Ben Slavic

Should level 1 kids not read as much as we now think they need (50% reading)? Don’t they need a better vocabulary to read? Wouldn’t it be better to use more time in level 1 for the power skill of listening? Should kids in level 1 TPRS/CI classes perhaps wait longer – until levels 2 and […]

This is the text I have prepared as per my response comment to John in the post “A Specious Argument”. I haven’t sent it yet and invite corrections/suggestions from the group before I send it. Ms. Snow and Mr. Castagna – Hi! It’s Ben Slavic following up on our discussion of a year ago. Ann, when you asked

We must ask why the kids are erupting with answers to the detriment of our instruction. If we can answer that, we will have found one of the big keys to one of the big doors to this approach to teaching. Are they erupting because they can’t contain themselves? Or because they don’t see anyone stopping them?

As we continue to work towards better and better ways of representing what we do to others, especially parents and (often clueless) administrators, we would do well to perhaps memorize a few of these talking points pulled from the listserve by Jody today. Jody explains: Jeff Klamka from NY just posted this on the more.tprs

Often, we hear those who don’t actually use L2 in the classroom (or use it so little that it doesn’t have any results) claim that, since they don’t have “that kind of personality”, they are somehow excused from doing the hard work of learning how to implement, for real, comprehensible input in their classrooms.  This special kind of prideful ingorance, which

We have resolution to the major thread from a few weeks ago about the supervisor whose drop-in evaluation demanded output from our group member, if you remember. Here is how much good has come from that attack: Hi Ben, Oh happy day….Oh happy daaaay… I wanted to update you on the issues with my supervisor

I got a few questions from a group member. All are invited to respond. It’s a big ass question: Hi Ben, I just read the whole rebar/pqa blog posts.  Under Rebar 3 you state that some weeks you don´t even know what the day’s structures are going to be or what the story will be

After the classes we (a few principals and ELA people from the district and others were there – he had kind of an entourage) I was able to ask him about how much reading he felt was the best in a TPRS/CI type of class. I was trying to determine if my recent decision to

Brian’s back and for that we are happy. He sent some questions that I thought I would post here instead of placing them in a comment field within that thread we had going on PQA here about ten days ago at: https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/01/30/bummer/ Brian’s questions below are about the overall nature of PQA, and when to use PQA

This is a reposting of a comment from Grant, a short conversation between us, that describes a way that Grant starts his classes playing with accent. I put it here again so as not to forget it. I want it to become part of my routine when I introduce those few words per day that

I got this from Angela: Have you seen this? Very interesting read and a constant reminder as to why I am fully committed to TPRS. http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/01/23/essay-foreign-language-competency-new-phds-languages Angela

After yesterday’s learning lab, three teachers, all ninja level storytellers, asked me why I kept looking back at the script during the creation of the story. The first answer I gave was that the script is emotionally reassuring to me. I always know that when the big circling and all the language and energy created from