Angie has come up with something timely. It fits in with the big shift into really compelling personalized input in the form of focused interviews with students that started over ten years ago with the “Special Chair” strategy from Jody Noble to the new and wildly popular Star of the Day strategy from Sabrina. (I remember […]

Annette Sechrist has recreated a few or our rigor posters in a nicer format: Expectations for student success Students Success Chart

Jim just launched his new website so now you can easily get either a hard copy ($25) or ecopy ($15) of his stories. Here is the link: www.trippsscripts.com For those new to using story scripts in a TPRS class who would like a nice safe foundation for your stories, Jim’s catch the attention of kids,

Actually this message is also to Angie Dodd and John Piazza and certainly to myself as a younger TPRS teacher many years ago. It is to anyone who has been hurt, cut or jabbed in their buildings by people who teach classes that by accident have (this will soon change) the same name as the classes we teach.

Eric said in a comment today: …[we cannot] align TCI/TPRS with the traditional teaching model. I want to align TCI/TPRS with SLA and with CLT. In this time of transition from one teaching model to another, we probably need “coping strategies,” but let’s be clear that that is not best practice (not what best aligns

It is such a fine thing to hear from group members. Send us your report from the field as well! Representing the great state of Arkansas on our PLC, our Tim Bennett reports:  Hi Ben, Just wanted to let you know how things are going here.  It has been almost a school year and a

Just one of many points made this week by the Vintner: Think about the concept of a “language parent.” http://www.ijflt.org/images/ijflt/articles-june-2012/krashen.pdf The teacher is the language parent. All you want to do is communicate with the kids. So, do what is necessary to make that happen. My mom was the “language parent” to my wife and

  hears something takes runs to Bobby goes camping in Arizona. He sleeps in a tent. He hears something. He looks out of the tent and sees a janitor. The janitor is whistling Dixie. Bobby is afraid. He takes his tent and runs to Georgia. In Georgia Bobby sleeps in a tent. He hears something.

Robert updates us on the Vienna project: Hi Ben, Earlier this year I mentioned what I wanted to do this year in my German 3-4-AP class with the virtual move project and that, if it worked, it would become part of a how-to book. Well, it looks like I’m on the way with that. I

Some of us are projecting up the work of the artist during class, as per Claire here about a week ago: My class artist … [is] super fast at drawing and very skilled. Students give her directions in French real-time as she’s drawing it…. With my ELLs, we do this routinely (even for classes without

Hi Ben, Thanks so much for the support.  I have been getting my butt kicked this year.  I had finally subdued my other enemies at the end of last year, but then I was betrayed by the other Latin teachers. I sent them a huge number of freshman this year, but not the ones they

Below are the 63 jobs kids can do in our classrooms. The list is always changing. If you notice and inaccurate statements or crediting issues, please let me know and I will fix it. Understand that we must not “assign” these jobs before the need arises in our classrooms. Who gets what jobs when is an organic