Now. OK tomorrow. I am being cereal about this. Don’t instruct them. Be with them. Talk to them. When you think you are teaching them, then they perceive that they are being taught, and a cycle of “I’m-the-teacher-and-I’m-the-smartest-and-if-you-listen-to-me-then-you-learn-the-language” kicks in, complete with testing and the whole pathetic school thing. It is impossible to teach a […]
Michael Coxon wrote in a comment this morning: I had one of the most restful weekends I have had in a long time. The last 4 nights I slept well over 40 hours. This is an accomplishment for me and I went in very refreshed on a Monday morning. During my morning routine I was
This is an interesting time of year for teachers. We are exhausted from fighting on behalf of our convictions of what best practices look like. We are exhausted from trying to implement a method that is still taking form in our classrooms and in the world. And yet, if we are not too exhausted, we
Eric posted this today. As I read it, I reflected that in it lies the core defining principle for everything I personally have tried to do in education: “. . . educators might stop worrying about how to transmit information, and concentrate instead on how to make learning enjoyable, because only when going to school
John Piazza makes a subtle but great point below. I am going to change my rules poster to reflect what he says: Ben, I just heard about a helpful practice on our Latin Best Practices list, from a fellow Latin teacher, Corrado Russo, a member of this PLC. When he wants to check comprehension, instead
Chris mentioned an article that Byron DesPres-Berry first shared with us here in 2009, definitely worth a re-read:: http://www.fremdsprachendidaktik.rwth-aachen.de/Ww/programmatisches/pachl.html
A repost from 2010: It is an incredible thing to hear, just before class as the kids are quieting down, their genius, fun, humor in the form of their discussion, which all kind of fades out if you are going to start a grammar class or something ridiculous like that. Why not keep that fun, that
Don’t go too wide. It is common to think that our kids, because they perform so well, can do things with sounds and words in the form of reading that they haven’t seen. But they can’t. They can only understand and read what they have heard and worked on before, plus a little extra in
I like to think about how I taste the words when I speak to my students. The food I present in class must taste good to me and to them. Are the words I say tasty? Do they convey happiness? Do they have little sprinkles on them? Or do I say the words too fast
Leah (Turner) has a question for the group: Ben, I want to give end of the year awards in my classroom for all high school levels of German (1, 2 and 3) – 100 some students total. I’m having trouble deciding if I need to give every single kid an award. I want to spend
We need some sort of way to help find roommates at iFLT. Best for now is to just send me an email or comment below. Like Michael Coxon and Jason Bond need roommates so far. Anyone else?
