Q. How did you not get fired with an attitude where you are advocating just talking to the kids in the target language, not evaluating speech or writing, when in fact you were supposed to be addressing a curriculum with measurable outcomes and evaluate what the kids can actually do with the language? A. Well, […]

Q. You seem to have finally reached a place with your teaching where you are happy. What was the very worst part of your career leading up to this point of being professionally content? It was what I just mentioned, the misery of only reaching a few kids in a class of thirty or so,

I hope we get some deep answers to this major question from Alisa which is very applicable to current discussion in the CI community: I am getting emboldened to dump my ‘classical’ circling and PQA in favor of all out non-targeted language usage. (I seldom target classically anymore, but I do circle and PQA still…I

Q. How do we make sure that our students will hear the “important” words (some call them “high frequency”) if we go non-targeted? Tina responds: A. If we are teaching for whole-language mastery, then we need to unlearn or let go of the idea that we are teaching parts of the language. If the high-frequency

Here is a photo of the skype session I had the other night with my former students in India. Linda and I got a moment to talk. Linda and Doug and Jesse go the the American School in Singapore next year after three years in India. Better air!

Hi Ben, I “remind” my students often, at least daily, of their responsibility to sit up, make eye contact, join the conversation, make class fun by offering unusual details, etc. It counts for 40% of their grade in Spanish 1. Yet I find I’m saying it over and over to the same students, and I

Q. What if the kids just keep on blurting? A. Tina recommends for situations where there is a lot of blurting of ideas, that you allow everyone to call out ideas for about one minute, then employ a “Closed Debate!” sign. She wags her finger at them and kind of sweeps it in front of

I sure would like some help answering this question. I’m not sure how to do it, since the premise of homework as I see things in this work is that it should be optional: Hi Ben – I have my students for two 50 minute classes per week. (One class is only about 60-75 minutes

I just now skyped with my students from last year in India. It was their morning and my evening. It made me think that the greatness of teaching is not in any pedagogy, or data, or anything else except in the relationships we have with our students. It is a good reason to work hard

Here is a more complete answer to a question that Keri asked a few weeks ago here: Q. I am certain that I won’t be using an 84 minute block class to create an image. So, I’m wondering what else to do with the kids for the rest of that period. I’m sure I will

The entire thing about all the questioning, in my own view, has been overblown. Why not just use our own intuition to say things that promote the plot line and the kids get to sit back and it’s all relaxing and amazing for them? Tina asked me once why so many of us put a

I was just thinking how the standard TPRS/CI folks always like to say how the kids need variety in the instructional process. In my view it’s not the routine that causes the kids to get bored. On the contrary, they need structure through the week. I think, rather, that keeping the focus of the kids