This was a comment but I wanted to make it into a post: Craig said: …the structure of the system is incompatible with the nature of language learning…. Now we need to really reconsider what we’re talking about. I have been repeatedly called to task for criticizing certain things like novels and testing and target […]

I don’t know if anyone can relate to what Robin has said below, but I can. It explains my work with stories vs. traditional language teaching, and why I work so hard to promote lightheartedness and fun in the foreign language classroom.

Russ (in Portland area) shares: My position on the Invisibles has always been the same (at least once I understood really what it was and it’s implications for my classroom)…. It’s not drastically different from what other teachers have done in the past [but] is the most aligned with the original ideas of TPRS from

Our Craig West is a poet. Here we compare his passage about language being a mystery of the universe with a similar passage by the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Craig: …hang the research. We don’t need any validation other than the spirit of celebration and peace that exists in our classrooms; regardless of the

This passage was written by Meher Baba: Art is one of the means through which the soul expresses itself, and inspires others. But to do that thoroughly, he [speaking about an actor to his mother in private interview] must have his inner emotions aroused thoroughly. If you feel that something checks you from expressing yourself,

Conference Update – Community Support Well, what a week. I hardly slept a wink Tuesday night then headed into conferences Wednesday and Thursday for 12 hour shifts each day. Because admin had questioned if the kids were learning anything, we had prepared portfolios of the kids’ work, on November 1-4: 1. Reading Assessment – I

Elena Overvold is in her second year of teaching at an urban school in Portland. I think of her as Our Lady of the Lake and if you met her you would know why. I miss all of our nicknames we used to have for each other. Let’s bring them back! Here is her report:

Craig West has written something very wonderful and very beautiful here that makes me feel that I am on the right track in my own pursuit of figuring out the best way to reach kids as a language teacher. I give this comment from Craig a million stars: …I am seeing the language learning process

Mental health is one of the big topics here. We have a category for it. We need to protect our mental health or we won’t be any good to anyone. I have been told that when teachers work with the Invisibles and emergent targets, they are in better mental health, even at such time like

We rarely talk openly and honestly with our students about what is happening in our classes. Perhaps we are too afraid to be met with open rebellion. Perhaps we are still clinging to the centuries old old model of the teacher being the unquestioned expert. Steven Ordiano in Fresno, CA, shreds that image of a

Leigh Anne sent this: “One can choose to obsess over prescriptive rules, but they have no more to do with human language than the criteria for judging cats at a cat show have to do with mammalian biology.” Steven Pinker, Harvard professor, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

We all have a pretty good idea of what comprehensible input is or we wouldn’t be in this group. But in the following article Robert Harrell gives us a description of the “Comprehensible Output Hypothesis”: Robert shares: The comprehensible output (CO) hypothesis states that we acquire language when we attempt to transmit a message but