So if you have been following this thread you will remember that in my high school we got four kids signed up to take the AP exam as practice in level 2. Here is the rest of that story – only one showed up. These kids, one freshman and three juniors, have AP tests coming out […]
How can kids benefit from taking the AP? I guess to be able to put down on their transcript that they took the course. Most check the box that prevents the scores from being sent to the college, or they should, because of the difficulty of the exam. I think it’s got to be one
Why do the teachers and students in high schools seek approval so much? It’s a perfect setting. Actually, everybody in high schools from the kids to the district supervisors up to the superintendent are in it for the approval. It’s an approval fair, a mutual admiration society. Are we not seeking approval? You may not be, but
It is a bit of a worship thing, where the school gets to have teachers and students commit to long periods of intense training (I wouldn’t call what traditional teachers do with their four percent kids actual teaching – I would call it AP training or AP indoctrination.) Not to mention the work by the worker bees in
It takes thousands and thousands of hours to be able to handle a language. What does “handle a language” mean? It means to understand it when it is spoken in a natural way by a native speaker, to read it at a very high, almost technical level, to write at a level of clarity with
I responded to the teacher who described how the AP was given in the last post. Below is that response. I was not trying to fix anything, just responding to her without trying to do any more than just express myself on this topic of blown exams (either due to bad proctoring or not enough
I got this from an AP French teacher a few days ago: Hi, Ben, My students took their French AP yesterday afternoon. Have you heard from anyone else? Their proctor, someone I’ve had conflict over yearbook with over the years, screwed up the conversational speaking part. He was interrupting and talking to students during the
I think Movie Talk is going to be a big hitter for us next year. Some have been testing it out this spring. We would do well to get it going at a higher level next year. I think those going to iFLT have put it on the agenda. Accordingly, here is a very encouraging article from chill
I am always beating the drum about unconscious acquisition. It is the gorilla in the room that few, even those who have been studying Krashen for years, don’t seem to want to own. For them the world might indeed be round, but maybe it’s flat too. Bob sent more ammo for the point that if
Judy has a question for the group: Dear Ben, I thought maybe some members of the group could give me some suggestions. One of my private students is a 14 year old Romanian boy who begged his mother for private lessons because he was bored to tears in school and feared he was losing his
The idea of needing thousands of reps and not hundreds for acquisition is Sabrina’s. She brought it up about a week ago in a comment, for those who remember. It’s not a complex idea. Sabrina simply said that, in her own experience, she feels as if her students need from 2000 to 7000 reps to
Robert has offered some sterling advice on how to deal with administrators: 1. Have a checklist hanging by the door telling all visitors how exactly to observe your comprehensible input classroom. Ask the evaluator(s) to take one the moment they walk into the room. It guides their observation – unless they have a state-mandated checklist they must
rGAA – Robert’s Great Advice about Administrators Read More »
