Sabrina has played hooky from the blog since last August. Who could blame her? Last summer she moved from Chicago to Denver, as Diane Neubauer is doing this summer, and went into Thomas Jefferson High School in DPS and also worked throughout the year with Mark Knowles at UC Boulder teaching CU faculty French with […]

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This wonderful report from Annemarie is just further proof that we all got on the right train: Hey Ben, How are you? Are you counting the days? I can’t believe you are almost totally done. Good for you! The school in which I work is considered an “exemplar” school within EL and the chief academic

James raises an important point here. Perhaps we can discuss: I just gave my Juniors a survey asking about the kinds of things they like to do and that help them learn the language. Despite the resistance they gave this year, they all said “creating stories.” Maybe we need to be careful when we want

Sean shares: Hello all, We hope we will be able to see many (if not all) of you on Saturday, May 31st. As mentioned in previous emails, we will be meeting again in Winnetka, this time at The Skokie School. The school is located at 520 Glendale Ave, and the closest entrances to my classroom

Clearly, Annemarie Orth and Skip Crosby are reaching teachers in Maine, as we have two new PLC members from there, both of whom have been working with Annemarie. This is from Zoe, who requests advice from the group: Hope all is well. I just completed my student teaching with Annermarie at King School and she

There seems to have been so little overt joy in classrooms for so long, for so many decades and centuries. It is as if everyone has been really sad for a long time. Maybe that is why we believe so much in data collection now, because we have had no other, more obvious, indicators to

This is from Catharina. I think it represents a good use of time in a 25 minute class with really young kids: 5 minutes (date-weather-breakfast/lunch-fashion) 5 minutes establishing meaning/reviewing/ PQA 5 minutes TPR/brain break (standing up) 10 minutes Story (Asking on a good day/ or StoryTelling) 5 minutes TCI activity.

There are two full time French positions open in Denver Public Schools. One is at Abraham Lincoln High School and the other at East High School. Both of those WL departments are fully functioning TPRS/CI departments, which has created a problem. We can’t find anyone qualified in TPRS/CI to apply for the jobs, as most

I videotaped a Look and Discuss class yesterday and came away with some insights: 1. As a first question, I prefer simply asking the students what they see, rather than picking out from the image the structures that I want them to know and teaching them. I can’t assume that my students’ eyes are drawn

As jen says below, sometimes we know each other virtually better than we know the people with whom we work in our own buildings: Hey y’all! This is super preliminary, but would any of you be willing to be a reference for me in the event that I apply for a job and need a

Some of us are on a roll finding jobs. We are helping each other plan out what to say (and what not to say!) in an interview, as well as providing sample demo lesson plans, objectives and formats for demos. Jen also asked if anyone would share their resumes – sharing is good when it