Skip has repeatedly admonished me to not post new articles on the weekends – as we decided was best last January – and on those few occasions when I listen to him I realize how

Brian has a unique situation. Please comment: Well day one for the year is this coming Monday.  I’ve spent this past week in deep thinking on how to approach my greatest dilemma: non-natives and what

When I was learning piano, there were several different skills that I needed to learn, but we never practiced them all together. As I was learning fingering and phrasing, the mantra was “SLOW”. Once the

We have chosen upper levels instruction as one of our big topics this year. In the comment below Nathan opens up a can of Whoopass on the problem by pointing out how students’ interests differ from level one

I’ve always been cautious in the use of the word should. If we tell a student, in our capacity as a teacher, that they should be able to do something, it implies that they won’t

I got two similar emails from group members today. They both definitely need practical responses, not just encouragement. Ideas? Jody? Robert? Laurie? Michele? Others? This is serious business. First email: Just feel the need to

My web guy has finally updated the resource page here, where I added some articles and other materials there for ease of reference. A lot of material was added there – stuff like notes from

One of the F16s that went down has responded to my question as to whether it was mechanical failure or what. Here is that interchange over the past two days: ME: SO I know it’s

David Talone, a Spanish and Latin teacher at Providence Day School, asks an excellent question. It reveals a discrepency about how we grade relative to the research. It needs to be addressed immediately here. I’m

The queue is jammed so there may be a delay in posts. I got this from Drew about a week ago: In reflection of the first two days of school, I underscore the importance of

I was talking with Skip Crosby today. He heads up the Maine TCI/TPRS/CI efforts and anybody up there need only email him for very gracious training and support in the New England area – muybien.crosby@gmail.com.

…the click didn’t happen without a certain ring but the other thing was that the boldest boy ran around fourteen times but it didn’t work when the captain began to sing…. That’s what it sounds

For me, this is a must read every day. It is one of the two or three most important of the 4,000 articles written in this space. I will post and repost it over and over through

Skip suggested that we talk about cell phones. Hello! A perfect topic, since we are doing the two other housekeeping discussions on seating charts and bathroom passes this week anyway. My own position is that

Here is a great link from mb to an article that some of the more intellectually driven among us might enjoy reading: http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/lang-acq.cfm

I got this from Anny. It could start a series that could be very helpful to us: Hi Ben, Here are some thoughts I’d love to share with the group, based on my reading of

I had written a question for the group about what limitations video might have in revealing various qualities in our teaching that could help us improve. Jody wrote this response, and it is right on

We might as well get the bathroom pass discussion going here, since we are in the middle of the seating chart discussion right now as well: What I personally do is allow two 3 min. trips per

So many creative seating arrangements are out there. Some are designed for classroom discipline and others are designed to stimulate creative sharing of ideas around the room. The problem is that in classes based on comprehensible input

A guy at my Tuesday session in Las Vegas asked me during a crucial point in the session, “Where are you going with this?” The underlying tone of the question was, “I don’t know what

As many of us get ready to do the Circling with Balls/Cards activities to start off the year, or whatever we do to start things off, let us remember what our goals are: 1. To

Did you see the Olympic women’s gymnastics team win gold? Who didn’t? I applaud them and their coaches for their great work and their victory. Awesome effort, awesome results, awesome cuteness factor, something the government,

It’s time again for the reminder that we don’t have to be entertainers. A lot of us believe that still. We think that our success is tied to how much our kids laugh and have

It’s not just a town in Rhode Island. When we fear that we won’t be able to generate enough CI in our classes, which is a basic and genuine fear that comes with the territory

Bob Patrick recently reported that his first trip to the computer lab with his classes made him aware of how computers affect his language instruction: Going to the lab changed everything.  Even though I had

Two group members cancelled their memberships in the past week, each with short identical statements to me in private emails stating flatly that “I won’t be teaching any more.” This has stuck with me. Both were enthusiastic

Bob’s report on a Thursday: Today brought some administrative reality into my work.  I had to take my Latin 2 students to a computer lab to get them signed up for a couple of online

Clarice sent this: Oakmont High School in Roseville, CA has an opening for a part time (.66) Spanish teacher.  The position is for grades 9-12. We are a TPRS/CI department.  Due to the growth in

Nina Barber sent me some short clips from one of my sessions in Las Vegas. I noticed that the clarity of my teaching, which is totally dependent on pacing, SLOW, wait time, pointing to the

Guys, I’m just needing to share.  It’s Wednesday of my first week back.  195 students.  (I know, I already told you that).  I am exhausted at the end of the school day.  I treat that

Our new group member Guy is faced with the impossible task described below. We have discussed it here before. Pls. contribute what you want – he can get little pieces of answers from everybody. If you

As we begin the year, many of us by using PQA and by just talking to the kids in order to set the rules and personalize our classrooms, let’s not forget the power of early

Captain Bob Patrick’s unit went into ground action today, earlier than most of us. He was kind enough to report back after the day, which sounded great after his first day on duty, with no

Traders Point Christian Academy in Whitestown, IN. has an opening for a full time Spanish teacher.  The position is for middle school grades 4th-8th and one section of high school ESL.  The instruction is based

Skip is mentoring a new teacher and gave her this. I think it is a good thing to put here, to remind us how we can keep things simple this year. We need to address

It wasn’t under a hot dog. Ardythe had it. Thanks Ardythe for finding it. Note that this is not a unit plan, as we’ve been discussing, but a weekly plan. This plan adheres to standards

I will add more bios as we go along. The posters are updated on that page of this site and we can talk about that. I thought it would be a big deal but since

Got this from skip on the lesson plan thing: Hey Ben, I remember during the second part of the school year you wrote a lot about lesson plans.  You provided a template. I can only

I had asked Michele to address grouping kids in this lesson plan thing we are discussing now. Here is her response to add to Laurie’s and thank you both so much for your wisdom –

For those new to the group, whenver we get a comment that is really valuable, we turn it into an article so that it can be found more easily via the search process and since

I have taught at UPrep, Redding, CA for seven years (French) and five years (Russian). I have always taught with TPRS/CI, originally using the LICT series and sticking fairly closely to the stories, but gradually

OK I can tell how you guys might play this. The template is so poorly written that you might ignore it. So I’m making it sticky so that it never scrolls out until our young

I got this question from a colleague who is not in the PLC and so I offered to run it by the group. It’s a big deal with a major yuck – as in unpleasant

Many of us have to go to work this month, most of us. To get ready, I wish to address here in the PLC the following things: Posters, wall arrangements – though this may seem

Don’t forget to send some books to people in our FVR library building program as per: https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/03/10/fvr-instant-library-program/ German books to: Brigitte Kahn 10 Suburban Lane Nesconset, NY 11767 French books to: Jen Schongalla Sant Bani

Since students of ESOL And EFL teachers don’t share the same native tongue, that general discussion may be a bit tangential to the general discussion here. And yet, there is agreement that CI can provide good

There are now 3,016 articles in this PLC venue with 13,097 comments dating back to 2007. That’s a lot of reading. So even though there is a lot in the queue, a few articles on

Don’t read this article. It’s just ramblings from a tired old teacher whose imagination is running away with him: Last week I felt the kinship of my colleagues as they all struggle, like me, trying hard on

We are meeting on Wednesday night – not Tuesday as originally planned – in Las Vegas for the coaching session with me and Sabrina Janczak as the coaches. So 6:00 Wednesday and we’ll announce the room on Wednesday

Mateo and his brother Manny were at the iFLT conference. Mateo wanted to take French but is only in fourth grade and so was too young for the only French offerings by me which were for older