the artist does the drawing at home, perhaps sketching a

Here is the draft from Robert: In a recent discussion with other teachers, one of the participants expressed the following opinion in opposing Teaching with Comprehensible Input: “If you teach like a baby learns its first language, your students won’t say their first word for two-and-a-half to three years.” While the statement indicates a number

Hi Everyone, Last Thursday I was at a District World Languages Department Chair meeting. The TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) opened a discussion about language acquisition. During the discussion, classroom practice came up. One of the other department chairs, who is quite traditional in his approach, talked about having students memorize lists of words so