A repost: When a child’s head goes down, it’s because they don’t believe in themselves. This is not always true, but if we are doing it right, if we are staying in the language and the rest of the class is getting it and everything is burning on all cylinders, then it’s most likely the kid. At […]
I asked Michele to recap what happened on Friday. She kindly obliged in spite of “two meetings with upper ups, and one with the TPRS community, and ACTFL coming up and documentation for Teacher of the Year (ironic that I was the only one to apply for that in Alaska…it’s too much work…so I got
Recent postings on the ACTFL list continue to polarize our profession between old school and storytelling teachers. We started with a great question by Eric about content and materials and now we seem to have gotten pulled back into the old TPRS vs. The World argument. I acknowledge my own role in that shift of
Just an idea. If you are sending students on to traditional teachers next year, don’t forget that. The big overlap skill with them is reading. It’s like a Venn diagram. We do lots of input, they do lots of output, but the overlap area is reading. So if it were me, especially when I inherit
This is a comment by Catharina that further illustrates the point she made in the last article. By examining this research, we can connect the dots on Eric’s question: Didn’t I give Eric the perfect opportunity to prove his point about authentic texts: Teacher’s Handbook, Shrum & Glisan, pages 170-174. Go read! It is irrefutable
The idea I am exploring, and this is all speculation, is if there might be some kind of link between textbooks and ACTFL. Anyone who has been to an ACTFL national convention knows that the sharing of knowledge in presentations is really done in an atmosphere of sales, sales, sales. Even the individual presenters market
Extremists among those following the thematic units/authentic texts discussion on the ACTFL list right now might go so far at this point as to start looking for links between ACTFL’s position on this subject and the textbook companies. Robert Harrell has said: …read in context, the ACTFL statement in the Skills Map is a statement
Carol Gaab is all excited right now because she might get her third World Series Ring soon if the Giants look like they did last night. For those who aren’t aware of it she is the language teacher for the San Francisco Giants and the need is great for fast acquisition in the players because
This is cool: Dear all, I was invited almost 9 months ago to write an article about Comprehensible Input, as we are working with in in our Latin programs, for Cloelia, the journal of the Women’s Classical Caucus. That issue went live a week ago. I am very pleased with how the article turned out.
Here is what Catharina wrote to Robert. Hopefully it creates a discussion here that, in spite of eight years and almost 30,000 comments by us, we have never had. Hopefully, this starts it off: Wait Robert before you take a break. Take a minute to read what I have to say. Didn’t I give Eric
The little brother of the thematic units thread, largely ignored up to this point in the explosive discussion that Eric started and Robert and others have fueled for almost two weeks now on the ACTFL mega list, is the argument about reading authentic texts. Nobody in our community really focused on it except Eric and
Something really unexpected but inspiring happened yesterday. As class was about to start (my last period of the day, 7th grade) I was reminded that I needed to pack up my stuff because I needed to leave right after class ended so I asked a student to start the class for me by asking what
