Dear Ben, As I head off to Latvia to oversee an intensive Russian study program for 14 kids who have done well in three years of Russian, I find an email in my box with the results of our school’s Russian AP exam. Three “regular” program kids and 18 immersion program kids took the exam. […]
This is from Ruth Fleishman: Hi Ben, I just got this message if you want to post it. White River Junction, Vermont Hartford High School is accepting applications for a full-time Spanish teacher. See Schoolspring for details. Ruth adds: I teach at the middle school across the parking lot. We all meet when we can
Another teacher has lost a job: Hi Ben: I’m out of a job. My school situation was classic – department head who wanted to institute change and introduced us to CI, then when I embraced it, she punked me in the observation because she didn’t recognize what I was doing. I failed to front-load her
It was like a different life. It was like a miracle. With my new tools and perspective, I was able to be myself in the classroom. I had a fierceness in me, knowing that I had to either believe in myself and stand behind what I was doing or go back down that dark and
This past August I moved into a huge, sunlit classroom with my name on the door. I started right in with CI. I had a fabulous mentor, a sweet, intelligent department head, great colleagues and supportive administration. In spite of all this, I went down again like a ton of bricks. I know that grief
Hi Ben, A few days left in the semester, and I’m finally feeling that I’d like to share a bit about my journey with folks on the blog. This community has been such a huge source of support and inspiration as I’ve entered this new profession over the last couple of years. You and Laurie
Here is the version of jGR/ISR (the Interpersonal Skills Rubric) that is now in poster form: Interpersonal-Communication-Rubric-in-Color Here is a self-evaluation form that I sometimes use: Interpersonal-Cummunication-Self-Evaluation-Form-201521
These are from Keri Biron (Colwell): Hi Ben, So, I gave an exit survey to my kids yesterday and got great feedback. However, a couple students mentioned the fact that we focused heavily on s/he forms of the verbs and not so many other subjects. They are right. I have a few ideas myself as
Eric, Thanks for writing and for sharing—and for your very kind comments about me! It was fun to look at your videos at Edgartown. I’m of course familiar with a lot of these methods, techniques, and overall approaches and applaud them. I especially applaud all of your (plural) efforts in trying to make change. It
Eric wrote this to Dr. VanPatten: Dear Dr. VanPatten, I am reaching out to you in an attempt to bring our worlds closer together. I teach Spanish to grades 3-8 using an approach called “Teaching with Comprehensible Input (TCI).” This subsumes TPR, TPRS, MovieTalk (of the Focal Skills Approach), FVR, as well as other Natural
This is good article from Robert Harrell on classroom discipline and a reflection on what it means to act like an adult in a school so that students can have real adults around them and not teachers trying to be their friends: Hi Ben, As part of obtaining my credential in California, I was required
Well Diana’s job is safe. It turned out to be less in limbo than we thought. The details are unimportant but it would have been a truly crazy situation because tonight (Wed.) I just returned from a yearly gala evening downtown honoring various employees of Denver Public Schools. Paul and Julie had nominated Diana for
