After another great observation of Julie Soldner’s classes yesterday, I learned from Diana Noonan an interesting point about circling that I had never heard before: …the only reason to circle is to teach vocabulary…. It makes sense. If our students already know a word, why circle it? Thus, we must be ever watchful when we […]
Here is an excellent brain break that Sabrina used in her Learning Lab on Wednesday. They probably exist in other languages as well:
Mildred is the captain of the girl’s basketball team. She is rough. She had to be rough because she was thrown around physically by her abusive parents in a double wide trailer growing up. One day I learn that one of the walls in Mildred’s trailer has a gaping hole in it, covered with plastic.
This passage is from PQA in a Wink! It connects with recent discussion around Sean’s video: PQA and the Oppositional Student Why go to conferences, read books, spend money to learn the method, only to be undercut by one or two defiant students at the beginning of the year? It happens all the time and
Well it looks like the blurting discussion is about over. People read carefully, reflected on their own practice, and made decisions about what to do about L1/L2 use in their own classrooms. No one was right, there is no one correct way to do it. We’re just here to share ideas. Eric wrote me an
This post is to re-state what I think our position toward our work together here should be. Please comment below so that we can have a kind of town meeting on this important topic. It’s good to do that every once in a while. This is the time to voice concerns about the direction we
A repost from 2010: We were talking about how important it is for us to understand that we don’t have to get our students to learn. I would like to expand on that thought just a bit. The deal is, that when we as the teacher have a need, visible or hidden, that our students
The language acquisition design exists and operates fully in the unconscious mind, and not the conscious mind, and it is in control of this process of language acquisition. Ours is but to deliver the CI. We are delivery drivers and we drive little trucks with CI written on the side. We need to get over
Here is the second Arizona article from Michael. This is the one that needs strong feedback from us: Hey guys, I know you are all busy with various things but I was looking for a bit of feedback. Based on many of things presented on the PLC and with ACTFL I have been sending several
This is the first Arizona article for those who may not have read it. The second report from Michael Coxon will appear later. Hey Guys, I realize we all live in different states but hear me out on this one… I received this as a part of a mass email today from the state of
Q. Will there be any War Rooms at the summer conferences? A. Only at iFLT. Carol has registration set up so that teachers can choose one session to be coached in. There are 3-hour War Room blocks on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings, for EXPERIENCED teachers only. Each session will be 3 hours with a
Recent posts here have been about: 1. the use of L1 in our classrooms (Blurting) 2. the S/S discussion in Utah that Paul Seevinck is involved in (Quick Response Needed) 3. brain breaks 4. the college and career readiness standards discussion that Michael Coxon is involved in (Arizona) 5. the grinding drama of that Latin
