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 the memorization of vocabulary and rules. It is the narrative framework of a story that makes new language items (lexical

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 time that Lewis worked from images, but he explains the process in more detail here. Some people seem to think

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 1970s and early 1980s. It aims to foster naturalistic language acquisition in a classroom setting, and to this end it

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 it is vastly superior to targeted instruction. For those still interested in targeted instruction, there are ten years of articles

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. comment: yes, this is encouraged…] After attending a workshop by Susan Gross in 2007 I drank the kool-aid and embraced

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 more about 19th century missionaries along the US-Mex border and was really enthralled, and so I talked about that today

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 about our jobs? We always seem to be “targeting” certain words connected to the textbook, the novel du jour, the

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 these days and they loved this lesson. Even though it wasn’t an Invisibles lesson, they still were invited to use

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. She just finished a training in New Jersey in which she covered the following topics. It’s very similar to where

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 comment here today about Paul Sandrock and the book lobby sham. Both A Natural Approach to Stories and A Natural

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, assessments, and can-do statements ready at a moment’s notice. It is sometimes difficult for our administrators, parents, learners and even