I got this from Kate just now: Hey Ben, Happy Friday to you! I just had to share this home run moment that I had today. It’s so great to have an outlet to share them with! I walked into my 3rd grade class today intent on spinning another story using the structures “she goes” […]

Another Matava French reading for fifth graders from Allison: La vache Qui Veut Être une Poule Dans une maison il y a un mouton, trois canards et une vache. Les animaux habitent dans la maison. Le mouton est grand, calme et noir. Les canards sont gris et blancs. La vache est marron. Un jour (un

This one is from Allison and thank you Allison: Here’s a script based on Matava’s “The Thirsty Boy.”  My fifth and sixth graders like stories with animals, and I like to bring in restaurant vocab now and then.  We have had other stories in Flufflandia, so it’s a place the kids know.  And I had to

The reading categories are in four languages – we just started this here about two months ago – and the purpose was to have an “instant cut and paste” option for our own readings based on Matava/Tripp stories. Not many people have sent in readings. But that can be a work in progress. I really like

 “…it made me feel like the language wasn’t just a class. I was adding more to my character.” A barometer student wrote this last June in the end-of-year reflection. It pretty much made my year.  No, it pretty much made my career!!! After 20+ years of teaching, last spring when I jumped into TCI in

I had never thought of actually giving specific instructions to the Quiz Writer during stories but this morning I got this excellent little set of instructions from Ben Lev (CA) which do exactly that. Thanks Ben. These are going to be useful to a lot of folks. Querido/a Quiz Writer, ¡Gracias por escribir el examen

A repost from 2011: I got the email below from Brian. In it, he talks about the term “flying” that we have been using here lately. It made me think of some old emails from Krashen describing a very similar term to flying – “transparency”. I don’t know if there are similarities between the two

I need a reminder that I am there to teach the structures, not the story. Sometimes we get to focusing on (more like bowing down at the alter of) the story and those myriad details that we need to do. It becomes overwhelming. We do that because we want the story to work. I was doing that

This goes under the simplicity banner. Today I: – sent by boss my lesson plans. It took three minutes because they are the same every week. – called Matava for a story because I do that whenever I will be observed that week. – graded some scantron T/F tests from last week and put them

Hi Ben, This is La from Madison, Wisconsin. Sorry for the procrastination on this and not sending you my bio sooner… Here’s a bit about myself… I am not a “4%,” in fact I was a brat, one of those students that teachers don’t want to see in their classes.  Well, long story short, I

Jody wrote in 2009: I also teach songs. Duh– (especially with my little ones), but NOT because I actually believe it increases language acquisition very much. That is pretty easy to prove. Stuff from songs very rarely shows up in spontaneous speech–my litmus test. Why do I teach songs (and I do in all of

This is beautiful, from Laurie’s blog today: blog.heartsforteaching.com/2011/11/27/a-powerful-example-of-acquisition.aspx