I am back and reading after a great break and thank you for keeping such a lively discussion going on without me. Who needs the old retired guy? The summer itself didn’t seem much like retirement with the workshops and all, but this fall time does. I am enjoying an unprecedented amount of mental health […]

Sharon once pointed out something to me in an email about classroom discipline that bears repeating in this updated articles from three years ago: …in your video [she was referring to Brrr! 3 https://benslavic.com/blog/videos/brrr-3-reading-directors-cut/], I really appreciated your leaving in the side conversation problem, asking those students to leave with the seriousness yet the coolness

I find it very helpful to ask myself before each class, “What do you want to teach?” or “What are you teaching?” It seems like an obvious question, but do we know? To me thinking in this way really helps. I target these structures, for example: assis(e) en face de – seated across from ressemble

This is a repost from last spring: Exploring the reasons behind the way things act (etiology) is a deep and magnificent process when applied to language acquisition. Have language teachers ever done this before? Have they ever explored the reasons why humans can speak, or would want to, in a language other than their first

It is most important that the teacher who wishes to use comprehensible input effectively put aside the general notion of using the target language in class in a general way. What does this mean? It means that we teach specific structures. Krashen’s idea of non-targeted input may make sense in the theoretical world, but there

Not everyone may know that Robert has written “the” primer for use with parents, etc. so that they can understand more of what we do (click on the Primers hard link above for that). But Robert has also written extensively on the topic of textbook adoption. Those articles can also be found on the Primers

Mary Beth is the reader in our group. She always finds and shares great articles for us to read. Here is another one and thank you Mary Beth! http://www.edutopia.org/blog/does-spelling-count-shira-loewenstein?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=blog-does-spelling-count-andertoons-comic-image

If you have never done a story, then you must start simply. This is about the simplest story script I have ever thought of. The following is an interchange from a previous thread on PQA between Chris Stoltz and me: Chris maybe you can use this: A Fight loves wants to be hits Jillian loves Brad.

I’m out of here to Portland, Oregon tomorrow for a break. I’m not bringing a computer. Time stamped posts will appear. Experienced people please help the newer people as usual via the comment fields or in the Forum. Newer people you can read in any of the hundreds of categories you feel like you want

Here is a report from le Chevalier de L’Ouest: Hi Ben, My brother was recently hired to teach French 2 at a local university. He receives students from a variety of programs and hands them off to a very grammar-oriented teacher. However, after listening to me for years as I talked about the way I

Here is a nice report from Tim: Hi Ben – This has gone better than I thought. Circling and PQA have always intimidated me. When I tried them years ago, I couldn’t sustain them. I would circle with one student, then other kids wouldn’t pay attention and side conversations would erupt. I always remembered Susie

Angie’s grammar question didn’t have to wait long for an excellent response from Nathaniel, who just happened to send this in on the same day that Angie asked the question about past tense differences: Friday was day 4 at my school.  This was their first experience with TCI and aiming for 90%+.  After 130 reps