I got this from James this morning: Ben, Today for the first time I tried SSR. It was in a Latin 2 class. We went for 30 minutes (!) without a peep and, as I could observe, actual focus on the text. I think this was because they could actually understand what they were reading, […]
This is a series of emails between our Denver Public Schools World Language Coordinator and Grant Boulanger, who is at the center of the change in St. Paul, MN. In it, what CI actually is comes up and fits into many of our recent discussion. I publish those emails here with both Diana and Grant’s
This new category – Greg’s Great Questions (gGQ) – is of upmost importance to new people. Those following the thread know that Greg Stout in Durham, NC joined this group last weekend and since then has done at least six months of growth into the method. (applause meter very high on that last sentence.) I described to him
I know that we’re getting too many of these funky little acronyms with the small letter first and the two caps. It’s because jen’s name starts with a j, if you know the history. Well, I am adding one more to the categories today – gGR (Greg’s Great Questions) – and I know it’s confusing but
So Sabrina recorded her class in early Feb. I haven’t gotten to it yet. jen is planning to do it in March. The problem is I ain’t feelin’ it. I should have gotten on it right away but I got into this wrting thing. Now the time difference is weird. To remedy this I suggests
We must remember that many language teachers went into teaching because they were really good at languages in school, and people choose careers in things they are good at. This explains the slowness of the change away from grammar. If a child grew up being able to mechanically manipulate grammar in the same way that one
So I’ve been working lately with a really good text written by a kid for a writing sample (data gathering) in preparation for the DPS exit post assessment in April. I have found some productive things to do with this text beyond merely sharing it with the class before scoring it for the grade (DPS rubric
Kristin has a very important question about Project Based Learning that may affect her job. We need to make sure she knows exactly what to do in the situation she presents below: Hi Ben, I wonder if you could answer this question for me or post it on the blog. The head of my language
Skip asked for clarification on the Class Competitions process. Here is my response. I’ll ask James to make a flow chart out of it. Please offer any edit suggestions before he does the flow chart: Click on the CC – Class Competitions category. Select any of the entries. Go to the comment fields. Identify whom
Nathan Beck in St. Louis has a request of the group: Dear Ben, Hello! My name is Nathan Beck and I’ve been following your TPRS PLC for about a year, reading as much as I can (there’s so much!). I’ve been using TPRS with my Spanish I and having great success and I truly believe
Here are some excellent questions from Greg and my responses to him. He’s diving in off the high dive Monday! And it’s winter! When he succeeds, it will be the shortest amount of time – less than one week – that anyone has heard about the method and succeeded at doing it in their classroom. Others
