Ben's Blog

Use the search by date, or the page numbers on the bottom of the screen to search for posts as far back as 2010

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Ten Thousand Stars

Kids teach us. Let’s embrace that idea. So when they refuse our academic overtures, those are teaching moments. For us. Students are not mean spirited or lazy, as the Teacher’s Lounge Crew would often have

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Communication, Not Curriculum

Another repost from 2017: If it is true that targeted instruction increases constraints on interest, then why do it? How can we possibly get acquisition when the interest isn’t really there, even with 100 repetitions

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Out of Town

I’m going to do a workshop in Chicago tomorrow, returning Thursday. Ironically I won’t be able to see Alisa even though the training I’m doing is close to her, because she will also be on

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Curriculum Question

A repost from last year, before ANATTY: It always comes down to submitting docs, it seems, and we just need to get the problem solved. If anyone has a middle school unit plan S/S we

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OWI – 6 Step Process

5 Step OWI Process We want complete buy-in from our students when creating a one word image with them. This requires that we are 100% understood when building the image. Here is one way to

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Perfectionism

A questionable quality found in teachers is perfectionism. So when they see that the new game (CI) is better than the old game (grammar worksheets), they delay entry into the new game because they don’t

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Mental Health – 2

Most of us take on stuff in our classrooms that isn’t our responsibility. We do everything in our power to uplift others and make them feel better so we can make all the comprehensible input

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Mental Health – 1

Those who go back over the years know that the mental health piece has emerged, percolated to the top, as the most important thing we discuss here. So as we now start moving into the

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Brevity Is Key

Here is a repost from 2016 for Dana, following our recent discussion on the 25 minute thing on NTCI stories: There are, of course, many keys to success with storytelling. But one of the most

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The Curriculum Should Align with the Instruction

Q How can I incorporate 100% CI into my classroom using: Invisibles/OWI/story listening while writing/incorporating a curriculum?  If we stop having those weekly or monthly markers for certain words that are supposed to have been

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Craig West – Question

Hi Ben – I’d like to know what you, or the group, would suggest for classes that just don’t work. By “don’t work” I mean they lack the interest, motivation or communication skills to do

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Effects of Curriculum Documents

When we ask students to produce writing or speech to align with some kind of desired outcome written in a document somewhere, in the form of either an observable skill or a measurable content task,

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Julia's Project

Who has indicated interest in working with Julia on her NTCI project? (Texas A&M). We need email addresses. Pls. send to julia.lynch@tamu.edu

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Star Sequence

I was talking with a teacher this morning and she said that she never needs to worry about her classes because she always knows, and has taught her kids to always know, where she is

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Robert Harrell on Laughter

Robert on laughter: Humor and laughter are amazing supports for learning. Here are some research-based comments about that. An article from the American Psychological Association points out that “Laughter Aids Learning.” http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun06/learning.aspx Susan Weinschenk, PhD

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Making Myself Whole – 4

I can see that my entire career as a teacher was devoted to trying to be able to find ways to teach that lift children up, to find some way to teach that brings light

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Making Myself Whole – 3

Is it not true that our jobs are really about creating an environment for our students to become aware that they are beings who are capable when learning a language of experiencing joy, to be

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Making Myself Whole – 2

I remember two occasions in Denver Public Schools hosting Dr. Krashen (in 2012) and Dr. Mason (in 2010) into my classroom to observe, Krashen for an afternoon and Mason for an entire day. Krashen said

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Making Myself Whole – 1

There is an interchange between the pilot/narrator and the Little Prince in Chapter 2 of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint- Exupéry. When he first meets the Little Prince, he says: Narrator: Mais…qu’est-ce que tu fais là?/What

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Question on Quick Quizzes

Q. I was looking at one of your books that talked about a daily quick quiz. Can you tell me what you do for absent students to make up the quiz that is easy to

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Report from the Field – Anne Matava

I just got this very positive report from Anne just now – thought I’d share it: Ben – two things: 1. In the story-making process with the Invisibles, the two questions “where” and “with whom”

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Gallery

Anne Matava just sent me this image from her classroom in Maine: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMEG8-cYZDW0XDx95rqRMW1El0YPr1_GlitnCd3Du-sVdUZvVRtOwO-HRBdARc4lw/photo/AF1QipMo5afXD0ORgucXBeINMPlNGSlwo3GAsWCZCPDU?key=WlExR1Jrc0ZyMDdBM3pUMllnNC1WVWpxb2k3a0lB Those teachers working with ANATS* (the book that explains One Word Images/Invisibles) are asked to note the following: (1) The gallery is

