We must remember that many language teachers went into teaching because they were really good at languages in school, and people choose careers in things they are good at. This explains the slowness of the change away from grammar. If a child grew up being able to mechanically manipulate grammar in the same way that one […]

So I’ve been working lately with a really good text written by a kid for a writing sample (data gathering) in preparation for the DPS exit post assessment in April. I have found some  productive things to do with this text beyond merely sharing it with the class before scoring it for the grade (DPS rubric

Kristin has a very important question about Project Based Learning that may affect her job. We need to make sure she knows exactly what to do in the situation she presents below: Hi Ben, I wonder if you could answer this question for me or post it on the blog. The head of my language

Skip asked for clarification on the Class Competitions process. Here is my response. I’ll ask James to make a flow chart out of it. Please offer any edit suggestions before he does the flow chart: Click on the CC – Class Competitions category. Select any of the entries. Go to the comment fields. Identify whom

Nathan Beck in St. Louis has a request of the group: Dear Ben, Hello! My name is Nathan Beck and I’ve been following your TPRS PLC for about a year, reading as much as I can (there’s so much!). I’ve been using TPRS with my Spanish I and having great success and I truly believe

Here are some excellent questions from Greg and my responses to him. He’s diving in off the high dive Monday! And it’s winter! When he succeeds, it will be the shortest amount of time – less than one week – that anyone has heard about the method and succeeded at doing it in their classroom. Others

James Hosler asked me this: Have you thought about how well your recent initiative of Class Competitions lines up with that fifth and most awkward of ACTFL’s Five Cs, Communities? I asked him: No. where you going with that? Communities of kids contacting each other in other states? He answered: Well just the dynamic of

Grant wrote: I would be interested in collecting data in a document that shows increased retention over time, increased enrollment of boys or students of color in upper levels, increased performance on AP or IB tests over time, etc. with you, the person submitting the data, holding on to the cold hard numbers. I am

There are three new hard links across the top of this page. They are my attempt to consolidate some of the major blue chip breakthrough ideas we have come up with over the years in one place. Otherwise they will scroll out and be lost. The rubrics and templates are to capture in flow chart or rubric

Robert has some ideas that might be shared with students when starting out using comprehension based instruction with them, either at the beginning of the year or if a switch is being made in mid-year. I support this advice. I believe in transparency. I probably talk about the method with my classes to a fault,

I have thought about it a lot, and I can honestly state that I mean no insult in my analysis of why traditional teachers stuck in the book and computer programs aren’t showing a lot of desire to change in spite of the 90% position statement and Three Modes of Communication of ACTFL. Those people, our

Here is Bob’s response to the previous post about what CI really is, and I see there have been a few other responses to this thread. I am putting Bob’s comments here because of some odd glitch in the comment software that prevents him from posting. If that ever happens to you, send the comment to me and