We enter into a new era of testing when we teach our students with comprehensible input. We are at the very beginning of that era. The hero is Diana Noonan who has directed hundreds of thousands of DPS testing/data gathering dollars to creating and administering five years of pre and post tests to tens if […]
Yesterday in a discussion I asked the kids to write the word “connaît” (I’m doing like Eric says and focusing heavily on important verbs now before our big April DPS exit tests.) So I then orally spelled it to them in English and added, in English, that the “i” had a house on it. Sometimes
I had asked the group last week for some ideas to help me snap my class out of a kind of funk that set in with my level one class when I tried to push too much reading on them (Houdini). My very strong belief in reading novels, which started about four years ago, is
We all know that a very simple script can, with proper circling and questioning, become a really complex script and then a great reading and then a great set of embedded readings. But it is possible as well to write a complex script for upper level kids from scratch, as Andrew Snider has done here.
What if we are going along and, as often happens, things are getting flat and it is hard to maintain the kids’ interest? Usually, we internalize that and say that we are not good teachers. That is the wrong reaction. The truth is that we teach an army of largely unmotivated, electrified kids who are
Bryce Hedstrom has given us a good framework for interviewing potential candidates for WL positions. Bob Patrick referred to it here in a comment a few days ago, but it is the time of year for interviews so I post it here again as an article, in case it can be of any value to
Suzanne asks: Ok, so in good news, CI has been kicking butt in French 1, French 2 – depends on the day and the level of alertness of the class, but anyhow….I’ve set myself up beautifully for next year. Here’s the wrench in the works – but it’s a good one: I’m going to be
Is anyone still using the old six frame style of drawings like we find in the old Look I Can Talk series from years ago? Those six panel drawings? How do you use them and when in the lesson? I’d like to know what people are doing with that format these days. It used to
It’s nice to hear from Mark Knowles again. He raises a topic that is completely new to this blog: Hi Ben, I am attaching what I think is another important type of article to put on the blog – an article about international language policy. In fact, it might be useful to have a category
This from Chill: Anny Ewing and Lori Belinsky hosted a group of CI teachers at Lori’s school. Great to see so many like-minded professionals with a bunch of Mandarin teachers who are on fire to learn the method. Lori and Anny are planning to move the meeting around the tri-state area – Philly, So Jersey,
Hi Ben! Today is the last day of my 2 week Spring Break and I dread going back. The Thursday before I left I discovered the promise the principal had made to me about being able to grow my program was a complete lie. I had a student come to me upset because the counselor
Here’s a very simple thing – kind of a bail out move – to do after you’ve taught a story and done the (Step 3) reading. (I recommend using ROA – Reading Option A – as an excellent strategy for processing readings based on stories with your students.) This suggested strategy is not an advocacy
