Today I saw the value of dialogues and focusing on actors during stories, especially during recyclings of the story. If we ask an actor how they felt in a particular instance in the story, and we ask them to say how they felt, that is when we can coach them to explain to the class how

Not everyone understands that we don’t use word walls in order to teach those certain words that appear in that list. We use them as a fertile source of verbs and other parts of speech to use during class, in free writes, etc. The words in the word wall are just there, helping us or,

Krashen has come out to say in the past year that motivation is not needed in CI classes, as long as the story is interesting/compelling. The implication there is that human beings cannot resist a good story. Krashen doesn’t know how hard it is to make a story interesting, though, especially in most of the

The focus this year on simplifying our instruction with the intent of making our mental health the key thing in our jobs is paying off, if any of the emails I am having with some of the PLC members are any indication. The simplicity of our CI instruction is reaching new highs this year. (I

This is from Annemarie Orth in Maine: I have been thinking lately about how to make the learning visible in a TCI classroom.  There are a few reasons why I’ve been thinking about this.  In February I’m going to attend a monthly event at HGSE (Harvard graduate school of education) called “rounds” in which teachers gather and

I just noticed that a girl with a scowl on her face when school started last August is now happy and fully a part of the class. I even noticed that she has become friends with a superstar class leader. How did that happen? I know it wasn’t the grammar sheets we didn’t do.

Last week we talked here about the power of silent reading. Jim commented on how he and some colleagues had to fight to bring it back after a two year hiatus while the administration imposed some institutionalized dumb activity in its place. Alisa also commented: Not to brag friends but SILENT READING IS ABSOLUTELY SACRED for

This is a repost: I had mentioned a term in a recent comment here, connecting it to a CI teaching skill in which we don’t leave a structure until we feel that the class has brought it into a certain kind of focus that we can sense/feel/be aware of. Here is the comment: …don’t leave

There are lots of articles here, published over the years, on the history of TPRS. I just got an email from a colleague asking for some history so I sent her this. Pls. free free to add or correct: TPRS has its roots in TPR from James Asher, who parallels in his research that of

A kid who was playing the role of a dust bunny today couldn’t fit under the table where the class said he was yesterday, under a certain table in the room. I said it didn’t matter and just asked him to sit on the floor in the center of the room to be the dust

On the important topic of which tense to use when asking a story, which has been muddled for a long time now, I have thought of another reason – a really good one – to ask the story in the past and do the reading in the present, and this may only apply to French

Eric’s statement below made in a comment today pretty much answers the ACTFL Language Educators question brought to our attention by Alisa: “What strategies for evaluation or feedback provide learners with guidance to improve their performance?” Eric I trust that you will post your answer on the ACTFL site. It will be a sufficient answer