Udo asked about T1/T2. Tina has stated that gaining clarity on this topic “is one of the most important professional discussions ever undertaken in TPRS in my opinion.” That’s quite a statement and I agree with it. The irony is that everyone is plugging along thinking that TPRS is T1, targeting language and not the message. […]

I challenge all of us to find and develop links between what we see here and what we are doing in our classrooms as language teachers: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mr-rogers-pbs-budget-cuts_us_58ca8d6fe4b0be71dcf1d440?xf2ld0o7isbtep14i&

A repost from John Bracey from a year ago, one well worth the read: We all understand that there are states all over the country that have been completely enveloped by the corporate reform movement in education. School districts are pressured into adopting abusive and onerous practices intended to demoralize teachers. These barbaric practices include

I got a question from someone not on the PLC: Does anyone know of anyone who’s done any work on adapting TPRS to online teaching? I answered: We have, over the years, had contact here with about four or five people who have tried to do some online training of language using TPRS. I’m afraid

I propose that the difference in T1 and NT+T2 is one of intent. T1 begins words and structures.  The intent is to get students to acquire specific words/structures.   T2 begins with a message.  The intent is to get students to acquire more data to build interlanguage on their timeline.   Therefore what we would want

Udo has a question. If group members can each respond with one or two sentences we might be able to collectively craft a decent answer. The question is obviously too big for one person to answer. It could be a book! So let’s just all throw in a few insights: How can we teach culture

Questioning is the enemy of FLOW. FLOW is necessary. Therefore, questioning is not as welcome in our work as we may have thought in the past. However, if certain questions slide by and are not noticed by the listener, or if they are part of the flow, as in the creation of a one word

I propose that the practice of “circling” is independent of the T1/NT+T2 debate.  Steve asserts that circling can be used to provide T2.  Yes I can see myself doing some light circling in my own classes, just to expose them to a word needed to understand the story.  Circling is a tool independent of the

CI Liftoff, the company that Tina and I have formed, has many goals: to further Beniko’s work in Story Listening, to communicate to others what we think CI can be (not T1), to do regional workshops and conferences, to produce books that may be controversial in subject matter for all kids to enjoy reading during SSR. This

This is from our group member Carmen Suárez in Chicago: Hi Ben, I want to share something that I did for my students (K-2). I found a book in the library of one the kindergarten rooms, the book is Mouse Paint, it may be very popular in some Kindergarten rooms but I had not read it.

Martin in Germany has done some of the most courageous work in the past year that I know of. He shared with us his decision to retire from the profession for mental health reasons, and did so this year, one year away from his scheduled retirement in 2018. Here is an update on the situation from

This weekend Tina wrote three “proposals” about our work. Here is the first one. It’s about the NT/T1/T2 controversy, which Dr. Krashen is looking at with a microscope this week. So is Dr. Mason looking at it. Both are very supportive of the points Tina is making in this and the next two posts on