Ben's Blog

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In Defense of Comprehensible Input

Warning- This reposted article from 2011 could also be titled An Out of Control Ramble in Defense of Comprehensible Input. Skip it. I really like how our group takes responsibility for making sure that we keep the focus

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Robert Harrell Checklist

We were talking a week a few weeks ago about the Susan Gross Administrator Checklist, and it is indeed a most useful document, but I think it is too busy. Honestly, I think Susan just

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Bob Patrick on CI – 2

Bob sent me an email this morning extending his thinking on understandable messages. It all relates to a previous article (Bob Patrick on CI – 1), which I republished this morning here to give us

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Bob Patrick on CI -1

Bob wrote this a month ago, and I am republishing it here. I put certain parts of this text in bold. It is a powerful argument and a decisive one against all who think that

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A Suggestion for New People

I very much want new people to be able to make sense of this site – there is a level of complexity in the discussion here that is of major concern to me. It is

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Transitioning to CI in Mid-Year

Our newest group member is Latrina Thompson and she asks a good question here: …I really want to start fresh with CI in the spring. Do you think it is possible to transition to CI mid-year? These

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Update

I’ve been publishing articles here less frequently and I kind of like the slower pace. It gives us a chance to go narrow and deep and gives newer people time to digest stuff. The 250

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Administrator Checklist

Erica McCurry reformatted the Susan Gross administrator checklist to make it look nicer. Thank you Erica. I will put a link here: Administrator Checklist The recommendation is to use this often and have it available

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Translation vs. Glossing

Nathaniel made an important point about translation last week and in doing so called our attention to something many of us had never even thought about. Robert Harrell then gave us a very succinct illustration

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Report from Orlando

Here is Bob Patrick’s report from Orlando: Robertus amicis collegisque, s.p.d. Babae! Quid dicam nisi maximas gratias omnibus! Wow! What should I say if not the greatest of thanks to everyone! I am going to

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Some Good News

Bob Patrick shares with us some exciting things going on in Florida in the next few days. I should say, very exciting: Dear Ben, I am heading to Orlando tomorrow for the ACTFL conference where

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Ludovic

I like it that we solve our problems together. Like a family. Now for some sad news for some in our family in the Maine group. When I went up to Maine about five years

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Crisis Over!

Thank you to those who held my hand these past five days. Each comment took me closer to understanding what was happening. I wasn’t even aware of it, but since its inception the forum was

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Playing in Tune, We Must

The thoughtful teacher who ponders the following image by Robert Harrell will be able to get a more complete response in her class. More will happen. The business of how we interact with our “voices/instruments”

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More on Return to Core Values

Thank you for the comments on the site and our future. I learn by writing. I can’t string a thought together using spoken words that isn’t out of bounds in a few minutes – that’s

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A Concern

I am concerned that the discussion here, once so focused, is getting overly diffuse. This is not a good thing. It’s what happened to the moretprs listserve and I don’t want it to happen here.

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A Middle School Class

This post is from 2009 and describes a middle school class with my then 8th graders. I enjoyed re-reading it, and so am posting it here to share with the group: Today was the first

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Trust the Net

Non-targeted structures may or may not be acquired by the students – we don’t care. Our only focus is on the targeted structures and repeating them at least once in each statement or question we say

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Verb Wall Option

Grant Boulanger shares an idea about verb walls, one that I don’t endorse but that others might want to explore: Ben, As you know, I was involved in immersion education for a long while. My

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iFLT 2014

Those who think they might want to attend iFLT next summer, the information is here: http://tprstorytelling.com/conference/ It’s July 15-18, 2014 in Denver. The link above is very incomplete but Diana told me today that Carol

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Carroll County, Tennessee

Hello Ben, This note has been on my mind to write for many weeks. I wish to reach out to anyone who is not feeling appreciated where he/she now is teaching. I would like to

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Reading Option A

Right about now many of us are getting into stories. We’ve normed our classroom for behavior and rules and we’ve done a lot of personalizing via CWB, the questionnaire, etc. When we get our first

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Scott’s Video – 2

I want to bring up Scott’s video again. It is an important video because it represents, in my view, a stage in our development as comprehension teachers that we all must go through, and that

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Language Is Acoustical, Not Intellectual

This quote from Berty Segal, who invented the questioning process before PQA even existed, is another way to say that learning a language is an unconscious process (Krashen). It was commented on here by PLC

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A Video from Scott

Scott Grapin, a colleague of Liam in NJ, shows how easy it is to post video here for each other to learn from. I’m sure he will welcome input from the group. Here is his

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Grammar Out, Immersion In?

