This tech idea, an excellent one, is from our new PLC member Scott Grapin: Hi Ben, My name is Scott Grapin, and I am a TPRS/CI high school Spanish teacher in NJ.  In fact, I share a classroom with Liam O’Neill (Chinese), who I know you met in Las Vegas this past summer.  He encouraged […]

Judy sent me this in an email about Jeff’s questions (see jGR and Parents 1) and I am posting her entire response here because it doesn’t format well as a comment. It’s just a continuation of that discussion. We can’t talk about this enough. Judy’s responses to the parent’s comments are in bold and in italics: First

Jeff is getting hammered right now by two parents. He’s asking for our help. I consider this something of a serious situation, bc if it were us, we’d really need the group’s help to see the best way out. My own opinion is that Jeff needs some direct positive administrator support, that these parents are

We will need some variety as we get into the next few months and on into the rest of the year. Of course, we already have and use: dictée CWB OWI WCTA free writes etc. However, we should not forget that some of the things in that list, which are normally associated with beginning the year PQA

Yesterday Anne wrote this as a comment: I think that simple is best.  If they are first-year students I would pare it down. With that said, I really don’t know how anybody uses my scripts.  I can’t even use them, now that I teach a language that is different from the one I wrote them

I suggested a few days ago in a comment that we make story scripts simpler. I keep thinking about that. What if we did one such simpler story a day? Impossible? Not really. How then? 1. Do the PQA in a few minutes. Blaine did it and it still works for him. Ten minutes of PQA. 2.

Leigh Anne Munoz in CA sent me an email and I asked her if I could share it with the group and she said yes. Here it is: I just have to share. This past spring, 2012, I had a bunch of students pass the French AP last year after only 3 years with me. 

Darren wrote this today to add to the articles in our jGR category: Ben, I think sometimes we get caught up in the being an entertainer stuff when really if we just be ourselves it will emerge or it won’t emerge. But if we stick to the jgr then it doesn’t matter if it is

I hesitate to write an article about the election but it seems glaringly absent from the PLC today, the day after Obama’s re-election. Is it true that we are we so afraid of offending each other that we balk at any kind of discussion of the incredible event that happened yesterday? Is fear of offending

We must be very careful in how we use jGR. I had that awareness in class the other day and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was internally pissed at about five kids because they weren’t with me. Then I slowed down like from 45 mph down to 10 mph, and they

Jim sent this. Even though the election is over, I’ll put in the “Readings Based on Matava/Tripp Scripts – Spanish” category for use next year.  Maybe Jim will have another book out by then and we can get the script as well as the story below. Jenna va al aeropuerto de Decorah. Es un aeropuerto

Dr. Krashen has set before us an enormous challenge by his suggestion that we learn languages unconsciously. That is because learning in schools is typically about conscious, analytical, left brain deciphering of subject matter. Thus, in languages, we have created books to help us present the language, but that very fact takes us, if Krashen