MB wants some advice from the group. She’s going to get a ton of answers from us and we are all going to say exactly the same thing, because there is only one thing to say in this situation: Hi Ben – I had a student ask me for a reference/recommendation.  She failed my second […]

I had an interesting conversation over the weekend. On Saturday I attended the memorial service for the mother of some friends. During the reception I spoke with a Spanish teacher who just retired at the end of last year. He told me that his school has gone to TPRS, and with the way it was

Leigh Anne reports from California: Wow, what a difference the new jGR and jobs has made for me and my students this year!  Final exam time and I had 150 French I students applying themselves like I have never seen in my classroom in my life!  Thanks again Ben. If I could paint a picture

Cheryl reports from Connecticut: I had a great experience Friday at a World Language meeting!  I have been working with the same group of teachers for quite a while, and while I am the only CI practitioner, several come down on the communication side of what I think of as the “old way”.  At this

Doug Stone sent this for us: http://www.wimp.com/homeroomteacher/

I had an insight about Point and Pause while reading Charlotte’s description of how to do the Wall Zoo. She wrote that she would use the kids’ personalized animals on the wall to ask questions like this: ..does the polar bear live in Alaska or in Afrika? Does the shark eat the penguin? Does the giraffe live

Just some more ramblngs on what I learned from Carol this week about RT: Our biggest observation of the year in my district is always unannounced. So mine was today (Friday). I had just enough time to throw my bike into a closet and do the Superman clothes change thing and start class, of course

James Hosler has a question for our core group of Latinists: I feel I’m getting a hang on the ideas, if not the practice yet, of jGR, PQA, CWB, R&D and all the day-to-day stuff. The one thing I am looking nervously at is SSR. Texts just don’t exist in Latin. Especially not for level 1

Either we apply Krashen’s work or we don’t. Either we think that the unconscious natural process of just being exposed to the language is enough or we don’t. The desire for order in the form of lesson plans, all those meetings, all those implied threats that we won’t be approved of if we don’t do

This is a repost that I include here because it fits in with current threads: We have to turn in lesson plans. Many teachers in our building don’t. So we get notes from our administration teams like this one that say: …your weekly lesson briefs are very important to your continued planning for next year, to build

I was observed recently by the teacher who taught my current 3/4 class. I got this nice email from her after the visit: Ben, It was a great pleasure to see your class today.  I just want to congratulate you on taking the students to that level. You don’t have the vision I have, seeing

There is a book by Alfie Kohn: The Homework Myth. Some takeaways (in italics) from Robert Harrell: 1. No homework should be the default setting.2. Whenever homework is given, it needs to be justified, i.e. it accomplishes something that cannot be done in class.3. “Homework” should be things that students are able to do on their own and