From Grant Boulanger: Ben, Here’s an interesting article. This guy is a friend of a friend and RIGHTLY attacks the grammar-centric curriculum. He is an ally in that regard. However, he suggests appropriating from the

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Thank you, Sean!

Hey everybody go to the Tutorials hard link and click on “How to Change Your Forum Password”. Sean Lawler did that. Badass. Thank you Shawn!

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Report from the Field – Erica McCurry

Our relatively new PLC member Erica McCurry reports from the field about a change she is contemplating to work with CI and younger kids – she currently teaches high school. Here is Erica’s report: Ben,

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Smart Phones

Daniel Navar sent this link: http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/21-things-that-will-become-obsolete-in-education-by-2020-474.php He commented: The technocrats think that “Language acquisition is only a smartphone away.” What BS.

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Content Language Objectives

Many of us must post daily language objectives near our door, for each day. That’s ridiculous, so we in our department have a generic statement so that when any observor walks in, right by the

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Jason’s Question

Our group member Jason Bond in Scotland on the Isle of Islay in Western Scotland has a question that is so common from new people that I decided to publish it over on this side

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A Bunch of Bunk

A repost from 2008 that fits in with a recent thread here: There were so many great strategies. There were so many that I couldn’t keep track of them all. It was like a wagon loaded

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jGR and Brilliant Non-Communicators

If we have a child who is brilliant in writing, but is not communicative in class, then how do we assess him? Do we keep him from the high grade simply because he doesn’t communicate well in class?

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Elementary CI Notes from Catharina

This blog entry from 2011 responds to a thread on the forum. It is by Catharina Greenberg on teaching elementary kids: The very talented Leslie Davison is presenting this year at ACTFL in Colorado and

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Piazza on Acquisition

In this comment-turned-article John Piazza makes a couple of key points about what actually leads to measurable and real gains in the language, in the true and not false way, and then he reveals his

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YouTube Clips

In speaking about using short YouTube videos in our CI classes (see categories on that topic), Sabrina once described how they can be used. Here is that description. Using videos for CI just adds to

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Stay With It

Here is a lengthy letter of mental support I sent out to a teacher who is doubting himself. It was a comment but I made it into an article. It’s a long pep talk at

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Servant to a Book

James Hosler sent this: Ben, I just read the quote below on the blog of a well know Latin teacher who sticks closely to the textbook and is from the “eclectic” school of teaching. Lots

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Educreations App

Kristen sent this upon my request and thank you Kristen: Hi Ben, The app I have been using more and more of this year is called Educreations. On a storytelling day, I hand my iPad

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Jacqueline Ford

Another group member in Calgary: Hi, Ben – My name is Jacqueline Ford. I am a French teacher to grades 5 – 9 in Calgary, AB, Canada. I am the sole second language teacher in

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How Do You Spend Your Time?

John send an article posted by Bob Patrick over on the Latin Best Practices site yesterday. Thank you John. Here is Bob’s post: When we spend our time talking about Latin, students learn about Latin.

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Eric Herman

This is a bio from Eric Herman. Watch some of the videos. Amazing from only a second year teacher! Hi Ben – I am a Spanish teacher, grades 3-8, in Edgartown, MA. I am in

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Dear Fear

We have a set of questions here that need our attention and responses: Ben, This is year 2 (really semester 2) of my Spanish 1 TCI odyssey and I’m feeling some serious self-doubt. I am

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Live and Let Live – Oh Really?

I’ve been thinking about the administrator pressures that we endure each day. I consider them extremely detrimental to our mental health and I feel strongly that they are unnecessary, because administrators don’t understand how people

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Three Parts to the Year

A repost from last spring, updated: We have talked about what possible “forms” an academic year could take doing TPRS/CI. There are links on that topic here: https://benslavic.com/blog/category/yearly-planning/ There is a general plan that I

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