Tell me what you think, if this helps or not. I voiced over the first video I put up last week, just to see if it can help in this process. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fX_mP_L7rc

I got this question from a colleague: With new standards being put out, anti-teacher legislation being proposed in so many states, more and more “accountability” being demanded, it seems as if the teaching profession is

One simple idea for parents night is to demo a Three Ring Circus, because you only have usually ten minutes to reach your audience so a story or even PQA is out of the question.

I got this today: I am in the process of working to get my teacher certification. In my state you can submit an extensive portfolio of work to a “peer review” panel and get you

This is a more general response to what David wrote, some thoughts about the change we are in: I deeply feel that we in teaching are in the midst of a profound shift in education

David’s comment on the toughness of his largely Asian ESL kids in supporting families working for the corporation called FedEx gives us cause to reflect on what we are really doing in education. What is

I mentioned that I want to videotape my workshop with DPS teachers on Monday to help get a clearer version of the story I have already posted some clips of here. I will be able

A blog member sent this. He makes a point that pretty much outlines the way I feel about how the video project: Hi Ben, I feel this idea of standardizing the way to comment on videos,

I have an excellent idea. On Monday I am going to present to our Denver Public Schools teachers on this method. I will demostrate the three steps from beginning to end. The excellent idea is to

Estimados colegas, I have written about this before, but I feel like I really need to get a better handle on this issue. I have some ideas here, but I need some more. In order

I got this from a colleague who needs our help. It’s a great question about being exhausted that ties into the simplicity thread (actually a category) that has shown up here recently: I am the

Here are the four clips from today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO2xDVQQAUA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRXZTHUWKBI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEsoro-ga-E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHP3WtnLZv0 If you are keeping up with this, today we finished the first location of the story we are doing. We got the artist going today, which was very

Sharing and presenting this method is very weird and it is very difficult to reach people, honestly. There seems to be an energy against it, if you know what I mean, and the work of

I got this from Brian, currently in his first month of using comprehensible input methods. Great stuff: Hi Ben, You asked me to expand a bit on this idea for the blog, so here goes:

I wanted to go to location 2 today, as per the videos posted yesterday, but the pressure is on to feed the gradebook. So I gave two quizzes today, one on the word wall words

This may work. Based on what Chris said, I just went to My Videos and Playlists in YouTube and clicked on “Info and Settings” and then on “Video Information”, then “Broadcasting and Sharing Options”. It

I have noticed that, as we talk more about the use of video, as we all summon our courage to share with probably only 30 people who read this blog regularly of about 80 who are

Is there a way to post videos that ONLY the members of the blog can view?  I have no idea. But since the blog is private and we need that safety for professional reasons too well known, we would

The right mindset, the correct spirit, of the video work we are doing, that has been spearheaded in the past week by Angela and Drew, is letting go of the need to be perfect. We

Hi Ben, I wanted to share something that I used successfully in my class today, and which I hope can be of use to other teachers. John Student Surveys as a TPRS strategy for “circling”

Drew sent this: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2091477,00.html

Buy them at pet stores in the Cats section for a fraction of what they cost at Staples.

I got these excellent observations from Naomi: Dear Ben, On the ACTFL listserv someone listed this today as an interesting article on the “little words” – pronouns, articles, etc. – which, it ends up, are

I got this from Julie. I don’t really have an answer. Here it is: Hi Ben, I’m looking for some advice, probably from the whole group, (as subscribers we don’t post new topics, right?) so

On the topic of training kids about exactly what behaviors you expect in your classroom (i.e. your classroom rules/norms), I did something that was a first for me today. I didn’t just explain the rules,

We have more video, the two clips below are from Angela, who says: Hey Ben! In looking at Drew’s video, I was inspired to send in my submission. This is my first year with TPRS and

To be clear, I did take some footage of my workshop today and will put some of that up here but it has to cook in iMovie for a few days – more like a

In a recent comment here Robert wrote: …while I find the changes to the AP test for German and French very positive, we still need to remember that AP is intended for a level of

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

…the learner’s brain learns a new item not because the teacher has presented, explained, or translated it. The learner’s brain learns when the item is meaningful to that learner at that moment. A new word

In a comment to the post entitled “Then God bless you” John Piazza wrote this. I wanted to repeat it here: Why does it seem that last year was the worst year for so many teachers, and

I am going to start stories a little earlier this year. I don’t know why. I’ll keep on focusing on the kids and doing the personalization and norming of the classroom and all that, of

Of course, one of the C words in the standards is Culture. Big deal. How can we teach the culture witout the language? Do it in English? That is lost time to CI. We don’t teach

A few weeks ago Christine wrote this. It bears repeating: I really like standards-based grading for the following reasons:  (1) it allows students/parents/me/etc. to see what skill the kids gets and doesn’t get–and not just

A few weeks ago we got into a discussion about the standards debate and Jim quoted Krashen. I republish that text here because of its importance: The National Standards Discussion: A Weapon of Mass Distraction

If you try to use your ipad to read the blog when you’re on the go, it may not work. When you open the website, it usually doesn’t even provide the “member log in” option,

https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/07/31/its-ok-to-suck/

I’m going down to South Carolina for the weekend. I don’t want to bring a computer. So please free to explore any of the 2,194 blog posts and 6,879 comments here. Use the categories or the

It occurred to me that if an administrator or, especially, parent of a child who believes, through the parent, that we should be conjugating verbs, then we could do this: We teach using CI for