Ben Slavic

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This is from Greg: If you want something to really get you to the end of the school year try http://www.gimkit.comYou can import from Quizlet. Kids are addicted to it.

I don’t know how to do unique headers. I want to have about 12 unique headers for the various chapters in my new book but it’s too weird. Anyone know anyone who can help? I’ll pay whatever they want. What I can’t handle is watching one more YouTube video in an effort to figure it

I was just trying to think of the most valuable aspect of the Invisibles and the Star Sequence, the single aspect that sets it apart from everything else I have ever done with comprehensible input instruction. After much reflection, I think it’s expressed here: With the Invisibles the students are not asked personalized questions, which

According to some CI experts, “breakdown” is a concern. Breakdown is when a student answers a question but shows hesitation and the teacher, upon seeing this in the student, says to herself, “we need to practice the sentence more”. But students are there to listen and absorb what they can, not to be taught a

This post appeared a few years ago here: There used to be, years ago, an expression that was going around the moretprs list: “Circle of Die!” Now I see that it should be “Circle and Die!” How things have changed! Now some of us are finding that if we circle or favor repetitions over real

For years, people have tried to adapt CI instruction to specialized language instruction, for example to train a group of foreign nurses who need the medical vocabulary before they can start working in the profession. It is impossible. The nurses will not learn the terms they need until the bedrock of their language system is

As a general rule, the most effective stories contain far fewer new ideas and far fewer sentences than most teachers have employed in storytelling in the past. It is highly recommended that teachers limit the amount of new information allowed into the story. It will help everything. Moreover, kids want stories to be short and

Ben Fisher – a member of our PLC – asked this question about reading and my response is below. There is no intent to be contrary in my answer – it’s just the way I think, which always has some bais in the need for equity in American WL classrooms. Here is Ben’s question for

Here is a passage from the introduction to my new book, which is entitled The Invisibles – Towards a New Curriculum in Language Instruction. I post it here to let the group know that after all these years I have finally decided that a language curriculum should be based on images, and not on words and ideas. The difference in starting points implies a vastly different set of – in my opinion and experience – just plain

Hi Ben – I have a  girl in my Spanish 1 class who is getting RTI’ed for issue with attention and attendance. Apparently she is one of the most difficult students that teachers are dealing with in her other classes. Yesterday afternoon she came into my room after school and asked to borrow one of

I do apologize for not writing more here recently. I am in the very final stages of working on a new book that is the third in a trilogy, a sequel to A Natural Approach to Stories (ANATS) and A Natural Approach to the Year (ANATTY). You can find information about it on my website