I’m writing a book to offer questions and answers about my new UCI books. Here are some examples: Q. In the videos, you used a different poster than what I thought was supposed to be used. I thought I was supposed to use the question words poster but when using a student card to build […]

I got this important question: Hi Ben, I was wondering what you do if a student or parent wants a syllabus for the year. Thanks! Tanya My response: I recommend teaching the traditional curriculum for 1/3rd or 1/2 or 2/3 of the time in our classrooms anyway. This is in order to avoid having to explain

I’m writing a new book about the state of our profession after Covid-19, which is not very attractive right now. The name of the book is The Ultimate CI Book 3 on Classroom Management. That might seem like an odd title for a book on the state of our profession, but if we can’t connect

My new book which will be out next summer is Book 4 of the Ultimate CI series. It will include lots of questions I typically get about Books 1 and 2. This morning I got some good questions about the first 83 pages of Book 1 and if you are working in that book and

Many of us never think much about the high number of kids that we end up confusing more than helping. The result of that confusion in our students’ once optimistic minds is defeat. We defeat them. We fail them. That’s why most of them quit and our jobs are always in some sort of jeopardy. 

Sean reports: Mike Peto is a great source on teaching heritage students. He helped create a Facebook page called Teacher of Spanish Heritage Speakers. It’s a good page. I used to be much more involved there. I faded out, though, because so many teachers became members who didn’t have a background in CI or Krashen

Human beings are different in that we can create anything we want to create. So think of what we can do in our language classes if we just remember that.  Combined with active and aggressive community building (see the attached TikTok), we have in the Phase 1 activities of the StarChart the answer to boring

I love the deep thinking that Laura expresses below: Hi Ben, Yes, the forces of darkness (lying, cheating, bullying, etc.) are dominating our times in this swing of the pendulum. Not everyone has the determination and strength of will to battle administrators, parents and colleagues constantly, who don’t seem to get how simple it would

One of our group members here on the PLC has had a very bad year. No one in her school wants to see anything good in CI as a way to teach a language. Instead of keeping a little room in their hearts for CI, they have attacked our colleague. They have done this repeatedly,

Every once in a while I catch up with one of the great Spanish teachers in this world – Laura Avila. She teaches in Maine, not far from Anne Matava. Old timers here know that she has had her finger on the pulse of best practices in our field for years and years. Here is

Q. We have to submit a syllabus for each class. What do you suggest as a possible syllabus using your approach? A. One answer and perhaps the best one is to hand in the same syllabus as your CI colleagues and teach it in half the time each class, which is easy to do and has

There is conflict in our buildings about what language pedagogy even is. The conflict is there between language department members, but it is always either (a) swept under the rug, or (b) the traditional textbook teachers usually backbite the CI person who wants to do real CI until the person leaves. This ugliness has never