In Joseph’s recent thread on special needs kids, Jenna Engelbreit raised some points in a comment that are worth reading and thinking about. They go to the core of what we do and why we do it: I’ve always felt that my sped kids had a leg up on the “average” kids of the group.
The floorboards of our classrooms are rotting. How long have we waited for the final cave-in of each one! All of us will be dropped, all akimbo, each at the right moment for us, into the waiting underground lake of fluency. There, we will meet each other again in collegiality and joy. It is happening
I’d like to share an email exchange with a Chinese teacher who is using the Invisibles: Q. My new class is pretty reserved right now, and although I encourage creativity, it seems it will take a little more time to really get them actively involved. Any ideas? A. This is likely 98% due to the
I’m truly amazed at how teachers who claim expertise at CI have tried to market it as a way to teach a set curriculum out of a textbook. Virtually every trainer out there does that. Of course, the teacher who doesn’t appreciate the depth and breadth of the real research, and who is saddled with
Invisibles tableaux and stories can help heal. We just enjoyed a cool, uplifting story from Craig in a post here a few days ago. This drawing, from one of Craig’s classes today, needs no discussion or explanation. In his email to me, Craig chose to not explain anything. He knew he didn’t need to. That’s
Years ago I saw a well-known TPRS trainer reject an answer from a kid. That’s not a problem, because we all know that we are in charge of the creation of the tableau or story line. However, this person rejected the suggestion from the student, who in fact was very proud of their suggestion because
When people present on CI, they use various techniques and strategies to make their points. Our PLC member Carly Edelman makes her points about CI by using Card Talk and the Star Sequence in the following way: Workshop Agenda :A. Set up: Participants take colored card stock and markers, write their first name and draw
This video starts at 6:00. So just move that little round thing at the bottom of the start of the video to 6:00 minutes:
Last summer I made these for the Teachers Discovery website. They have a lot of information about CI in them:Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjnAyCh72k4Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5HC3PWCBFc
We ask kids to read too early and to output writing and speech too early. Consider: In the first two years, they will be asked to do those tasks after only 250 hours (more like 100 in time actually spent on them due to all the wasted time that all of us know all about
I got these questions from a group member and thought I would share them: Q. I’ve studied both jGR and the grading rubric in the book. I absolutely love the term “observable non-verbal behaviors”. It really holds the key to grading in terms of the standard, doesn’t it? A. Yes. For too long language educators
Joseph needs data. Let’s provide some for him. See below: Hello, My name is Joseph Kelley. Thank you for your PLC. It’s very helpful to me as a teacher and for my mental health. I am a graduate student in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at Leicester University. I am conducting a survey of teachers who
