We have other options than invoking standards to make stories work in our classrooms. I hope I have not conveyed here that jGR is the end of the discussion on getting our work to align with standards. The real discipline comes from within and when kids bring that to a class it is because they trust […]
Tamula has an opportunity: Something kind of incredible is happening in my department. There are 5 of us. Me teaching Chinese using CI for the first time, our Russian teacher who is in her 4th year of teaching with CI, 2 Spanish teachers including the chair, and one French/Spanish very grammar based about to retire
Laurie points out to us an overwhelming fact that, when we feel confronted by anyone about jGR, we absolutely must remember to use in the discussion. It is a game changer, and it is very simple to remember. Laurie says: The rubric isn’t a process for labeling students. It is a vehicle for communication…”This is what is
Maybe we are the stuff of fairy tales. In so many fairy tales, there is one overiding leitmotif – that of becoming real, of stepping out of sleep to wake up to what is real. Examples abound: Pinnochio, Sleeping Beauty, Rip Van Winkle, The Wizard of Oz and on and on. In each of these
Unbelievable. We think that we can communicate a language to another person but not really look into their eyes. We teach the class and there is this king of group mind fuck that we don’t have to look at each other and we can still learn the language. That is impossible. I believe that eyes
I want to clarify one minor detail about my new weekly schedule for 2012, which I haven’t published yet but has a few changes in it from last year. Now I am plowing through a novel, but this post describes changes to my normal weekly schedule when I am doing stories as described in the category (below right) of
Here is a bio from Kristin: Hi Ben, I wanted to send you my bio for the PLC, so here it is! I’m Kristin Duncan, and I’m a new member of the PLC. I just returned to teaching in Canada after spending the last year in England, and I am so happy to be back!
Ben, Thanks very much for pointing me toward Lori Fiechter. It turns out that our schools are part of the same network (the New Tech Network), and I was able to contact her directly. It’s always such a relief to know you’re not alone! I have spent hours on your site and the PLC blog
Teaching a language without using comprehensible input is insulting to the magnificence of the human brain, which can process and decode and implement thousands of rules of language without even needing to use its conscious side – it’s all automatic. All that the brain needs to acquire a language is to hear the language spoken
jGR works better for me with Three and Done. I know that it is my own way of holding kids accountable, and I certainly don’t want to say it is the best way, although I am very happy with how it works. I did mention Three and Done before here (links below), and my appreciation of how
This term – or something like it (countdown?) – was recently used here, but I can’t find the comments. Is that the same as wait time? I’m trying to get clarification on this term, which I haven’t heard before. Laurie was in on that discussion, I do remember that. She was talking about the period
Reading through the comments sometimes reveals keys to problems that we don’t even know we have. For example, in talking about reading, Dave said this yesterday: …I personally keep [choral reading] to under 10% of our total reading/translating. I think that, especially for slower language processors, it can interfere with them negotiating meaning by turning
