Dear Ben, I have a question that maybe you or some others on the blog might be able to answer. I am required to give 10 daily grades and three test grades per six weeks. We have been in school two weeks, and I’ve given a few end of class quizzes. But, when doing circling […]

So we know from the first blog post in this series on norming the class that the first day Big Circle, indeed the first few days of class, ferretts out friends who try to sit together, and then we, as soon as we see that, act on it. By the way, these logistical things that

Since Bryce is the expert at the upper levels, I am bugging him to get some information to us about teaching CI in those third, fourth year and AP classes. But there is one thing that may work when doing PQA with upper levels. It’s very weird but I think has potential. I just haven’t had

The biggest drawback to being so nice to the kids (we have to in order for comprehensible input to work) is that we are setting ourselves up to be used by kids who lack empathy. This is a serious problem that, to my knowledge, has not yet been addressed in TPRS circles. What happens is

Bryce told me he has been working on the problem of a lack of stuff for upper levels lately. He is one of the few upper level experts we have in TPRS – he has used TPRS to teach levels 3, 4 and AP Spanish – with stellar results. I will ask him to share some of what

A few more questions from Laura. I would ask others to respond as well: Hi Ben, Thank you for answering and posting my questions about participation and circling. I have two more: 1. I re-read a post of yours back from February 22 in which you had changed your rules. In particular: “Use notebooks to

There is a huge yet largely undiscussed problem in the first month of the year with TPRS. It is that we open up our hearts to the kids in the personalization process in the first two weeks of class, since everything we do is to guarantee that they understand us and trust us, and we give them easy quizzes

I felt like reposting this from last year. I think it is important as we begin the year: https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/03/31/then-god-bless-you/

A pack of greyhounds on wheels. That’s what they were today at the US Pro Cycling Challenge, with Cadel Evans, the Schleck brothers, Levi Leipheimer flying past Bryce and me and thousands of other cycling fans at the top of Lookout Mountain. One guy had a bike change right in front of us and when

I got this question from a blog member: I didn’t do Circling with Balls last year because I had NO clue what I was doing when I first started, but it is AWESOME. You get huge student buy-in and connection – the other day I arm-wrestled two jocks (and got my ass handed to me

From Bryce: I am attaching a couple of documents that may be helpful to us as World Language teachers this school year. #1: Standards Poster One is a mini classroom poster of the Colorado Model Content Standards for World Languages to hang up in our classrooms.  It would be unprofessional (not to mention embarrassing) if

Kristy wrote: I had a meeting with my principal yesterday and naturally, she wants my syllabus complete with grading policy and all of that good stuff. Mine is not done yet, Kristy. Anyone else willing to share please send to me at benslavic@yahoo.com and I will put it here if you give permission under either