When people think of language classes, consciously or unconsciously, they think of the textbook, the conjugations, the rules of agreement about parts of speech that the kids grasp but vaguely. They remember that some kids weren’t interested in all that, and they draw the conclusion that kids don’t want to learn. This is simply not […]

Greg is getting ready to hit his kids, and I mean like in splat, with their first jGR grades. They are earned each day this week as we speak. On Friday the kids will see a dispassionate, factual assessment of their observable non-verbal behaviors in Greg’s classroom. It will be a big moment for them

This picks up on the Jeff thread. It is from John talking to James. I am in hearty accordance with him about the reading suggestion, and not just because I believe in the raw unbridled power of reading to bring unexpected huge language gains, but also bc just about everyone is crawling to spring break

I have mentioned Tric a Quiz here and I know it’s confusing. I can’t even find where it’s written about – in some comment somewhere. Basically it’s when we start a quiz and question 1 is “Yes or no, the boy is unhappy”. Say the answer is yes. Normally on the regular old Quick Quiz the

The influence of Miriam Met and Helena Curtain and people like that can still be seen in this point from John: Hi Ben, On page 10 of this month’s issue, there is an article “Five Common Mistakes Language Learners Make.” This is a condensed version of an article by a EFL instructor Ann Merritt in

We encourage kids to speak when they want. We don’t force them to do so. That means that in a story, during the story or at the end, we can ask a kid to recycle the information up to a certain point in the story (recycling) or retell the entire story at the end. If

The culture of relying on books and computer programs to teach a foreign language, which is a crazy thing indeed if you truly get what CI really is, cannot possibly succeed. It involves such a shallow and wide instructional dynamic. Too few repetitions on too many words are involved in that kind of instruction. When we work with

I just wanted to share what I did one day last week. I put up an image of a city by a river (projected through the LCD from boston.com the big picture) and talked about it with my level 2 classes. It felt really good to reinforce words that I thought they knew from level

Dear Ben, My name is Hayne Painter and I’m a Spanish Teacher at Pinewood Preparatory School in Summerville, SC.  I wanted to thank you for being a guide and mentor to me as I discover TPRS.  My story is somewhat similar to others.  I have been teaching for 13 years.  I have always been looking

So I teach preschool through Spanish 3 at a small Christian charter school.  This is my first year using TPRS and this is my 3rd year teaching.  I have the elementary and middle school only once a week.  My problem has been the Jr. high and mostly the 7th grade.  I have certain students in

David (Talone) responded to Jeff: Jeff, Sorry to jump in late, but I wanted to express my support and understanding as well.  Last week was a HUGE struggle for me and I was heavily chastised by my administration as well.  It is really tough to stand tall and strong when you are getting slammed from

Jeff responded to John: John, Thanks for your kind words.  I agree with what you are saying.  I also know that I need to fly under the radar now, more than ever.  However, I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know how to pull back and lower my stress.  I know that reading days