Keith Rogers is a Classicist in England and is fighting a kind of one man battle against the traditional approach to language teaching in the UK. He is kind of like Judy in France in that way. Keith had contacted me to address a colloquium over there in November and I just refused because I […]
Nathan Black has this wonderful idea for starting the year (I assume with kids who have had CI instruction before): I’ll usually start out by having each student draw me a “postcard” about a highlight of their summer, and then I’ll put those on the document camera and we’ll spend the first two weeks working
I just posted an article here about the importance of staying in bounds and avoiding introducing any new structures to the input. I feel that the ideas expressed in that articles hold THE KEY to our successful implementation of comprehensible input this year. When I saw the flow of the discussion move away from those ideas
We just finished a complex discussion about a simple idea – that we must severely limit the use of Point and Pause if our fluency program is to be effective. What started the discussion was this from Leigh Anne: …eliminating or nearly-eliminating Point and Pause, and only teaching the three structures will keep the slower
I got this from Judy. Comments, additional ideas are welcome. Dear Ben, My proposition to present TPRS in a one hour talk has been accepted by TESOL France. It’s in November, so I have time to work on it. Basically, I’m going to be talking to English teachers who work, or would like to work
Got this from David Maust (Latin, Los Angeles) last week: Hi Ben, I’ve been really benefiting from the blog these past couple weeks. Great discussions. Here’s a topic on which I’m looking for some ideas: What are some introductory activities for students, especially in upper level classes. I have two large combo 3/4, high school level classes this
Skip has repeatedly admonished me to not post new articles on the weekends – as we decided was best last January – and on those few occasions when I listen to him I realize how important it is to not let this stuff absorb all of our down time. So, in keeping with that goal, I
Brian has a unique situation. Please comment: Well day one for the year is this coming Monday. I’ve spent this past week in deep thinking on how to approach my greatest dilemma: non-natives and what I call heritage learners (understand Spanish with no problem because they grew up around it here in the States.) in
When I was learning piano, there were several different skills that I needed to learn, but we never practiced them all together. As I was learning fingering and phrasing, the mantra was “SLOW”. Once the notes were in muscle memory, I could gradually begin to speed up – on that piece. I think it works
Robert Harrell on Staying in Bounds, Point and Pause Read More »
We have chosen upper levels instruction as one of our big topics this year. In the comment below Nathan opens up a can of Whoopass on the problem by pointing out how students’ interests differ from level one to the upper levels, with level two, from what I infer below, being a kind of hinge year from interest
I’ve always been cautious in the use of the word should. If we tell a student, in our capacity as a teacher, that they should be able to do something, it implies that they won’t or can’t or that somehow this thing that they are supposed to be able to do is not a natural
