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

I got this question from a colleague: Hello Ben I recently bought your TPRS in a year and also the DVD’s.  After watching all the DVD’s I am wondering how or if you do (Bell Ringers, Warm ups, Self Starters)? I responded: I don’t have time. For me in my own whacky world, I feel

Scripting a story that is not associated with a particular text: There are a number of instances in which it is not preferable to script a story to prepare students for reading.  If you are expected to reach certain benchmarks or cover certain topics, you can script your stories from those.  Often, the students will

Susan responded to: https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/08/04/the-muddler-hypothesis/comment-page-1/#comment-20554 with the following comment: The key to slow enough is comprehension checks. Not the hold up your fingers which tells the teacher a bit but not much. Instead, do a comprehension check about every 3 questions or so. Comprehension checks take one of these three forms: 1. What did I just

The fact is that the grammar teachers’ claim that their students can acquire a language by focusing on bricks is and has always  been completely false. Nothing can come from studying a language in this way. As language teachers we need to build houses. We don’t have to become architects – no mere human could

A month ago Anne wrote a most poignant description of seeing one of they Hogs recently and how the scene in her school this next year is not what it was over past years with a new administration team. She described how the pressure against her using comprehensible input in her classroom weights very heavily on

Our blog colleague Irene has some important questions about starting the year. The basic thing she wants to know is about the rate of transition/how to transition through the first weeks/months of the year from TPR to PQA via Circling with Balls to Extended PQA where scenes develop from the PQA into, eventually, stories. For those

Kristy has a a question somebody may have an answer for: Hi Ben! I am looking for this document that I thought was on Susie’s website but I can’t find it! It’s basically a template that teachers can fill in to build a TPRS lesson. It has bubbles and lines like: Location #1 _____________ Location