In this second blog entry about Sauk language revitalization, I want to talk about the master apprentice to the four elders. His name is Jacob. He has 85% of Sauk language. There are three others

It was more like ten or even more tribes down there these past two days at the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Tribes Native Language Summit in Durant, Oklahoma. It wasn’t life changing but it was

Mark is another Iowan, like Jim: Hi Ben, I currently teach adult ESL classes at a community college in Iowa.  I am currently experimenting with a number of comprehension  based techniques though I have used TPRS exclusively while

Here are some things that we have to deal with in our classrooms: – being observed by unqualified people – differentiating instruction when doing so is not a practical option in a CI classroom,  especially at

This is a repost from December. The link is from Skip. A close read of the article reveals serious flaws in many teachers’ own opinions of what they are actually accomplishing and whom they are serving

Drew also had some new ideas for summative testing with CI. This posted here last December. Drew explains: I am thinking out loud here how I could incorporate Drew’s recent description to jen of how he evaluates his

We did some filming of an Anne Matava story called “Lazy” (Story Scripts Vol. 2). The structures were travaille/works le patron crie/the boss yells paresseux/lazy but since we had an entire extra second day block to film (we decided to

Nathan sent both a link to his thoughts on homework and an update on those thoughts as well. This will help Lori and everyone following the New Tech thread here this weekend. Then, hopefully, when

We welcome Lori to this group. Indiana has been for some time an active state with comprehensible input: I currently teach at Crestview Middle School in Huntington County, Indiana (the entire school corporation is TPRS-based). I’m not

This is just some random self indulgent middle of the night reflecting on things, probably not very interesting except to me: The subscription blog has been up for almost three weeks now and I like it.

Hi Ben, I teach 7-8 grade Latin at Cathedral School for Boys in San Francisco, CA. Early in my study of Latin I was fortunate to come into contact with teachers and colleagues who spoke

This is to introduce a teacher from South Dakota. Like that other one. You know. Susan Gross. That is a good sign! And she mentioned the name of her school, which is cool. Ben, I am looking

My two highlights this year were: – Staying positive with a girl who has experienced abuse all her life at the hands of her mother. She fought tooth and nail not to be included, for

This is a post that I want to keep front and center until we get moving on it. So I will keep it here as what they call a “sticky” post where it will appear first

My kids schooled me yesterday on a Susan Gross point. Susan has always coached us to make sure that we “believe the story” as it unfolds. I never worked at that. I was too busy

Andrew’s blog entry made me think about next year again. The most effective CI that I do – and crucial to getting the year off on the right foot – is the Circling with Balls cards:

It seems like a lot of the new CI based teachers are around 30. The other day, Diana and I found ourselves sitting at a table with some of our TCI group and Joseph (30),

Michele Whaley and Janice Gullickson have made available an excellent new resource: http://asdworldlanguages.ning.com/group/comprehensibleinputclass?xgi=383yXWRWHOX52a&xg_source=msg_invite_group You can also find this site in the list of links at the bottom of the right side column of this page as “Michele Whaley

Our table was right in front of the podium at the (U.S Congressman) Jared Polis Awards Banquet last night. Fifteen of the most effective teachers in Colorado were honored, among them a member of our

Ben, I am still working on the Rejoinder pieces.  I dug this up the other day.  These are the interview questions that we asked applicants for a Spanish teaching job at my school a couple

We must remember that, when we do PQA, we are trying to personalize the story that is waiting to be developed when the PQA is over. Therefore, we direct each PQA question directly at a

From Utah, a girl – sparkling four percenter –  joined my French 1 class about two weeks ago. She had an A in her former school and, since we have been on a Susan Gross type of reading jag lately, had

This was a comment that I just felt like making into a blog post: I was filming today my heavy hittin’ 6th pd. level 2 class (I’m trying to get as much video as I

We would assume that the foxes guarding the hen houses, the grammar teachers who need to “cover the imperfect” (referring to what Melissa just said here), do so out of ignorance. Anyone who has experienced

I am very happy that Carol Hill (chill to most of us) is in our group: My name is Carol Hill and I teach in a private prep school in the South Jersey near Phialdelphia.

Bryce’s list of rejoinders is now available on the posters page of this site as well as in the category column here on the blog site.

There was a really cool set of drawings of vegetables along both sides of the page, right and left. Two columns of vegetables, drawn with cute little faces and looking a lot alike. The boy,

Here is Bryce’s list of rejoinders that are on the wall of his classroom. I will get this into poster form as soon as I can on the regular website and also make a category

I teach a full German program at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, CA. I’ve been at Pacfiica for 16 years, and this is the only public school in which I have taught. (Before becoming

Chunk Dictation works best at the end of the year when the kids have had lots of comprehensible input. It obviously can’t work in the beginning months of study since output in the form of

I’ m feeling that I need to republish these two posts from about a week ago. (Unless I am the only one struggling with kids who just won’t stay focused in their restraining devices). Again, this

The school that is currently most focused on CI and Krashen in Denver Public Schools is George Washington High School. That is largely because of the leadership of the department chair and a member of

Note that there is an automatic lockout on this site that cannot be turned off. If you end up traveling or just accessing the blog from different locations on your laptop you may get locked

This is from Ray in Chicago, actually Brookfield, IL: My name is Ray Bauer and I currently teach 7th and 8th Grade Spanish in Western Springs, IL.  I spent the last three years teaching Spanish

Good stuff from Robert here: Hi Ben, While TPRS/CI are diametrically opposed to grammar-driven instruction, I’m going to disagree with the stance that it has to be all or nothing with TPRS. My anecdotal evidence

We are lucky, to say the least, to have Bryce Hedstrom in our group. He will provide a lot of stuff as we move along – he is not just a reading expert but an

Well, we heard from my good friend Carol yesterday and today we get to hear from Martin. I will publish one blog bio here each day. We can get to know each other. How wonderful

In recent blog posts the subject of “language activity facilitator” (Tripp) was compared with the term “teacher as coach” (Sizer). The implication was that a language activity facilitator is someone who wastes kids’ time in

What our kids do when they hear a story or just do PQA is they use the vastly superior technology of the human brain to create movies of what is being said. By focusing on the

When we employ comprehensible input methods. we create real learning. The process, as Krashen has shown, must be an unconscious one in listening and reading both. In both, movies are created in the mind. The

To attempt to teach listening and reading using activities that are essentially of the conscious mind is folly. Reading activities that keep the reader in the conscious mind fail to put the mind’s focus on

Language Activity Facilitators 3 Jim’s statement: …or do we redefine ourselves from language teacher to language activity facilitator….. can be discussed in terms of reading. When students read, we want them to read as if

Jim, in a different comment than the one mentioned above, posted the following blockbuster comment here yesterday morning: …after about 3 weeks of [spending class time occasionally doing grammar], I got the impression from them that

In a recent comment here, Jim Tripp said: …or do we redefine ourselves from language teacher to language activity facilitator….. Then he said: …personally, I’d rather let them facilitate their own language activities (at school

I organized the recently suggested weekly schedule into one text for our Denver Public Schools TCI group. I share it here for anyone who might like to have that information – edited down a bit – in one

A bio from Cheryl: I have been teaching for nearly 20 years now, and only “found” TPRS/CI about four years ago.  Anne asked, “You know how kids can do anything you want, and do it

I have known Dori for at least seven years. She’s in Parker in SE Denver and came to visit me when I was teaching in middle school in Jefferson County. She seemed so appreciative of what I thought