Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 100 years old today. My dad was a violinist and fought in Germany in WW2. When he returned home he had to switch to the viola, because he couldn’t hear the high notes any more. He met my mom in Wiesbaden when they brought her to […]

I feel like there is some confusion about the effectiveness of stories. There has been a lot of talk, especially over the past two years, about how, as long as we just do comprehensible input in any form, we are doing our jobs. And that is true. In fact, it is a point I have

Nothing could be more important to the novice teacher than a feeling of being on safe ground at the beginning of a storytelling class. Nothing could be more satisfying to the novice teacher than the knowledge that the story is going to develop naturally with little fuss, that it won’t have to be forced, that

There are a lot of really gifted people out there and on this PLC who are just about to overturn the apple cart in second language instruction. I try to keep these words from Mother Teresa of Calcutta in my mind when I think about the work we are doing: “Do not wait for leaders;

Joseph Justiss (what a cool name!) asks an important question about use of L1 by students in answering our questions: Ben: I have a question on One Word Images. The kids are giving suggestions in L1 right? Or do they have to give cute answers in Latin? Or will they give it in English and

Here is a very important question from Suzanne. There are articles here on this topic but neither of us can find them – they are far back in the archives. Anyone with spelunking skills please help us out. I think Suzanne is going to need some kind of answer by the end of the day

You know, it’s not just about our bringing the stories to the kids. It’s them too – they are kind of insisting on it. This generation of kids is buying a lot less into the no pain/no gain nose-to-the-grindstone (no wonder – that is a miserable image and is likely to cost one their good

I was in a spin class this morning and all the cyclists and the instructor were of one mind. We hunched over our bikes and drove it hard for the one hour session. We all wanted the hard workout and we got it. The instructor reminded us to rest when necessary, but most of us

Our PLC members Bob Patrick, John Piazza, and David Maust have begun putting together the CI stuff that’s showing up on their Latin Best Practices list on a Word Press site so that CI Latin teachers can find them with ease. (I think John and Bob are the founders of that list but I’m not

Here is a nice update from Erin: Hola, Ben! I wanted to add to the chorus of updates you’re getting. A new semester means new high school classes for me, but I have the same two groups of 8th graders year-round. As always, my favorite class is my novice one. I’ve done the Circling with

This article from our PLC member Andrew Edwards is really a fine one. You are going to love reading this: Ben, Do you every feel as though, maybe as a kind of side effect like from a pharmaceutical, the way we teach causes students to feel more comfortable to express who they really are? Lowers

Astronomers We can compare language researchers to astronomers. Astronomers use limited mind and limited machines in an attempt to understand the unlimited reaches of outer space. They will, at best, merely scratch its surface. Language researchers, similarly, use limited mind to try to understand what is also unlimited – the infinitely complex neurological language system