When the bricks are presented from the beginning of the program of study via sound and thus as integrated and contiguous pieces of the overall house, as the learner’s mind points to each brick countless times in countless arrangements of words (we call that reading), then the student enjoys inhaling the language without even being […]

Here is a direct quote from Susan Gross during one of her sessions at NTPRS. You really can’t make it any more simple than this: Grammar clarifies meaning. That is its role in language. Then Susie gave the following example: a dansé = danced So, if you feel yourself wanting to go off into the

These thoughts from John written last September are very important and so I repeat them here: Hey Ben, Well I have only seen my students twice, so I have nothing to say about what I am doing with them in the classroom just yet.  I wanted to share how un-stressed I am this year, for

Choosing Structures B: THINK, FEEL, SAY, DO Another thought: In a story characters will THINK, FEEL, SAY AND DO things. The first structure is something that Earl SAYS, “I need to tell you something.” The beauty of it is that it immediately implies a feeling. Earl NEEDS to. AND a future action: TELL. This is

Four comments since May were routed into the “pending” file of the site, which I rarely check. There is no vetting of comments here, it is all instant conversation. So, if you add a comment to a post and it doesn’t come up there right away, please send it to me via email and I will get it

By the time each batch of bricks is labeled and “understood” by the class (as evidenced by the bogus test), as in the case of the relative pronouns brick which takes over a week or ten days to look at, and the students are vastly confused and bored because they still don’t see what the house

A colleague in TPRS advocates this kind of assessment work in Spanish 1: Translate into English the following words: 1. le gustaba jugar golf 2. jugar 3. necesitaba dinero 4. se llamaban 5. andaba en la calle 6. había 7. tampoco 8. ahora 9. queríamos comer 10. vio I don’t think that that is a good

Laurie over on her blog has really put the discussion about scripting stories into a very fine and clear perspective. I duplicate those as three blog posts here with her permission. I will then post two texts written by Anne Matava on scripting stories, to give perspective and fullness to the discussion. Here is the

“You muddled it!” is not a term that I would want applied to me. And yet, I just had the opportunity to read a landmark new study on the importance of SLOW in teaching using comprehensible input, and how “You muddled it!” is indeed a term that may apply to me as a teacher. In a word, this

This is taken from comments made on the blog post “Go Willingly”. I wanted to create a category – called “Humor” – for it so that I could remember that I don’t have to be a clown in my classroom: The smallest things, looking at a coffee, can be hilariously funny. We miss that in

As Krashen says in Foreign Language Education – The Easy Way: …the system of grammar, vocabulary, etc. that needs to be acquired is too complex to be learned consciously….(p. 7). In other words, there are too many combinations of bricks for the mind to build the house of acquisition by using the medium of analysis

I got this from Bryce: Ben, This is a page from my upcoming book “Stuff for Spanish Class”, part of the “For Spanish Class” series. PLACING STUDENTS IN LANGUAGE CLASSES “Students will learn more Spanish if they keep on taking Spanish classes.” All Students Can Take Upper Level Classes (Levels III, IV and AP): All