Here is Laura’s second discussion point for us: Laura: Circling at the more advanced levels: this is very confusing to me. Last year I scaled down circling structures with Sp.IV seniors. I thought they didn’t need it as much, it was also much, much harder to do. I was SO, SO wrong. By April, a […]

The following two questions come from Laura in the form of two blog posts. They are lengthy discussions, so be forewarned on that. I am just putting our email discussion into two big blog posts for the group. There are no great answers here – it’s just a discussion we had. Laura’s questions address participation and

John sent this today: Ben, The recent article in the Atlantic Monthly on the middle class in America really made me think about some of the issues we have been discussing on the blog recently. Here is a paragraph in particular: “Among the more pernicious aspects of the meritocracy as we now understand it in

We get four kinds of responses in hand comprehension checks: 1. Many tell the truth that they get it. 2. A few tell the truth that they don’t get it. (thank goodness for them) 3. Many lie that they get it. 4. One or two refuse to listen because they want to conjugate verbs. They

The Case for Non-Targeted Comprehensible Input: The Net Hypothesis Stephen Krashen In nearly all foreign and second language classes, there is a “rule of the day” as well as vocabulary that students are expected to focus on, often referred to as “target” grammar and vocabulary. In traditional pedagogy, exercises are aimed at the conscious learning

Carla wrote: I was telling Carol that standardization is coming to my school district in the worst way. They want everyone teaching the same thing on the same day. So much for teachable moments. It isn’t expected to fully take over world languages until next year, but my principal said if that changed he would

In storytelling, many of us create stories with our students in the past tense. Then, we read generic (for all five classes) or specific (per each individual class) readings of those stories in the present tense the next day. Identification of present tense forms in reading is easily done when the story has been told in the

Dr. Krashen just wrote an article – in draft form – after St. Louis and sent it around. I will publish it here with his permission but first it might help to read the text of his new – but I think still being developed – Compelling Input Hypothesis for a little background before reading the actual

Point to the design of the building when reading. Don’t stop and dwell on single bricks but point on and then on again to the next sentence, and then do that again with the sentence after that and keep on going. Turn it all into a film in their minds, so they can’t possibly focus on

I got this from John today: Ben, My Latin Best Practices list is currently being flooded with discussions of strategies for effective group work–it’s as if many of them have just discovered this phenomenon of “student centered collaborative learning” that you hear a lot of in credential programs–which generally don’t distinguish language techniques from those

So let the kids read, which teaches real grammar. Let them hear the language – it accomplishes the same thing. Make sure that they understand it – that is your job. Don’t mention the names of the bricks of the family of bricks (stop dividing language into pieces of things) and allow the deeper minds

Michele we both know how Susie comes up with just the right advice at the right time. I call those insights – like the one about the comprehension checks she put here yesterday – Susie’s “gems”. After one of her workshops in Jefferson County (back in 2008), I wrote a series of blog entries describing what gems