Your body/voice are your most important instruments in this work. Learn to play the instrument in the CI orchestra that you’ve been given. This is Performance Skills 101. You have to do CI in a

I got this from Alisa today: Sean Lawlor and family just bought the house next-door to mine! He and his wife are teachers; my husband and I are teachers. Can you say summer BBQ? Now that

More good news from Chicago! I got this from Alisa today – Sean Lawlor and family just bought the house next-door to mine! He and his wife are teachers; my husband and I are teachers. Can

Julia is doing the spring protocol that Tina and I describe in A Natural Approach to the Year. She’s working with the student storybook projects. Here is her report and, below it, the pages pasted

From Greg in Chicago: Hi Ben, I know part of the PLC, being that it is a private community is that we also share pictures and stories of our family, like how Sean recently shared

Here is information about Greg’s one day CI training in Chicago this summer: http://tprspunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/chicago-comprehensible-input-training.html

A lot of readers here know about the following great way to spend some fun time with the kids each week, but I republish this article from April of 2009 for anyone for whom it

Greg just published a new FCR reader on Teachers Pay Teachers: Las aventuras de Nancy y Rodolfo https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Las-aventuras-de-Nancy-y-Rodolfo-FVR-SSR-e-book-Descubre-3-Chapter-1-3780022 For more products: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Ci-Guy

If they tripled my salary and begged I might consider doing more planning. I may want to plan a little when doing a Movie Talk or something, but not with one of the Invisibles stories.

Sometimes we just need to get to the end of the year. There is a “Bail Out Moves” category but some of those posts are about TPRS and dated so they all may not be

We must avoid interrupting the flow of a story or a reading class with unnecessary digressions and explanations. What seems interesting to me as a language teacher is not interesting to them. They don’t want

When I need to take a break during a story and re-energize a bit, I sometimes do so in the following way: If, in a story, I use a new word, I of course write it on the

I posted this here in 2008, and am reproducing it here, with a few changes, as it fits in with one of the most important threads here about keeping in emotional and mental balance in the hard work

Nathaniel wrote in a comment today these very wise words: I was just reading something by Mike Peto. He calls himself a krashenista and passes the test by calling his program pleasure reading. His goal

Greg made this Google Doc of the 7-Level Questioning NT process. We can copy, print, laminate and use to put on the floor. Thank you Greg! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VmzNUtK8E6juJ1v3x_aBbYhWronM8XHogCPOKPCHfX4/edit

Presenting in front of people until this weekend in KY was always 70% torture and 30% fun. It was mainly because of the naysayers, those who don’t want to change, whose energy I seemed to

Jonathan shares: Ben- Some may have already seen this, but it seems to give voice to some of the spirit of the discussion on this blog here. Video Clip from Steve Kaufmann of “Lingq” What

Ben, I am beginning to ask for a little output and am so pleased! I am seeing the kids write in past tense, and they are remembering and using low-frequency verbs, because they occur in

Tina and I will be in Louisville, KY this weekend. PLC members can attend for free so if you are in the area come by: Louisville Collegiate School 2427 Glenmary Ave. Louisville, KY 40204 I’m

Greg wrote this here last spring. It’s good for those who have been working with the Invisibles program and know how it works. Greg says: Hey everyone: Here is another end of the year activity:

Hi Ben, I wanted to update you and the PLC about my recent French Immersion Camp trip with some former CI students of mine. These students are in their 3rd year of French at their

Here is a free download on classroom management for PLC members: https://ci-liftoff.teachable.com/p/the-bite-size-book-of-classroom-management/?product_id=552480&coupon_code=BLOGSEVENTEENBUCKS&preview=logged_out

Here are 30 points to make about teaching using comprehensible input in a non-targeted classroom: We emphasize the gradual acquisition of language that follows a different timeline for each individual learner. We do not emphasize

Robert reports: Hi Ben, I just wrote a post on my Compelling Input Facebook page. It includes a quote from CS Lewis on the way he wrote his Narnia books. I’ve known for a long

Our discussion of what CI is continues: Here is how Wikipedia defines Dr. Stephen Krashen’s approach: …the natural approach is a method of language teaching developed by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell in the late

This article discusses the general theory and practice of comprehensible input in the World Language classroom. After it, I will begin to post more and more articles on non-targeted comprehensible input, since I think that

David Strock has a question: Hi Ben, Below is my first post in this PLC. I hope I understood correctly, that we email you our question/comment and you will share it with the group. [ed.

