Jobs must emerge organically. You can’t just assign a job. It has to be chosen by the kid. The better jobs have to be earned. The superstars who occupy the best jobs enjoy a kind of “second teacher” status in the classroom, which is huge for the teacher. Superstars are constantly pulled down by so […]
On Wednesday nite last week in the Chicago War Room session Jenny (China) suggested some sites that are similar to Educreations. These are sites that I thought that we might explore as a group to then share the results of our research with each other – how they stack up against Educreations – so we
Sometimes comments get denied by some weird PLC software security rule so when that happens I just publish the comment here as article. This is from Michele Whaley as she comments on the thread about using the textbook along with CI, or not: I know these anti-learning kids well, and I feel lucky not to
I got this question from an Italian student in China: I read your website with much interest. As I am treating the topic of TPRS in my Master Thesis for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, I would like to ask you few questions: 1) Why is TPRS still not famous in Europe after 20
I got this from Andrew Snider, who is developing some new materials with real promise. He invites us to share feedback and use our network here to brainstorm as to where this project might go: Hi Ben, I recently started a website for Spanish students to get short, easy and comprehensible readings and audio for
How many teachers have you seen who have had to deal with burn out? Why have they burned out? Many would say it is because they simply have too much to do, too much to think about, during the day. Then they had to carry it home. I agree that that is true, but I
A small group has formed after NTPRS in the St. Louis area. Contacts are Melisa Alexander and Derek O’Chui. Melisa is at Civic Memorial High School in Bethalto, IL and Derek is at Belleville East High School in Belleville, IL. If you are in that area and wish to get in on some trainings, please
Mary Beth shares this excellent article with us: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/storytelling-in-the-classroom-matters-matthew-friday
This is from 2009. I republish it here because the end of this article ties in very neatly with what Nathaniel Hardt recently wrote (published as a post here yesterday and added recently to the Primer hard link) about the dangers of mixing our way of teaching with the textbook. This article, which I just happened to come across, is a strong
I discussed this topic with Sean and a few others and the vote is in. We want more and more video of ourselves working. Sean suggested that since we now know and trust each other more after working together at the conferences, we can now take that risk. We can understand and openly state that
Deciding which tense to use when in the Three Steps has caused confusion over the years and many of us do it differently. Remembering that there is no wrong way to do comprehensible input instruction as long as the comprehensible input part is there, I nevertheless feel that there is a “best way” on this
Should we mix TPRS/CI instruction with textbook instruction? Nathaniel Hardt discusses why it is unwise to do so: 1. Kid-centered TPRS/CI is of interest to kids. Textbooks are not. When required by my school to use a textbook, I decided that I would try to use readings from the textbook. Then I read it. It
