Quick quizzes are easy, short, true/false questions (five or ten or however many you want). If you are pressed for time ask five and double the score. The questions are written during the story by your quiz writer. Don’t forget to ask yes/no or true/false questions. Ask “Did Sarah go to New York?” Do not […]
It’s always a good thing to focus on your storytelling skills, image building skills (all those things described in ANATS and applied in ANATTY) but in my opinion that is something you work on most intently in the fall. Now as we begin the winter “trudge of the soldier” it is more important to keep
Here is the Interpersonal Skills Rubric referred to in the previous posts, but in a different format (from ANATS). It is no easy task to pull this off grading move in January, since we all now know beyond any doubt that how we inform our kids about how they will be graded in any given
In this last article in the series on textbook companies, Robert Harrell offers a concluding statement to Sarah’s original set of questions about how to respond to her department’s actions in choosing a textbook. The point he rhetorically makes and has made throughout this series of articles is pretty clear by now – it is
jGR, aka the Interpersonal Skills Rubric (ISR) is the second and most important to us of ACTFL’s Three Modes of Communication. Here is some more information about it. I am recommending that you use it in your classes like a hammer in January, for many reasons. Students in comprehension-based classrooms must show up in a
In this series of articles about surviving the winter and especially that first month back in January, we focus primarily on assessment changes, accepting that changes in classroom culture are hard to effectuate in mid-year, but arguing that if we change how the kids are being graded, it will at least get their attention. It’s
In this article Robert asks the textbook companies about how they address relevance. The point he makes below is also one of my favorites in this series, which, to repeat, if read with an open mind by anyone in the field of language instruction, spells the certain demise of the big textbook companies: How does
Based on: http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html Stephen Krashen is a Second Language Acquisition researcher and professor at University of Southern California who has been publishing and speaking since the 1970’s. “Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill.” Stephen Krashen “Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language –
Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition Read More »
It’s funny – funny in the sense of weird, even unnatural – how we put kids down and then blame them (using our weapons of choice: grades) because they can’t do what we ask them. I’m referring directly here to our history of making languages inaccessible – let’s be honest – to our students. First,
On the first day back after this vacation, check in with your students in English, like you do in the town meetings with the invisibles. Throughout the year, this check-in period at the start of class will be a good time to talk about any changes or new developments in the class, and this is
(Note: This was published after Thanksgiving but will work equally well after the Winter and Spring breaks as well. In my opinion there is no better way to start in with CI after a vacation than with some variation of Two Truths and a Lie as described below.) We must make the re-entry process after
The end of Christmas break signals a time of depression in many of us. We have five hard months in front of us. The question invariably comes up, “Can I do anything to get the kids to bring more respect now in January or is it too late?” For me, the answer has always been
