I have a colleague who has two middle school classes, one of 8 and one of 4 kids. I told him to just be careful with those small classes. They can get boring because of the lack of diverse energy in the room. Here is what I wrote in an email to him: You will […]
For some time now, we have experienced the power in asking a class “where” a student likes to do a card activity, as per Angela’s comment yesterday on how her class started with “Alex likes clarinets” and, through Circling/PQA, ended up with Alex playing the clarinet at Bikini Bottom. But then Angela found out a bit later that Alex
Ben: I was recently reminded of the Twext online resource for creating interlinear texts of songs, etc., something which you have used in the past. It looks like the Twext website is currently down. Do you (or anyone on the blog) know of any similar resources out there for easily creating interlinear texts in the
Ben, Here is the survey I handed out to the kids. Spanish I, First Days Get-to-Know La Clase This is some of the contextualized, interesting Spanish that we are doing “on the side” the first few days of class. We are spending about 10-15 minutes a day getting to know one another. The objective is
Ben, Here is a beginning of the year activity for level one classes. It is my adaptation of your Circling with Balls activity. In the first few weeks of class we are getting to know one another. I ask a few simple questions to each student. I speak in Spanish and the students listen and
Remember, you’re there to learn about your students, not to show off how much you know about the language that you teach. So, when doing PQA, ask questions and give your full attention. Believe what you hear them tell you. Today, on the first day, Vanessa told me that she eats sharks. I circled it so
The Era of Testing is upon us. Hopefully, it implodes sooner than later. Laurie, in the recent standards discussion here, said this – I repeat it here so we can have it at our fingertips as a new category: 1. In hundreds of years, not one human being has been able to create an evaluation
Another question about quick quizzes: Does the superstar write the quiz in English? I’m assuming so. My response is that yes, they write the quiz in English and you just translate it on the spot. Also, make sure they are yes/no answers. Have the kid who writes the quiz clearly write yes or no in
I got this question about the quick quizzes: Hi Ben, After stories I know that you do the quick comprehension quizzes in order to record a grade. If a student is absent do you somehow have them make up the quiz? It seems like that would be hard since they would miss the story. Or
John sent this: Ben, A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about what is called the “executive function” supports what we are trying to do in TPRS, and how important these skills are for kids’ success in life. It is called “learning how to focus on focus.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576542593019231326.html Here’s a passage which really seems to
I’m back from Carolina and it was wonderful. I bobbleheaded in the Atlantic early morning water a lot on those superior beaches and just forgot about everything. I suggest we make relaxing a leitmotif this year in addition to talking about theory and practice of comprehension based instruction. I say we make one of our
I am glad we are trying to cobble together things about the upper levels and we now even have a category for it. I got this while I was away this weekend from a colleague who has been struggling with TPRS at the upper levels and thought I would share it here: What makes me
