As I look back, I can identify three segments to my career as a language teacher. Below, I rate each one in terms of the personal fulfillment and misery they each brought me: 1. 1977-2000

I wrote this in 2015 after visiting a TPRS classroom in Denver Public Schools: It’s been 24 hours since I left Julie’s classroom and during that time I have, even in sleep, been besieged by

The tough teenage years don’t have to be so tough. They can be easier. What happens is that when kids move into middle school and even before, they are met with most teachers asking them

I often felt, at the big summer workshops, that I couldn’t possibly remember all the stuff they were teaching me. It really was overwhelming. But now I realize it wasn’t me. They were giving me

Many CI teachers don’t/can’t apply what Krashen has shown to be true that language acquisition is an unconscious process. The teaching gene in them is too dominant. They think they have to teach. But they

It’s not good the way we collect papers from students. I don’t even collect free writes. They go in composition books kept in the room. If I have time, I look at them. What teacher

Hello, I am a first year teacher at the high school level and I love the ideas you present in your book A Natural Approach to the Year. I am wondering if you have developed

Some in the group may want to check this new version of the old jGR and current Interpersonal Skills Rubric. In keeping with our way of working together here as a group, we never assume

I wrote a book – PQA in a Wink! – that addresses classroom management in TPRS. That was back in 2008, ten years ago. I was reading the conclusion to that book recently and thought

This is an updated repost from February of 2008: My teacher gave me a fender. She told me it was “important” to really look at the fender, which she called relative pronouns. Then she gave

I was going back and reading Greg’s comments from over the summer here and this one I thought was worth sharing here today: I think NTCI is superior for two reasons 1) targeting is a

Dear Ben, Thank you for creating this group and for what you do. I am writing to let you know that I just joined the group today. I attended your workshop in Tucson last year

I don’t remember posting things that are unrelated to the general discussion here, but here goes – I can’t help it: https://www.yahoo.com/news/bad-lip-reading-reveals-sarah-074641860.html

This is a post that I put on FB in early 2016, a few months before the appearance in the next year of the two “natural approach” books. I post it here because, as I

A very sensitive area tied to equity is found in how many CI classes are made to read “class novels”. If thirty five kids have a wide range of reading ability, because of their background

L: What are the best novels to buy these days? What are people recommending? I need to spend $440 in grant money fast on some readers for my very literate Level 3s and 4-APs. Me:

Sometimes we feel like this guy, but we stay in the game. And we win. But if we keep our focus on our mental health and using non-targeted instruction to guarantee same, then we won’t

I am reposting this article (revised 64 times and reposted many, many times as well). I apologize for the length and the repeated postings, but since these assumptions form the bedrock of the newest (non-targeted)

What we do when we let go of the need to teach lists reminds me of the scene in Dead Poet’s Society between 21:00 and 26:00. It expresses what underlies my own personal view on

What is teaching? It’s a lifetime of learning how to access one’s personal power. That’s one definition. I haven’t written this anywhere, but I feel that one of the root issues of bad classroom management

So if you are new to the group don’t forget that what we do when we run into problems in class (this group is focused now in August and September on our Classroom Management 101

This is a good question for the group: Hi Ben – Do you know which books are getting positives from teachers? I am using them for Free-Choice Reading this year, and have $450 burning a

Cute Idea #10: Taste the Word When doing a one word image, or just about anytime you feel like doing it, you can just stop with the comprehensible input and taste the word. What does

Cute Idea #9: Pets A powerful way to get kids quickly involved in class is to talk about their pets: Some teachers ask their students to produce drawings of their pets on their Card Talk

Here’s another question: Hi Ben, I have a situation that is tough and I’m not sure where to go with it. This is what I’ve sent to one of the counselors (and have asked him

A question from Salema Jenkins in KY: Hi Ben, Concerning a mixed 7th and 8th grade class I received an email from a parent asking if her 8th grade daughter will be prepared for Spanish

Corinne Bourne is a long time member of our community. An interesting fact about Corinne is that she is the master of, to my knowledge, at least four languages. She is in Northern California and

Laura asks: Is it a good idea to assign jobs as permanent actors? Actors are not listed as jobs in ANATTY. I have always just picked someone on the spot, or had the owner of

There is a descriptor for one of the other CI Facebook sites – CI/TPRS for French Teachers – that caught my eye yesterday: “We welcome any new or experienced teachers who want to share and

Perhaps the tipping point over to CI has actually been reached. For fifteen years in this space (eleven of them private), I have heard teachers expressing their concerns that CI cannot be fitted into every

Dr. Lynch is going to be vacationing off the Maine coast next week and when I heard that news I mentioned to Julia that two of the best CI teachers – in my opinion –

Sierra Middle School in Colorado Springs is hosting Mike Peto on Friday, September 21, for his “My Perfect Year” workshop. Here is the flyer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bws3wSSUoXkyYl9XVUkxcjBZTExraVgxVjlOaEJYaURpWUNj/view The workshop is $69 and participants will receive a copy

Cute Idea #8: The Questionnaire This idea was developed many years ago by master teacher Anne Matava. If you learn that Jeff has an interest in cars, during card talk or just talking with him

Tina wrote the following on the CI Liftoff page. It is a start in responding to the heavy-handed people in your department who still target grammar on common assessments and other tests. It’s a vigorous

Back in the early 1990s, Dale Crum was one of what I call the Four Pillars of TPRS w/ Joe Neilson, Blaine Ray and a bit later on Susan Gross. In the oddest set of

Old timers here will know that searching the terms “Beginning the Year” as well as “Starting the Year” would bring forth lots of articles from years past that may be germane to our own individual

Jonathan Marye, commenting here this morning on the Candy – 1 post (Aug. 5th) about how NT is different from collecting big bags of TPRS candy, has shared an image-rich, very tasty meal with us

Beth’s second email, dated July 28: I wish that I had come across these new ideas I’m now embracing sooner — yours and Tina’s work, in particular.  I talked with one of my wonderful mentor teachers this afternoon, Dr. Kim

Some teachers go to conferences and collect new activities like candy. They have big bags of activities that they lug around, with candy spilling all over the place. After ten years, the bags are too

Are there any other super important aspects of our work than the mental health/pedagogy tandem? I can’t think of any. Because when we have the right pedagogy – for me it is nontargeted comprehensible input

My highest priority in this work is the mental health piece. Second, of course, is the pedagogy piece. But they are intertwined. We all know that on some level the WAY we teach determines our

Someone asked: Hi Ben, I remember you said in your workshop that it takes 10k hours to reach an advanced proficiency in a language. What is the source for this? I ask because some is

I hope Beth sends in a lot of reports from the field this year. The last one we got is here: https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-beth-sims/ Follow ups will be important because she isn’t the only person who is

Cute Idea #7 – Find the Key to Unlock the Individual On the first day of class this year, I asked my kids in one class why they chose French. Brooke said that she wanted

Q. I have read “A Natural Approach to the Year”, and am so excited to dive right into it with my Spanish level 1s. My dilemma is that I’m starting at a new school next

Cute Idea #6: What nationality? What language? This idea is one that is easy to throw in and for some reason always commands high interest, probably in part because it is easily understood. It affords the

Beth Sims (Alabama) sent a poignant report that I think represents the thinking of a lot of new people. It’s lengthy but worth the read in my opinion because it comes from a practicing professional

Cute Idea #5: The Retell Glove Two kinds of retells* are possible. Most commonly, the instructor or a student simply repeats the events of the story. There is another, more complex, way to retell, one

Long time PLC members know that over the ten years many of us have been together here, the gradual shift to non-targeted CI and its spiking since 2016 – and its manifestation in terms of