Julia comments on the concept of enthusiasm in her own work: …something that I love about NTCI is that I have the freedom to follow and share my own interests. Last night I was reading

It is the focus on gains that inhibits are own ability to be enthusiastic each day. Unless we can expect new things, untargeted things, spontaneous and serendipitous things to happen, how can we get excited

Dear Ben, Today I told the story of Junípero Serra to my 6th graders. I felt like doing a history inspired lesson this morning, so we did! (Ahhhh the freedom.) The kids are completely understanding

For a long time I knew that Piedad Gutierrez was swimming upstream trying to get to the non-targeted place along with me and Tina and about four other people that we knew over the years.

Here is a look at how the Square Peg Round Hole Book. It beautifully reflects and aligns the New Natural Approach books to the standards. This is a significant statement in terms of Greg’s earlier

Cameron Taylor in Japan has written a nice complement to the Natural Approach books. Here is his introduction to it: Dear Colleague, Many of us are required to have standards, enduring understandings, essential questions, objectives,

A question from Jonathan in VA: Ben- Wanted to shoot a question out to the PLC, re: educational travel. Looking for ideas for travel for students of Spanish and/or French. The typical EF & Explorica

This scares me: http://carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/CreateUnit/step2.html

Dear Ben, I wanted to share with you and the group little success stories. The kids do FVR every day for ten minutes. Yesterday, I found one of our books in the teacher’s room next

There is a category here (on the right side of this page) dedicated to how to respond when we get verbally attacked by people about the way we choose to teach languages. This morning I

A large part of our frustration with our colleagues who still use the textbook can be described as resulting from a distinction between an organizing principle and an approach. Robert Harrell explains:  …an example of

Something has to change. We cannot continue to act as if nothing is happening when kids routinely tune us out, even in our CI classrooms. One of the things that made me MOST CRAZY over

Robert Harrell gives some sage advice to any CI teachers who may be getting challenged in their buildings about the mistaken idea – by ignorant* administrators – that rigor must be onerous and unpleasant. Krashen

Here is a tutorial that Sean created for us in 2016 on how to put a flag in our state or country on our “PLC Map “so we can know where each other is and

There are actually still some teachers who think that it’s important to teach grammar, even though ACTFL doesn’t mention the word on their site, and it has been shown via research to be marvelously ineffective.

Greg just published a short FVR reader (Tina and I use the term Free Choice Reader) with glossary – $2: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/One-Word-Image-FVR-Reader-Vol-1-3721205

The most foundational research element of this exciting new work we are doing in the CI movement is, in my opinion, the one that says that human beings acquire languages through the mysterious and infinitely

This article by Robert is from 2016: https://benslavic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A-Short-History-of-Grades-1.pdf

Jason Bond is offering workshops in mindfulness and meditation for improved teacher health and well being. Designed by a CI teacher for CI teachers, these 1.5 hour workshops will share information and techniques for cultivating

I offered this prayer in 2011 when I was still doing targeted instruction. One could say that it was answered in 2016, when I made the switch to non-targeted instruction, because I was able to

From FB, put there today by Jim Tripp: “In 2013 alone, the U.S. education testing and support industry was a $16 billion business. Compare that to the NFL ($9 billion) and the U.S. domestic cinema

Those in the group who have been here since the beginning, when it was just a blog, about fifteen years ago, know the impact Robert Harrell has had on our professional development over the years.

Back in 2008 Robert found a wonderful line from poet Hart Crane and shared it with us here. It deeply supports Krashen in the most beautiful way: “One must be drenched in words, literally soaked