I have a first period student whose year has been very hard, as only ninth grade can be, and who has caused me some real stress. I have been talking with mom a lot, and moved the child to sit right next to me in class. I have been applying a lot of what we have […]
Sylvia, who works with AIM up in Canada, sent these links. The second one is really amazing because of the recall level of details of the kids – they remembered every single detail of a story! As you know, I have started a blog following the progress of my first year AIM students. I also
Ben, Since we talked last weekend I have been taking up your and Diana Noonan’s (DPS World Languages Coordinator) challenge/mandate of using less English in the classroom. It seemed like an odd idea, after all, I LOVE speaking in Spanish with my students! There is such a sweet smell that fills the class when we
K continues her reports: “Some of the kids that I do stories with at lunch are at the point where they can do a 5 minute freewrite, and so we do 1 everyday. Normally, they just write and then a few share what they wrote, or see if I can read it. The other day, I
Diana Grieman and I were talking about order of acquisition. She said this: And as you’ve been saying, probably the very most important thing that we can do is to stay as much as possible in the target language. That, I think, is bigger than order of acquisition and complexity. From lots of CI, the
Sorry K I’ve dropped the ball on these recent emails, and thank you for the updates: Reaction of teachers to our story: It was, and still is GREAT! I talked to all of the teachers afterwards. They were all laughing and smiling. I had one person say “That was so great… I’ve not had kids
Dirk asks: Is there anyone else in Portland, Oregon doing what we do? I would kill to have an actual colleague here… Thanks. Dirk
I was just watching The Office and Phyllis said, “We all have the right to be with somebody who wants to be with us.” I love that. Applied to our classroom, it puts into perspective the incredible weeding out of students over the past decades by teachers who tell kids, at each successive level of
I got a good question from a colleague in her “…fourth year of teaching but my first using TPRS. I’m not sure how I stumbled across your blog, but I can’t tell you how encouraging and insightful it has been!…I am teaching in a private school and am not certified, but I am looking at
This from Jody: “Nouns and verbs are learned in different parts of the brain” http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/f-sf-nav022510.php
Nouns And Verbs Are Learned In Different Parts Of The Brain Read More »
A few weeks ago somebody posted a reference to “Story Proof“. Byron added some important stuff to that post. Here it is, with the part that spoke to me loudest in my italics referencing the work of Daniel Pink below: As for three more books that offer, if not proof, then at least Story Support,
Michele here offers some general clarification to the recent discussion: Hi Ben, Kids writing stories: kids get two minutes to write story ideas using required structures on tiny pieces of paper in English or TL and turn them in. Embedded readings: teacher types up basic plot lines, then adds to them. Kids read the successively
