Ben Slavic

Got this from Skip: Hey Ben, Do you know or could you ask if anyone on the blog is planning to watch the ACTFL webinar on how to meet the 90% goal? I would love to hear what they are going to teach…. to see how well it lines up with TCI…. Skip Well at […]

John sent this and basically cleverly answered his own question: Ben, I have a question for you and the blog members regarding the challenges facing teachers of obscure languages in establishing FVR libraries. For first year Latin students, comprehensible and compelling readings simply do not exist. I want to be one to change this, but

Chill sent me these three structures from Susie: went ate was furious In chill’s class a kid went to France where he ate something disgusting – some heart of pig – and was furious about it. That’s some mean ass structures there. There would be no need whatsover for a story script to guide you

In my own view, Reader’s Theatre should not be done in a reading class based on a story. That is a different thing. RT should only be done when we read novels. It is something we do to embellish the novel reading process, which risks being too boring without some RT thrown in from time

I don’t know how I missed this comment by Judy but it really fits in with the recent discussion about reading: Ben, for many years I used films as a way of making my classes more interesting for my students. Not just sitting and watching, but studying them scene by scene. Since I discovered TPRS,

For us, it’s not about teaching the kids the language as much as providing them with a good experience. When they enjoy the class, when it seems effortless to them, because we work so hard at making our instruction comprehensible, the kids want to go on to higher and higher levels. We make it so that

I got this from Michele: Looks from these descriptions of webinars that ACTFL is serious: http://actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=5345

Most teachers, really unfortunately, just soldier on until they collapse at the end of the year, when that is completely unnecessary. When I don’t want to teach, I teach what I call fake classes: FVR – 10 min. Reading Class – here we just read to them in L1 while they follow along in the

 The following applies to reading  novels, not stories, which is described in: https://benslavic.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=13558&action=edit&message=1 When we simply read aloud to the students in L1 while they follow along in the book, they are experiencing full CI in the form of reading a novel. They are fully in the TL during this time. They are creating a

God’s Friend Marienhafe, Eastern Frisia Winter, 1400-1401 The Sea Tiger is sailing fast, although the ship is full of plunder, for there is a following wind. In three weeks and four days they will be back home. Everybody is happy. While they are sailing everybody can take something he wants to have. They will give

Gottes Freund Marienhafe, Ostfriesland Winter, 1400-1401 Der Seetiger segelt schnell, auch wenn das Schiff voll ist, denn sie haben den Wind im Rücken. In drei Wochen und vier Tagen werden sie zu Hause sein. Alle sind froh. Während sie segeln, darf jeder etwas nehmen, das er haben will. Die anderen Sachen werden sie in Friesland

<<Boy!>>, laughs Jan, the old gray quartermaster.  <<Shiver me timbers, you are not all there!  Or did you not hear my story?  We are Likedeeler! We are freebooters!  What do you think?  We are on a raid.>> Götz turns red. <<Oh yeah, … shiver me timbers>>, he says. Everybody laughs.  Pitt, the apprentice, who was