Sean Lawler once wrote here: “We all have our moments during class where we speak in English at length about whatever comes up . We do so because sometimes topics that come up are just too interesting to not talk about in English.” I really like this. I see the extended us of English as […]

I don’t know if the terms “teacher abuse” is a term, but it’s a thing.  It usually is due to a narcissist type of administrator, or some whack job of a department chair or colleague. I used to stay in those schools even though I knew that “something was wrong”. In one case, I stayed

The next Ultimate CI Book 1 training is Jan. 8 – Feb. 12 on Saturdays from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. The next family reunion is Sat. Feb. 19th from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.

Q. What do I do with my fast processors who are always trying to get me to speed up? A. Don’t acquiesce to their demands. Tell them that you will not speed up to the level they want in your instruction until all the kids in the classroom understand.  Tell them that you are doing

Many of us think that if we just master the set of skills that we need to get through a story, then our kids will show the proficiency gains that we want and so test well and everything will be fine with our jobs.  But in order to find real professional satisfaction in our jobs,

Here is an article that we would all do well to read and reflect on in terms of what we really want to be doing in our CI classrooms. It is my position that CI gains are only a piece of the puzzle and should only be one of our goals as language teachers. Our

I just got an email from our group member Karin who is an accomplished StarChart™-trained teacher: Ben, I was reading this article and as I was reading it, I realized that AWE is exactly what your STAR curriculum allows me experience  with my students in every class. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/children-awe-emotion/2021/11/29/0f78a4b0-4c8e-11ec-b0b0-766bbbe79347_story.html?fbclid=IwAR0yvta2DFHBljMaZ4_xWB_N3mu0hxbBAIvSuoIUQBnmFceb0zVcUGLyHFU It especially resonated with me when the

From time to time I like to go back and find posts from the “old blog”, of which this blog is the newest incarnation. The post below on assessing in terms of the standards was published here in 2017. Written by Robert Harrell, it gives insight into the whole topic of Standards Based Assessment. Comments

I feel strongly that more discussions are needed about the huge split between how we use CI and how we test with CI, that whole gnarly topic. What’s going on now, testing CI students with traditional methods, is in my opinion a disaster. https://youtu.be/rTD7918LBkY

Here is a question I got from a teacher. It’s a long post but if you are required to do summative long-term testing in your district it is an important read: Ben, I just found out that all teachers inour school have a new requirement for next year: …all teachers must prove that the students

One of our group members is teaching 180 students per day in 8 classes lasting 42 minutes each. Some of her colleagues have nine classes. One hour of instructional time per day has been shifted over to core classes. We’ve always known we were a dumping ground, but this is taking things to new levels

TPRS/CI is a student-driven methodology. It responds to the linguistic needs of the students at any given time. This makes it free-flowing. Free flowing is a good word to apply to a language curriculum. It’s not a math curriculum and thus left brain/dominant. It is a whole brain curriculum. TPRS/CI believes that we should shelter