I used to do FVR with the children’s books. It really didn’t work. The books had lots of really complex language in them that only native speaker kids could understand, and my students mainly just looked at the picture. So then I started doing SSR with the same text. Then after the 10′ SSR period […]
Since it is now all about my mental health, let’s say I didn’t get a story written up for projection, like the recent story I projected as a video clip about Candy the Corn. In the past I would have busted my behind to have the story ready for the class to read when they
Just sharing that the stories are rocking the house so strongly now that I have decided to curtail the the readings. That represents a shift in my long-accepted Denver Public Schools position that CI classes be 50% stories and 50% reading. This is true for the lower levels: more stories, up to 80% stories and
The biggest mistake a teacher can make in a TPRS classroom is not to speak too fast or any of that stuff. Rather, it is the failure to employ as many students as possible – up to half of them – in active and meaningful jobs in your classroom.
Video Comments are a new and very useful and easy way to get into each others’ classrooms in a virtual way. Angie videotaped her class. Sent it to YouTube in under a minute. No computer involved. Just an iPad. No effort so far. Then cut and pasted the link here. Alisa clicked on it. No
What I mean by a Video Comment is that we use the comment fields as places to post 15 min. or less videos. The idea is this: 1. We film a class. Watch the students act like it’s an observation and do their best listening. 2. We tell the videographer to stop it anywhere from
We need to see if the potential here might possibly happen. It could change how we use this blog. Angie said: …I was able to upload straight from the iPad to You Tube…. I replied: Angie so if I videotape a class and my videographer in each class films the class in segments less than
From Craig: Just started another trimester here and I feel like things have been going well. I’ve been focusing just on the super 7. I used a .ppt to introduce 4 on monday “esta, es, tiene, disgusta” then two more tuesday:”va, and hay” . On wednesday we reviewed the words with some cloze style reading
I love not knowing where a class is when it comes in. I love not planning. The students walk in and I ask them where they are in the story/reading process. It is either a story, new or in progress, or a reading. If it is a reading I need to have it ready so
I have an “advanced” 8th grade (that means they have done grammar worksheets since 6th grade) class where the range of abilities is so wide that the class slowly split over the course of the year. I tried taking the ones who were fluent or nearly fluent aned putting them into a side room to
This is from Michele Whaley in Alaska with my response in a comment field below: Hi Ben, I’m on the Rez! (Sorry for shouting. I have one more day here, and the language is dying.) I can’t talk on [my] blog about some of the roadblocks here (take a look at the curriculum and you’ll
