Ben's Blog

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Working with 6th Graders

Ruth was talking about teaching sixth graders and Don posted this comment which I missed until tonite. I was probably out riding my bike. I’m just publishing Don’s advice to Ruth here as an article

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Judy on Divisiveness

When I suggested here and on the moretprs list that two forms of TPRS had occurred out of one, the second less true to Krashen but more true to real life in schools, Judy Dubois

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Dealing with District Folk

Once it hits us about what comprehensible input really brings to our teaching, some of us tend to push hard to get it going in our classrooms and in our buildings. That’s my tendency and

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General News

OK with people off to conferences, and with summer in full sail, let’s really take a full break. We can report back from the conferences, of course, or anyone with a pressing article can just

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Reply to Eric

Eric asked me: “Would you have ACTFL write policy/positions to align everything exclusively with Krashen and ignore or condemn the rest? ACTFL cannot do that if it is to represent the entire field of SLA.”

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vPQA Suggested Slide Sequence

I have made a synopsis of the steps Julie uses to design her vPQA slide shows. I republish it (it first appeared here in March) because some of us will be working with it next

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Question for the Group

Yvonne asks: My name is Yvonne and I live in London, UK with my husband and 3 children. I have a background in Digital media and eLearning (BSC & Masters degree) I taught Business Information

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Thanks, Eric!

Dude every time I go to the list, once a year maybe, I regret it. I thought my message to Curtain was a good conversation starter and it ended up as usual ruffling feathers. The

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TPRS1 vs. TPRS2 (Draft)

(Note: this post, though interesting to its writer, is probably too long to actually read.) Yesterday in a comment here Diane Neubauer said this: …It seems to me that among the TPRS and CI teaching

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An Open Letter to Helena Curtain

We translate almost nothing. If we have to translate words after the first part of class after we have established meaning, then we have made an error, we have gone out of bounds. That is

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Carol Hill on Traditional Teaching

Chill shares. I read the last paragraph twice: Some teachers among our colleagues are only able to work with the top students. In a traditional FL program, that’s usually what’s left – the ones who

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Steve Johnson on Staying in L2

Steve addresses two jobs, one new (the second one below called the L1 Translator) that I will immediately add to the jobs category. This new job that Steve suggests is not one of those minor

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Update

I need to take a break for real this time. I tried in early June but the momentum from the great work/innovation being done in our classrooms from last year’s discussion and our own inner

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Jeffrey Easthon – Bio

I asked Jeff for a bio to go with his pitch on badges. We haven’t done bios in a while, for years now, like we used to. I think we’ve just been too busy. But

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Badges

What if we invented a new way altogether of assessing our kids’ work? What if we focused more on what they could do than where they fail to reach 100 points, the sought-after A that

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vPQA Presentation

(If you are new to vPQA and missed that discussion last winter, this post may seem obtuse, so if you want a powerful new strategy for next year you may have to read some of

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Haiku Deck Details

Some information on Haiku Deck: 1. A two minute video: 2. Getting started with Haiku Deck: I don’t want to put too much of a point on it, but the fact is that many of

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Chairs

Don has a question about the current movement in our community towards deskless CI classrooms: Hi Ben, I am going to get rid of the desks in my classroom next year and I am going

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VanPatten

Chris also shares on VanPatten: So I asked Bill VanPatten for a metaphor and this is what I got: Chris, I use the metaphor of a grocery checkout. The cash register computer is the mind/brain.

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VanPatten

Carol Hill, who just this morning presented on vPQA at her Tri-State gathering this morning, shares: Grammar Is Not a Skill, or, What Does It Really Mean to Know a Language? “I remember well that

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Hobbits – 2

The old way in foreign language instruction, the Orc way, the way of dominance by ugliness in foreign language instruction – and what they do with those textbooks and computer programs is pretty ugly with

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Hobbits – 1

[ed. note: if you have recently joined this group and are new to CI, you will find this post extreme. Just don’t read it. There are many other posts – thousands of them – that

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Addiction and Loneliness

Everything John sends us if of the highest quality. This article is no exception: Ben, This article discusses underlying causes of addiction. Many studies have found that people do not turn to drugs when they

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Job in Vermont

This is from Ruth Fleishman: Hi Ben, I just got this message if you want to post it. White River Junction, Vermont Hartford High School is accepting applications for a full-time Spanish teacher. See Schoolspring

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What We Are Up Against

Another teacher has lost a job: Hi Ben: I’m out of a job. My school situation was classic – department head who wanted to institute change and introduced us to CI, then when I embraced

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jGR/ISR poster

Here is the version of jGR/ISR (the Interpersonal Skills Rubric) that is now in poster form: Interpersonal-Communication-Rubric-in-Color Here is a self-evaluation form that I sometimes use: Interpersonal-Cummunication-Self-Evaluation-Form-201521

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Questions for Level 1 Teachers

These are from Keri Biron (Colwell): Hi Ben, So, I gave an exit survey to my kids yesterday and got great feedback. However, a couple students mentioned the fact that we focused heavily on s/he

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Response from VanPatten

Eric, Thanks for writing and for sharing—and for your very kind comments about me! It was fun to look at your videos at Edgartown. I’m of course familiar with a lot of these methods, techniques,

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Letter to VanPatten

Eric wrote this to Dr. VanPatten: Dear Dr. VanPatten, I am reaching out to you in an attempt to bring our worlds closer together. I teach Spanish to grades 3-8 using an approach called “Teaching

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