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Kathrin Shechtman on Story Listening

SL post from 2016: Kathrin explains Beniko’s Story Listening in an elegant and simple way. The link is a must-see. In it we see great pacing, nice and slow. We see Kathrin just teaching language

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More Bail Out Moves

Alisa recently sharesd some pencil and paper bail outs for when we need to get the kids writing, if for no other reason than to give ourselves a break: 1. Turn a narrative into a

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Mental Health

This is a response to a teacher who is at his wit’s end about uninformed administrators requiring him to do things in his classroom that don’t make sense in terms of the research: Well then

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2nd Grade OWI – Who Draws It?

Alisa’s 2nd grade class recently created a one word image together (below). I present it here to make a point about who draws at those lower levels. I’m not sure we’ve talked about this here

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NTCI

I think that this statement reveals a big difference between NTCI and TPRS: “In non-targeted comprehensible input (NTCI) we use images as the starting point to impart language to our students and not the other

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Alisa's Story Collection

Our Alisa has already created a storybook collection in September with her 3rd and 4th graders. She sent me the collection which I share below. I feel that it is important to share here because

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Invisibles/OWI

If anyone wants to present on ANATS, Greg shared this with us awhile ago and thanks Greg: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Jk0yDZyZS_7RuTS11lybO8hR2awwuc9D1woCaFd98DM/edit#slide=id.g2a2aee8035_0_24

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The Idea of Novels is Fading

I just posted this a few months ago here but I am so passionate about the topic that I chose to post it again in case anyone missed it: Going. Going. Gone. The idea of

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NTCI is a System

The thing about TPRS was that not only were there too many rules, but also it required a certain type of personality. Since there was no real road map, or system, only certain teachers could

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Sandbox – 2

A repost: So there are empty sandboxes and then there are sandboxes with (CI) sand in them, from which stories and all sorts of fun things emerge. How can this image be explored more deeply?

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Krashen Summarized

More ammunition (from Diane Neubauer) for talking with admins who need help in understanding CI: Stephen-Krashen-summary-2 Stephen-Krashen-summary-2

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Big Scam

The thought form “they won’t learn it unless I teach it” is a falsity in language acquisition. It is not true. Languages cannot be taught anymore than dreams can be consciously controlled. You can’t think

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Better to Teach Out of A Textbook

When we think about our roles as language teachers, the most important aspect of our work is to love our children and give them hope in what they can do in life. In my opinion

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Julia's Project – 1

Looks like the funding for this study may be there, and TAMU has just approved it, so I’m reposting this. Julia needs just one more volunteer to get this into action. We already have precious

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Dictée (text from ANATS)

This is from my ANATS book for Loly who is working with dictée in her classes this week: Dictée: This is a powerful metacognitive tool that helps students attempt to match up the sounds of

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Non Roman Languages – 1

Alisa and I shared an interesting email thread today. She wrote: Hi Ben, The place where I’m consulting [ed. note: a Hebrew School in NYC] has a very intense testing culture.  As they become schooled in

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Soren Kierkegaard

Personally, I don’t like the pressure to create a great story in every class. There is the idea out there that the teacher has to walk into the classroom and create with her students a great

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Star Sequence Option

Those who, like me, think that the Star Sequence provides the truest overall curricular form to NTCI might enjoy this suggestion from Alisa: Here is an optional modification to The Star Sequence: Add a 6th

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ACTFL Core Practices – 2

I just had an insight into the reason these things are on the ACTFL pages. I once worked, an eternity ago, with Vicki Galloway, who was the South Carolina Foreign Language Consultant and later a

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ACTFL Core Practices – 1

Those six principles/”core practices” – I have to put them in quotes because I can’t take them seriously – that Alisa brought up won’t leave my mind, and hence me, alone, since I am what

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Monday Morning

Well, the weather just turned cold here in Colorado after five months of perfect mountain weather. It had to happen. I have been going through old files and I found four quotes that might help

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Old Blog

I have been going through old Google docs and found 98 pages of old blog articles from before 2007. Some may want to peruse them. But keep in mind that they are very TPRS oriented

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ANATS

Greg wrote this cool power point on A Natural Approach to Stories, which I think in many ways is an even more important book than A Natural Approach to the Year: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12oBa_3fzgiJuxvPdmpzj8LRxyqGWmJMs8fAxLqXa6tc/edit#slide=id.g2a2aee8035_0_29

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