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

We dance with the speed of the story. If we go too fast, we encounter bored kids, which is code for kids who don’t understand. So, going too fast is a serious error. If we go too slowly, nothing bad happens. The kids appreciate it, even if is seems way too slow for us. (It should

Liam wrote the text below in a comment here yesterday. We can use what he wrote in the spoken output game in our own classrooms. Now, we all know and have stated many times here that forcing early speech in students is not good. I liken it to taking a car as it sits in the very first

Somebody commented on how hard it is to talk about what we do with others, how they get tongue tied and sound stupid when discussing comprehensible input with certain colleagues. I wish I could find that quote. It was two days ago I think. If you know it please point it out to me. This

Tamula’s Bio: My name is Tamula Drumm and I am a high school Chinese teacher. This is my 5th year teaching Chinese and my 3rd year teaching at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio. Last spring, I saw a notice about the upcoming iFLT conference and decided I should go because I needed

Jen anticipates her first days back with the kids after the hurricane: Ben, I used Matava’s “The Thirsty Boy” as a basis for my own story “The Cold Boy” that others might want to use and/or help me to tweak a bit. It uses “need/want/have/goes”. I PQA’d the structures today (it is our first day back since the

Charlotte (in Canada) has a question for us: Hi Ben, I have an interesting dilemma that I could use some suggestions for.  An elderly, wealthy benefactor is contemplating giving my German department some funds, but he wants to know how I would spend the money.  My answer might make him decide to proceed or withdraw

Thanks to John for sending us this article: In a NYT article on the impact of technology on student attention spans, we see another example of a “dedicated” teacher taking it all on: “’I’m an entertainer. I have to do a song and dance to capture their attention,’ said Hope Molina-Porter, 37, an English teacher

I saw this on moretprs. A cambridge study saying that language learning is unconscious: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/unconscious-language-learning/ In other news, I went to a workshop today with Teri Wiechart.  It was a session for teachers who are already using TPRS and it was, what she called, a “teacher talk” session where she answered questions about our problem

Vote for one of these: Choice A: Teaching is all about hard work, especially in assessment. We must give as many formative assessments as possible so that our students do well on the summative tests. We must take frequent writing samples. If we are unable to give a quiz in one class, but have done it in

We know that the main reason kids don’t get involved is because they don’t understand, which is because we are going too fast. We know that. But perhaps another reason that TPRS stymies teachers is that the method requires that we listen to our intuition, which is not exactly a major sport in schools. For