This is a long and in my opinion crucial repost. If things are not going well in our teaching, it is a good reminder of basic things that we need to do in order to be successful. I actually consider this one of the most important posts in the entire history of this blog. A […]

A person in England asked: Hi Ben – I teach kids from 6 months up to 12 years. Could CI methods be applied to children from 6 years up? Or should they be older?  Of course I forwarded this question to the expert, our Alisa, who responded: “Comprehensible Input strategies are modeled on a child’s

I get to go meet Keri Biron and her group of teachers in Connecticut tomorrow. Keri’s been reading here, sending in good videos, etc. for it seems like four or five years. Looking forward to working with them!

Today Judge Judy was trying to get a defendant to listen. She put up her hands next to her ears kind of like antlers but next to her ears and started waving them and said, “No sir…what I need now are LISTENING ears. Can you do that?” That combined w Classroom Rule #2 might be

This is from Julie for group input: Hi Ben, Most of my students are listening well during our story creation. However, some aren’t. Although I’ve spoken privately to student 1 regarding the issue, stubborn habits continue. Let me call this a tale of 3 students: Student 1: His earbud is in. He’s listening to Blake

Just what we need here – a new acronym. We must have hundreds by now. This one gets added to the Invisibles Star Sequence. When I get this cast off, I’ll explain it. It’s good.

Emergent input opens up a whole new vista in language learning.  It allows the language to be what it should be according to the research: the vehicle for authentic communication in the classroom, and not the center of our conscious attention. Making the shift to non-targeted, emergent input unlocks a myriad of exciting new conduits

The work with non-targeted instruction (NTCI) that we are doing right now has brought immediate and positive change to many of our careers. We finally have a real and authentic part to play in what is going on now in foreign language education. Why authentic? Because I can say that NTCI is based fully in the research,

I think it is a stroke of genius that Amy used the term “listening activity”. So many of us get all weird in presenting to our students our expectations with CI – simply because we expect pushback bc it’s new – and then they pick up on our nervousness. Amy and I had this interchange:

Good afternoon Ben and Tina, I wanted to thank the two of you for the CI professional development you led this summer.  I attended the seminar in the Philadelphia area (I was a literature teacher of six years, and this is my first year switching to teaching high school French), and I received some coaching

A repost from the early days of the Invisibles: We should try to teach for true proficiency and for real communication, and not to have our students notice or remember certain parts of the language on an artificial timeline that has nothing to do with the natural order of acquisition.   When we do this, we