These from Julie Baird via Robert: Hi Ben, Here are the Levels of Acquisition from Julie Baird. LEVELS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 10 = can easily retell the story in German from a different perspective or tense 9 = can retell the story with ease adding relevant details that were not presented in class 8 = […]

(A video link to a class by Michele is below in one of the comments…) Bryce your comment needs to be a blog post here because you have used a word to describe a quality that we totally must have in comprehensible input. It is a great word that I want to celebrate. It describes exactly

Hi Ben, You could call this one “stop teaching the rules, and start teaching language,” because this is the attitude I am getting from my 4%ers who are getting bored, disrupting class, and then getting very low grades because of it. I am seeing what you have already said about how toxic the 4%ers with

Let’s remember that, for the purposes of getting to know each other and to know with whom we are talking, we were going to send in bios to share with the group. But then summer was over and we got all busy. The category for those who have already submitted bios is the “Group Members” category. So

I read this in the school news: A sophomore this year, Sandy Romero has improved her time by 9 minutes in the 5K from last year. Sandy worked very hard this summer and didn’t miss a single cross country training session all summer. I would be a fool to not do a story about this

We need to have some examples of releases to videotape. I’ve got one somewhere but I can’t find it. I’ll look for it. Send ’em in. There are at least ten teachers, members of this blog community, who are needing to come up with a form before they can start taping. However, it is important to note

I got this from Skip today. It’s a good question and I’ll bet he’s not the only one thinking about this: Hi Ben, I have been really focusing on SLOW this year. I have REALLY gone slow with my Spanish 1 classes. I have intentionally done all of the things that Linda Li and Bryce

Tell me what you think, if this helps or not. I voiced over the first video I put up last week, just to see if it can help in this process. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fX_mP_L7rc

I got this question from a colleague: With new standards being put out, anti-teacher legislation being proposed in so many states, more and more “accountability” being demanded, it seems as if the teaching profession is being thrust further into the traditional, Stone Age way of teaching. So my question is, “Will we, and by WE

One simple idea for parents night is to demo a Three Ring Circus, because you only have usually ten minutes to reach your audience so a story or even PQA is out of the question. I got this from a colleague who feels that Three Rings works with parents: Last night was middle school curriculum night.

I got this today: I am in the process of working to get my teacher certification. In my state you can submit an extensive portfolio of work to a “peer review” panel and get you can get certified that way. It is a huge amount of work to put together and I am up to

This is a more general response to what David wrote, some thoughts about the change we are in: I deeply feel that we in teaching are in the midst of a profound shift in education from the mind (the science of teaching) to the heart (the art of teaching). We are learning, and quickly now,