Here is a question for the group: Hello Ben, This is my first year teaching Middle School Spanish. It is considered an elective here. I teach 11 classes total on an A/B schedule. I teach 6th grade, 7th grade and 8th grade. I feel like I am losing my mind! I have been doing OWI […]

Little instructional change in second language classrooms has actually occurred in the United States. We who participate in this PLC are so few. Those who are using effective comprehensible input in their classrooms represent certainly less than 1% of language teachers nationwide. Things should have changed by now but they haven’t. The textbook continues to

I did some kick-ass PQA this week with grades 7 and 8! I couldn’t believe the engagement I got! So many laughs. And it felt much more like real communication, more so than steps 2 and 3. I wish I had had a camera running. It was magical. And this has never happened with my

Here is what Mark says about it: I like what Eric wrote about lifelong learners. We do need to be able to see which programs are producing life-long learners, and this should be the very first thing we try to measure, however we go about it. I’m seeing some frightening drops in enrollments at the

This is Eric Herman’s view on the data thread. Definitely read it: As far as how many teachers are using TCI. I don’t know. Way too few of us are active here and on moreTPRS. And there are degrees to which TCI is applied. We are the radicals – light years ahead. Krashen is still

Since that last article (renamed Data – 1) was so long to read, I wrote a kind of summary of the points here, with a few more added in. In my own view, these things are true about gathering data: 1. It wastes time. In my district, two full weeks of instructional time are lost

I got an email from someone who received this question from a colleague and sent it on to me: Are there any stats re just how much the TPRS method is being used in schools in the U.S.? What are universities thinking about it? Are any adopting it? Does Krashen or anyone have a handle

Heart surgeons in the Northeast started working together via the internet some years ago to improve techniques and deaths went down dramatically. In DPS, teachers are doing active collaboration to improve how they teach kids languages. Young teachers and teachers new to the district are trained by Diana heavily all year. Gains and changes are

I am very happy that Jim reminded us in a comment today that auditory CI is the order of the day these days at the beginning of the year, in my opinion. We can read later. Jim states simply, and yet there is a ton of information in this sentence: …I want to shelter reading

Nathaniel (Hardt) shares yet another blockbuster idea. Read and learn. You may want to try this excellent strategy: I have the classroom rules in Spanish on the front wall above the white board and in English on both sidewalls. Certain rules are getting a lot of reps: #2 Una persona habla (one person speaks), #5

Michael Nagelkerke shared a blockbuster idea, up there with interactive whiteboards, that could change the face of our grading lives. Thank you Michael! Here it is: Ben mentioned scan-tron as a way to keep grading to a minimum, but I use GradeCam. Does the very same thing, but you can do it with just a

Sometimes in the hullabaloo of trying to remember everything we learn about CI (impossible) we forget to use some of the basic ideas from the 1990’s like this one, described perfectly by James. …story board drawings to me are the kids draw 6 or so pictures and give each picture a caption in L2 taken