Obviously when we do dictée we tell the kids the words for comma, period, question mark, quotes, etc., but I have started doing a cool thing that helps the kids become more aware of those pesky accent marks in French. If a sentence is: Sa mère crie… it often happens that the student “kind of knows” that […]

Smooth transitions are a key piece to successful classroom management. Most of us do not start out using TPRS in the classroom for an entire class period. Even when we get to that point on some days, we rarely do just one CI-based activity (ie PQA or storyasking) for an entire class period..especially if our

This is a lengthy post that is intended simply to gather together in one place some of the ideas/comments on what Ben Lev started, and hasn’t stopped (see in red below), in drawing the attention of his principal to how the new CA standards might really be interpreted by teachers if they were to stop and think about

Rules and Expectations Part 1b During the Lesson Here are some interactions that you will see being used in TPRS. I’ll list them in “script” format..the way that we might say them to students. For students who are NEW TO THE TL and/or NEW TO TPRS, the first explanations will probably be in L1. ONLY

Laurie has just posted a very important series of articles on her website (find the link in the lower right hand corner of this page). I will repeat each article here over the next few days, pushing other discussions aside just a bit. This stuff needs to be anywhere on the internet where comprehension based instruction and

I got this email from John. I read it on a gut level. What he did was what students of language who feel the same way should also do. No exceptions. This is very strong! Ben, I just wanted to share an anecdote about an experience I had playing music which relates to our work: Last year

Got this from Skip: Hey Ben, Do you know or could you ask if anyone on the blog is planning to watch the ACTFL webinar on how to meet the 90% goal? I would love to hear what they are going to teach…. to see how well it lines up with TCI…. Skip Well at

John sent this and basically cleverly answered his own question: Ben, I have a question for you and the blog members regarding the challenges facing teachers of obscure languages in establishing FVR libraries. For first year Latin students, comprehensible and compelling readings simply do not exist. I want to be one to change this, but

Chill sent me these three structures from Susie: went ate was furious In chill’s class a kid went to France where he ate something disgusting – some heart of pig – and was furious about it. That’s some mean ass structures there. There would be no need whatsover for a story script to guide you

In my own view, Reader’s Theatre should not be done in a reading class based on a story. That is a different thing. RT should only be done when we read novels. It is something we do to embellish the novel reading process, which risks being too boring without some RT thrown in from time

I don’t know how I missed this comment by Judy but it really fits in with the recent discussion about reading: Ben, for many years I used films as a way of making my classes more interesting for my students. Not just sitting and watching, but studying them scene by scene. Since I discovered TPRS,

For us, it’s not about teaching the kids the language as much as providing them with a good experience. When they enjoy the class, when it seems effortless to them, because we work so hard at making our instruction comprehensible, the kids want to go on to higher and higher levels. We make it so that