Diane reports: Hi Ben – I am sending you the copy, without names, of an email I wrote for a parent who complained about jGR – to my supervisors, not to me – recently. (My administrators are great! They are supportive of me.) I share it in case others would be helped by it. Feel […]

Today I was informed by two kids on separate occasions that they now listen to French music. They are level 2 kids. My day is made. I think that the reason they are doing that on their own is that they understand. Makes sense – people would tend to listen to music that they can understand.

Mary Beth asked about lodging in San Diego. Here is Diana’s response: …stay in La Quinta or the Holiday Inn because then you won’t necessarily need a car. The Town and Country is more like a resort but staying there means you’ll need a car…

I have been wanting to test some of the Vol. 2 scripts by Anne and haven’t had time with all the reading and writing focus in my classes lately. I know everyone is busy, but if anyone can test any of these five scripts for me and report back for anyone in the group who is

This is from David Maust. Anyone looking for ways to fill up a block, take note: Hi Ben, I had a lot of fun with this “bottom-up” embedded reading activity today. Wanted to share: Today I tried an alternative to the regular “PQA-Ask the Story” routine. Instead I used Laurie Clarq and Michele Whaley’s “Bottom-Up

Diane N. in Chicago shows us another way to “se tirer d’affaire”, as the French say, to get out of a difficult situation in class so that no one notices, which we here in our group call going to a “bail out move”: I needed to bail out on PQA with a class today –

Susan Gross came to Japan a few years ago and we thought an infrastructure would develop around that visit. Now what is happening in Japan? Anyone in Japan reading this please respond by putting your information in a comment field below so we can make some kind of attempt at communication and training there. Pls. respond

Those here who have followed the Colorado Leap Evaluation thread in DPS over the past few years know that it is a complex teacher evaluation system – very complex – that pretty much determines if a teacher gets to keep their jobs. Failure is not an option. This initiative is in many states now. I

Hey Ben, I wonder if you would let me ask the PLC their opinions of the National Board Certification process?  I am considering doing it and wonder if it is really worth all the effort, stress and hassle that it required.  This is a link for the standards that are addressed.  Here is the link

I have mentioned this before but just to repeat – we should never, ever, feel scared when doing CI and we always have dictée to bail to, at any time during any class on any day, along with the other bail out moves. This is especially true for new teachers who don’t have their sea

A totally cool thing happened in class with names today. A new student from Congo has this name in Congo: Tag (given to him in Paris) Rolde (first first name) Gloire (second first name) Gabell (first last name) Deconoix (second last name). Well, did we have a time with that. In English. When we get

We must repair our voices. What does that mean? It means that we must speak from a place of joy in our classes. How, when there is such negativity everywhere? The method has joy within it. Words are connected to something much deeper than just the communication of ideas. This is supported by Krashen’s statement