David’s brilliant idea also made me want to share what Anne wrote in the appendix to her story script books – a step by step way of scripting our own stories. Anne has always felt that we all should be able to write our own scripts because we are the only ones who know our […]

Melissa sends great news: Just thought I’d share my success. I had a breakthrough day today circling. I was circling likes and focused on food. It was awesome. We ended up in one class with Diego likes to eat oreos everyday in the bathroom because they give him power. It was awesome. It took the

We welcome Erin to the discussion and thank you for the bio, Erin: Ben, I joined your group a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to introduce myself and let you know what a fantastic resource it has been. I am currently in my fourth year of teaching middle and high school Spanish in a

Diane Neubauer wrote this here yesterday: I just attended a one-day conference with Helena Curtain as the speaker. She talked about the 90%+ guideline, why, and how to get through challenges to using the target language that much. She used the term comprehensible input and made strong compliments to what she called “old” TPRS, with

Highly recommended: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/watch-teacher-infiltrates-alec-education-meeting-confronts-members

I have made some changes to what I want jGR to be for me. If you don’t like the changes, just use the November version. This is the December version. The sentences I changed are in blue. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS RUBRIC (used in daily assessment: 30% of grade) 5 ALL SKILLS IN 4, PLUS NON-FORCED EMERGING

I hosted a DPS Learning Lab today and made a handout for the teachers to refer to during the observation. Here it is below in case anyone is interested. It’s basically the stuff I want to get done and not forget to do. In the class I tried to cram in all three steps in

This is from skip, who welcomes feedback: In an attempt to further the “how do humans acquire second languages” discussion I would like to make the following statements: 1. Oral proficiency is produced by repetitive comprehensible input – by understanding messages. 2. Writers are produced by receiving comprehensible input vía reading… Research has shown that

A question from Melissa: Hi Ben, My principal just sent out an email asking for samples of our “study guides” for assessments when an individualized education plan or 504 plan requires it for the students. How do you handle this when you want to give a quiz on the fly? If a study guide is

A question from Jen for the group. It’s about the parent re-education thing: Ben, This email, unlike my others, will be short. I’m just so damn tired. I had to make a call to a parent who mentioned he’s on the BOE because he contacted a guidance counselor to discuss his daughter’s grades. My class

This is the position of ACTFL on learning classical languages (ACTFL Position Statement of 7/30/12): …communication for a classical language refers to an emphasis on reading ability….   Here is the link: http://www.actfl.org/news/position-statements/use-the-target-language-the-classroom John Piazza, a teacher of Latin in San Francisco, responded to it with this: …as for the exemption, it’s the same as