Ben Slavic

Got this from a group member. It speaks to me in that it represents where a lot of us are right now in our teaching, if we were to to as honest as this group member (my responses added here). It is a long read but a gripping one due to its level of honesty […]

I also got this question from Kevin about the same thing jen asked about: Hi Ben, A quick question for you and/or the blogsters: How much personal responsibility do you feel for students that you know are going to be transferring to other schools in the near future (i.e. out of a CI environment into

In her third “variety pack” question, jen brings up the question of transferring students: When students leave a comprehension based program to go to another school/traditional program, there is always the fear on the part of the TCI teacher that the students won’t do well on the placement test and whether they will have to take the level

Mary Beth is in Maine. Like many teachers, she has benefitted from all the hard organizational work done over the years by our own Skip Crosby. Here is her bio, and it is well worth the read: I went to college right after high school, but then got kicked out after 1.5 years.  I’m now

Grades are an illusion. They reflect nothing real. They show how hard kids work and if they attend class and that is all. There is a huge disconnect between the fact that we give tests and homework to kids and the fact that language learning is an unconscious process. We claim to deliver flow of language and we know that

Just reviewing Robert’s numbers in case anybody is working on this right now: 5 = Advanced 4 = Proficient 3 = Basic 2 = Below basic 1 + Far below basic

More on visceral circling and Archie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRI9DcPLMaU

I had mentioned here that I wanted to experiment with making some sort of training videos that addressed common problems that we face in learning comprehension based instruction. I want to know if there is a training option to classroom video in which we kind of informally share thoughts about various topics we work with everyday. I just

We repeatedly discuss here nuances in the amount of L2 we use in the language. Most of us want to at least hit that 90% ACTFL figure, and some of us, Reuben at least, go fully up to 100% use. We strive daily to those ends. But the discussion on how much we use the

In the last of these articles on conflict, Robert picks apart the prinicpal’s letter to Ben Lev. The letter itself is repeated here in italics first: Dear —, I waited to respond until I had a chance to meet with the department today to discuss some of these topics. As I mentioned in my last

The queue is jammed but I want to return to the other three “variety pack” questions from jen in the next few days. This first one is about frequent absences: A  frequently absent student in another class got a D. According to the teacher, he missed all the days they had quizzes, so he didn’t

If you feel like backing up a bit and getting some really focused practice in circling and story building for next year, you may want to try either one of these ultra simple variations on the same original script posted here about three months ago. don’t forget your quiz writer, story writer, and artist*: Story