Great post and video on Quick Quizzes from John: Ben, I have just posted a short video in which I describe how I write, administer and grade a quick quiz. I have figured out a way to grade each one in about 5 seconds, for those who don’t have access to Scantron. You can also […]
Margie just joined our group and we thank her for her bio: Hi! My name is Margie Snyder and I teach Spanish at a middle school in West Virginia. I taught middle school science for 8 years before taking 5 years off when my youngest daughter was born. When I returned to teaching, I was
We welcome Sharon to our group: My name is Sharon Reiter and I signed onto this community this August (2012). I am just returning to the classroom after six years of retirement. I teach Spanish 1 and 2 to high school juniors and seniors in rural West Tennessee. I was born in Oakland, California, and
Here is Laura’s bio: I teach at a 600+ student high school in Belfast, Maine. It’s been a long journey getting here from Córdoba, Argentina, where I was born and raised. This is my seventh year teaching Spanish and sixth with TPRS. I came into teaching quite late and accidentally, when the high school in
Henry sends his bio from Japan and thank you Henry: I started out as a picture framer. Did my degree in literature and linguistics part time while working (due to being fed up with all these artist types I met who thought that they had something I didn’t). Then, at the tail end of a
Many new teachers walk into a buzz saw when they faithfully stay in bounds like for twenty minutes during the CI, and then in one moment of folly, something comes up in the story like when mom says, “You can’t be a gorilla (in bounds) because we don’t have a gorilla suit! (out of bounds)”
This is a compilation of three emails that I got from Diane. If you are a middle school teacher trying to implement comprehension based instruction in your classroom, it is worth the long read: Email #1: Hi Ben, Can you post something about my situation on the blog? I really feel a need for wisdom and
Our work includes something we rarely think about. By offering a better, more interesting product and by aligning with standards in a way that people who use L1 to teach L2 never can, we are debunking a myth that has been accepted as a truth for a very long time. That is huge work. In
One thing we can do with boring kids – and this is most effective – is to always bring a lame kid into the PQA without his permission. This is a major tool in PQA. I have developed a habit over the years. It is kind of bad ass. I sense, as I am explaining
I noticed a lot of things today about teaching using comprehensible input: I noticed again today (Monday is PQA day for me) how getting enough reps is just such a challenge, especially if I go slowly enough for the kids to understand, especially with the rather challenging structures we are doing in Jim Tripp’s Halloween
I’m calling the fall of 2013 the Time of the Finding of the Missing Pieces. It started out with my realizing how important it is to get single choral responses from the entire class to each question I ask. I learned that from Von this past summer in Las Vegas. Then jGR rolled in like
