Source: Language Assessment; Principles and Classroom Practices, H. Douglas Brown and Priyanvada Abeywickrama. Pearson Education, 2010. There are five principles of language assessment: Practicality Reliability Validity Authenticity Washback Practicality includes: Staying within the budget Doable within time constraints Clarity of directions for administration Appropriate utilization of human resources Not exceeding available material resources Considering time […]

In various writings, Robert Harrell has illustrated and defended the use of comprehensible input in foreign language classrooms. The CI tidal wave, however, has yet to find its defense in most district level Scope and Sequence documents, which are still largely written from textbooks. In this appendix, Robert makes a unique and refreshing argument in

Another repost from Robert Harrell. He raises the right points and has a way of exposing stinking thinking in language instruction as no other person can. Enjoy! Hi Ben,  Thanks to the feedback from the PLC, I have revised the Eight Traps document, adding some additional information, names, and sources. Here it is. Robert Opponents

To God: It’s really been more than a tug-of-war. It’s been like a war. Why has the natural process of acquiring our first language – You’ve done a great design there, by the way – become such an exercise in futility? Only You know how it got this way. But get this way it did!

So many thoughts rush into my mind when it tries to figure out what languages are, and why on earth You ever made them. But one thing is certain. One thing I know for certain. Languages are beautiful, just as You are beautiful beyond beauty itself, and that is why we must learn to teach

Languages are so beautiful, and you made up so many of them, all of them like beads on the string of a glorious and shiny necklace that you made and wear just for us, as a way to draw us closer. They are, these beads you made, of the best quality. They are beads of

Alisa sent us an article from Edutopia (Liz Byron Loya, Nov. 9): STUDENT ENGAGEMENT Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn Their Cameras On Incorporating SEL approaches, playing games, and giving students options can inspire them to show their faces. Here’s the link: https://www.edutopia.org/article/strategies-encourage-students-turn-their-cameras?utm_content=linkpos1&utm_campaign=weekly-2020-11-11&utm_source=edu-legacy&utm_medium=email

Dearest God, Your teachers down here are hurting right now. We know you know that. We just need to say it. This crisis has us scared – scared for our jobs, scared whether we can teach online, scared in general. We’re not just scared. We’re tired. It just seems as if there is lots of

God: By now it has become pretty clear to me that You want this all to change. I welcome the change away from favoring only the privileged in American education, of dismissing the masses of kids who don’t “measure up” to the few. That’s not who we are. Not here. Not in these United States.

A department chair once gave some grief to a CI teacher bc the CI teacher wasn’t making language learning challenging enough for her students (read: she wasn’t giving enough worksheets). Here is Robert Harrell’s inspiring response to that teacher: I’m sorry to hear you are getting grief from your administrator about rigor. It sounds to

This post should be read by all who think – I’m sorry but in my view incorrectly – that they can blend CI with the textbook: A colleague wrote to the PLC: We have started using the TPRS method this year at school. I am using it for French 1, 2 and 3. I find

Here is a post from 2008: I just need to write this out for  myself, so I can see it in writing and read it before each of my classes. It describes the mental preparation I need to consciously do before each class comes in. Luckily, I don’t feel the need to think about circling,