We need to learn to teach our students with love.  We also need to assess them in terms that convey approval and love. In the past, we assigned value to them for how many words/verbs they “knew”. The kids who “knew” more were sent the message that they were somehow better and more deserving of […]

If you have done any work with communicative language instruction before, you probably have heard the term “Circling”. Here are my thoughts on it: Circling doesn’t work very well. It’s an old technique that has lost its shine. If you feel that your recent communicative teaching has been boring, look to Circling as a possible

It really is time to destroy the myth that problems and solutions in stories are difficult. This myth exists because in the past, when teachers have tried to use stories to teach certain vocabulary from lists, the stories lost their marrow and became like dry bone. This was due to the constraints on interest that

Many teachers – and it is very difficult emotionally to even say this – teach in a way that makes certain kids think that the teacher doesn’t like them. Who does that? It’s those kids at the bottom of the pecking order in every class. But the teacher doesn’t see that in the kid. They

The intended use of CI in the minds of Stephen Krashen and the other great researchers as potentially harboring the foundation of many successes in language classrooms is now different. Thirty years later, CI appears in my own mind in the form of a beat-up old trailer being dragged along by the textbook industry, filled

A colleague described the current state of CI, as well, in this way: As far as I can tell, this is the business model of all the people capitalizing on the CI movement: To access a blog or post on a blog they ask you to become a member by providing an email that goes

This passage is from the new Square™ book: After having told the class what the four new words mean, you then have an option to drive the words deeper into the neurological system of the brain. You do that by asking them to “taste” the word. What does this mean? It means to generate greater

A colleague has described the current state of CI in this way: …as far as I can tell, this is the business model of all the people capitalizing on the CI movement: 1. To access a blog or post on a blog they ask you to become a member by providing an email that goes

I will be doing a training tomorrow (Sat.) at noon Mountain Time. All patrons are welcome.  It will be on Corner 1 of the new Square book, which is the new middle school book I just finished to complement the two Star books, but for middle school kids. The Square is for kids 10-13 and

Got a question about how the Star and Square differ.  The Square is for kids 10 to 13 or so. The Star is more complex and geared more for kids 14-18.  If you want to get on the list to receive Square videos, email me at benslavic@yahoo.com and I will put on on that list

It’s not the amount of words we teach them – far from it. It’s about allowing our students’ deeper minds to grasp the structure of the language, which is its real grammar, by hearing it spoken correctly over and over. Less is more in this work. It’s also about establishing patterns of language in our