This is from Eric: Hey Ben – I originally posted this to moreTPRS, to criticize BVP’s lackluster commentary on textbooks in episode 3 of his radio show. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/moretprs/conversations/messages/149461 I think you’ll enjoy the analogy: A commercial textbook is like alcohol. What it’s good for depends on the goal. The goal of language acquisition is like […]

Here’s another one, to follow roughly the plan outlined in the “Simon’s Cat MT – 1” article: Reading: MT Simon’s Cat 2 – Let Me In!

Here is something for those who like me may be a little skittish with MT (I’m afraid of going too wide on the kids with it): Reading in French: MT Simon’s Cat 1 – The Box What I’m thinking of doing with this is: Part A: Get a box and my cat hand puppet. No video

I was just thinking how we should get into a more positive mindset re: all the fighting of the past 20 years with traditional teachers. We have certainly done some major growth in that area this past year, especially, ever since Eric and Robert and others went into the ACTFL Language Educators lair in Oct.Nov.

Here is a lovely article by Laurie on how the idea of embedded readings got its start in her classroom, in the need to reach a child who lacked confidence: http://embeddedreading.com/category/justins-story-the-origin-of-embedded-reading/

Jeremy had asked about embedded readings and we went right to the source – Laurie Clarcq – who here answers Jeremy’s question: Hello everyone! I’m going to outline some information here…pick and choose what might help you: First, here is a PP on how to use ER with your students. This might be a good

Michele shares: Hey Ben: Students have been well trained to expect a certain kind of teaching. Even though it doesn’t do anyone any good, they are comfortable with what they know and expect and train us to give them just that and nothing else. Parents would be just fine with nothing but scantroned assignments, tests,

There is an Embedded Readings category here so lots to read, but I got this specific question that would be good to get the group’s response on as well: Hi Ben, I teach English at a pretty high level language academy (juku) in Tokyo. We have been experimenting with TPRS in our classes. I have

There are ripple effects happening from Bob Patrick teaching a class on TPRS at the University of Georgia, starting about three years ago and still going strong. This post provides us with some Chinese instruction video from Sandra Lin at UGA. The video is 49 minutes long but I was thinking that if we all

I believe that this is a metaphor for what is happening now in our schools: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-south-carolina-school-employee-tosses-student-in-classroom-20151026-story.html Therefore, any small spark of humanness that we can bring to our schools, however we do it, through CI or grammar translation or the audio lingual method, whatever gets the job in any small way done to make school have

It’s not like we’re on a world cruise with our students, although Robert has approximated it: https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-virtual-vienna/ The truth is that we are in a box with our students. Not a lot to talk about unless we make the class all about them. Being in a box in a limited setting, if you think about

This is a note to myself re: planning through to Xmas break and I post it here for anyone else who might like me be getting wigged out by too many things to do in the vast universe of CI strategies at our disposal: I will continue with stories, which is all I have done since