Krashen’s research on how we acquire languages may not apply to everything we do in our actual classrooms. It may be spot on in the world of ideas, but is it spot on in real classrooms? I don’t think that ten minutes of FVR works in the way most people think. In workshops we are told […]
This is just a repost mainly to help me remember to do this at the end of class each day. I don’t care if it’s output – it’s fun! Paul has a great way of ending his French classes. Each day, he asks in the target language, “Do you have any homework tonite?” while putting his left hand
Drew sent those kick ass transition phrases (we now have them in Spanish from Drew and in German (from Brigitte) and we need them in French and other languages. I made a category for them. John commented: Ben asked me to elaborate on an email I sent him regarding transitional phrases. From my own experience
Ben, I’ve been absent … of late. Hoping to reengage soon. The lyrics to the song, “Soldier Afterall” by John Gorka have been ringing in my ears and in particular the notion of fighting on despite difficulties especially resonates these days. Perhaps others can relate… Take and give care, Grant Maybe I won’t make much
Brigitte very generouslyhas translated and shared with us in German those transitional phrases that Drew posted here a little while ago. I will make a category for them. We need them in French and Latin. (The kids are told that they may use this sheet as a reference for any in-school writing assignments/tests, as long
Although Jody works with elementary kids, I think her approach to early writing, described below in a comment from last November, is a great way to get some writing going on in any classroom. Many of us have not yet this year seriously turned our attention to writing in our level one classes, as it should be, but
Drew’s semester exam assessed all four skills. Below, I have pulled information from discussion with him here a few weeks ago about his use of thesis statements to create meaningful writing. By meaningful I mean writing that is interesting to the kids and is not just another prompt from a teacher. Using a novel over the
Drew sent these transitional phrases. I will tag them under the new Writing category here. If anyone creates a list for other languages, please get it to me and I will put it here with the Spanish list. Drew explains: (Every year in Spanish II, III, and AP we hand this out to the kids. As
In a blog entry last summer I had asked Doug Stone to comment on the idea of change to new ways of teaching, or change in any field. His response is repeated here: Hi Ben, So the idea for the model for resistance to change came from my experience with acculturation which began not long
I am behind on keeping up with all the bios that are still outstanding. I’ll get to it. In the meantime, we have a cool bio to read from Sally, whose background spans the globe! Great job on the Ohio thing by the way, everybody. I will unsticky that post. Hi Ben, This is Sally Brownfield,
Here is an article from Mary Beth about Finnish schools. She said, “I loved the line a few paragraphs in, stating that there’s less homework, they engage the children in creative play, and no standardized tests …hmmm …sounds a little like what we are trying to do our CI-based classrooms!” http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/#.TwIURsoUctY.facebook
I have started to call roll about 2/3 of the way through the class period. It is so fast to do it that way because I know, since I have been teaching to the eyes for a half an hour up to that point, exactly who is absent. I just tell the kids we are going to
