Q. Aren’t Can Do statements helpful in that you are supposed to be addressing a curriculum with measurable outcomes and evaluate what the kids can actually do with the language? A. Well, first of all, my students and parents are happy. Very happy. The Ultimate CI characters we make each day bring undeniable engagement and […]
This is a repost from an article I wrote here a few years ago, after watching John Becker and a few of his colleagues in St. Louis give a textbook example of how to go from an image into a story. (Perhaps textbook is not the right word; it’s more like a perfect example of
Chris Mercogliano, writing in “Paths of Learning” (Issue #17, p. 12, 2004), states that there is considerable evidence for “a classical link between education and play.” He points out that the ancient Greek words for education/culture (paideia), play (paidia), and children (paides) all have the same root. Chris asks us to consider the following remarkable
Those who were around on the “old blog” (before this new site was built) may be wondering why we can’t have a comments field where we can “talk” in the comments field like we used to. It’s just a glitch in the new form of the PLC and I hope to have it fixed in
For the last ten years of my career, in spring, thinking about the longevity of my career, I mentally shut down in March or April. It’s about that time when everybody stops caring, so why should I care? If I am around a bunch of other people who stop caring and are merely crawling to
Here are the exact words that Mr. Rogers said to the Senate Subcommittee on Communication before being awarded the government grant that launched “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” on May 1, 1969: “This is what I give: I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I
Greg sent this: Ben – Do you think anyone on the PLC applying for jobs might find a letter of initial interest helpful? I’m attaching one I wrote up for my current round of job searching. Feel free to share if you think anyone could use/adapt it to their own use in case that could simplify anyone’s
John Piazza continues: If the school has a mission statement, we look over that ahead of time, and then point out a specific example of how what we do aligns with that mission statement. Chances are, that mission statement will be a list of priorities that can be most efficiently realized with CI based strategies.
It’s interesting to go back almost two years to see how I did a reading class. Not that different from now, really. This is in India, a reading class based on the original Pringle Man story. (The listening/auditory creation part of the story can be found on YouTube if you search Ben Slavic Pringle Man
Say:1. that language acquisition is the same for any age, that all that the students need is to listen to interesting comprehensible input in a low-stress setting. 2. that you don’t use worksheets. 3. that you teach according to the national standard of Communication. 4. that you teach according to the research, which is that
When teachers exclude students from the classroom process because of the way they teach the language (verb conjugations, memorization of lists of words, etc.), what they are really doing is saying that those students are intellectually disabled as language learners. THIS IS IN 100% DIRECT CONFLICT WITH WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS ABOUT THOSE STUDENTS’ ABILITIES
