TPRS Workshop in France With: Teri Wiechart, Lynnette St. George, Alike Last, Judith Dubois For both beginners and experienced users of TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) When? August 6th – August 10th, 2013 Morning sessions 9:00 am – 12:00 am Afternoon sessions 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm Why? Teachers of English as a […]
Kids don’t really want to watch a video when they clamor for one in the most unpleasant way to start class. They just don’t want to embrace the rigor we are about to offer them for the next fifty minutes. There has been so much written here and elsewhere about teaching culture. I have made
David has shared a video. I really appreciate the thorough explanation of what is going on, his self reflection, and the general way he presents it, which could serve as a model for all of us if and when we choose to share our own work with others here. Thank you David! Hi all, I
Oddly, we have assumed that if we give our students enough CI, they will learn the language. And, while CI is definitely the only way that a human being can learn a language, with no apologies to those who many cling to another point of view, because you’re wrong, we haven’t yet taken a close
This is new information about CWB and OWI as of May, 2013. It discusses the importance of simplicity in the first few weeks of any school year. I will post this now and also in August. Those of us can keep this in mind when we work together in the afternoon coaching sessions in San
As we reach the end of another year, some of us crawling but and some of us running comfortably, I think about what lies below our daily struggles to learn this method. And all I can think of is peace. Peace among nations. Our country is great and beautiful and strong. But in other lands, other
Yesterday we graded our writing assessments. In DPS that means getting together all the district language teachers in one big room and, using a super cool assessment rubric that has taken us five years to create and refine, assess their work from Novice Low (NL) to Intermediate Mid (IM) according to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Yes,
Here is a text taken from an addition I just made to the content of the cRD – 7 article. I thought some explanation of the term “snowplow reading” was in order: The snowplow should indeed be a slowplow – nice and steady. It is as simple as it sounds. We read for as long
In this last post in the cRD thread, James asks a few questions with my responses below: Two questions: 1) By “snowplowing through the boring parts” do you mean “translate the text into English out loud while reading the French/Spanish/German/whatever text in the book”? Like all the students follow along while the teacher or a
This is another exchange that represents a follow-up to the cRD discussion, Jennifer in NJ asked: I’d also like to know how this fits into the new weekly schedule as of 2013. Ben is saying this can last a whole 50-some minute period….. I replied: The only thing is to make reading a novel a
This addition to the cRD discussion is in the form of an exchange between Robert and me. I add it to the thread for general interest and clarification: Robert: If the stories are based on something the class creates, haven’t you already done essentially all of the discussion before the story is created? Then the
So the process is that the kids read the paragraph quickly, we translate it, all that in five minutes, and then off to the CI races with TPR as long as it goes, then some basic R & D about the text for major reps (“Who turns?” x 50 variations on that, etc.), then some
