Here is the first in a series of 10′ videos taken from a 7th grade class who last year in 6th grade had a grammar based curriculum. It’s about “Pringles Man” –

I got this from a group member: Hi Ben, I felt the need to be accountable to this.  Today is one of those tired days where I just want to let myself take it easy.  All our juniors are out of the building on a retreat.  In my 2nd hour today there were 6 of

One way to teach prepositions (sorry, this might only work for French) is with a song sung to the tune of London Bridge: sur sous dans (devant, derriere 3X) sur sous dans (devant, derriere 3X) a cote de… pres de loin de (devant, derriere 3X) pres de loin de (devant, derriere 3X) a cote de…

Here is an overview of the StarChart™ by our group members Jesse and Elahe. Jesse calls it “a summary of his experience and understanding of our Zoom CI classes.” It’s a great description of the Star and I suggest that anyone currently reading the Ultimate CI books and/or are currently taking the Ultimate CI Zoom

Normally, I focus only on content here, but I would like to register something else here in this post today. I am feeling, for the first time in 20 years of slogging through the TPRS/CI wars, real and authentic hope. What does this mean? I’m trying to say here that I finally feel, as I

The difference between doing tableaux vs. stories using the StarChart™ is that stories involve creating a problem and a solution and they also involve people talking, which doesn’t happen in tableaux vivants. This means that in stories there is action in the form of movement of the actors from one point to another, and dialogue,

The old idea of “spare the rod and spoil the child” is out of date. It doesn’t align with the paradigm shift we are in. What shift?  Basically, in my view, the shift is about learning to love one another – an ancient idea that we seem to never get each time that it’s delivered

I know that in the law there are various levels of, for example, murder, premeditated being the worst. But do murderers avoid imprisonment when their crime was unintentional? No. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Similarly, in the last post here I tried to make the point that teachers who hurt children through ignorance

FACT: People learn languages effortlessly, using a part of their brain – the unconscious mind – that cannot be taught to, cannot be reached with traditional language instruction. FACT: Most language teachers do not know this, with the result that they teach to the rational, linear, conscious mind. This is idiotic. FACT: In 50 years

Live in your classroom in full confidence that the next moment will manifest safely, creatively, just as the next note manifests in a piece of jazz, naturally. The next note is the next word or word group. Language is not predictable and controlled, but by its very nature free. This is called teaching from faith