Ben Slavic

I’ve always been discomfited about how simple the research is and how complex we make our jobs. I mean, the research says basically that we only need to talk to our students in the TL and then do lots of reading after that. But WE seem to have decided otherwise – for some reason we

I’m on a roll with the prayers: Dear God – Please help us understand that teaching is not a competition, and that whether or not our students achieve high test scores does not reflect on our value and our worth as teachers. Help us keep in mind that, seen through Your eyes (the only eyes

It’s that time of year when some of us are interviewing. John Piazza wrote here on the PLC on the topic, posted first back in 2014: Hi Ben, I wanted to let everyone know officially that I have emerged from my unemployment woes, having been offered a job at my first choice, a large public

Angie addressed tbe topic of Can Do statements in 2015 here. What she wrote could apply to almost any aspect of traditional language education. I felt a deep connection to every word. If someone asked me why I am so opposed to the old ways, and why I condemn advocating output too early, I would

In the first chapter of Le Petit Prince, there are these lines: J’ai ainsi eu, au cours de ma vie, des tas de contacts avec des tas de gens sérieux. J’ai beaucoup vécu chez les grandes personnes. Je les ai vues de très près. Ça n’a pas trop amélioré mon opinion./So I had, over the

In an article in The Language Educator, Nicole Sherf (Salem State University) and Tiesa Graf (South Hadley High School, Massachusetts) gnash their teeth at the number of times cocktail-party acquaintances have said they took multiple years of a foreign language in high school and can’t remember a thing. What happened? Is there anything teachers can

One of the things about this community that I appreciate and that people have commented on over the years is that dissenting points of view are accepted and welcomed as contributing to a growth mindset. For example, Diana’s recent lashing out at me for my opinions on testing in Denver Public Schools was seen by

If you are in one of those situations where your admin team is so ignorant about the Communication standard and the research (90% of school principals fit into this classification), then have hope. Why? Because if you get a bad review by such a person, let the observation get filed. NO ONE will ever go

What must we do to retain more than the few fast processors in our four-year programs? Getting rid of the AP exam, which is all show and very little substance, is a start. (The College Board might more aptly be labeled more accurately as a “business that sells prestige”). But besides outlawing the AP Exam

There are no advanced levels in American secondary schools. Level 3 and Level 4 students are all Level 1 students. This is because of the 10,000 hour thing, which I will assume readers know about from previous posts, videos, books, and/or Zoom trainings. Indeed, if it takes 10,000 hours to attain any degree of authentic

If you are working in one of the Ultimate CI Books (the old Invisibles book), here are a few related videos: Lori 

Q. Without tools like Can Do statements, how are we supposed to evaluate what our students can do? A. Why is it so important to evaluate what our kids can do with the language, especially at such an early age? They can’t do much with it, certainly, any more than a three or four-year old